I am really excited about the improvements people have been making on rocket stove ovens and thermal mass rocket stove heaters. All you need do is go to YouTube and do a search for rocket stoves and you will quickly see dozens of really great videos. With winter approaching, keeping warm and cooking efficiently is foremost on my mind.
This one is one of my favorites, I want to make a rocket stove oven like this
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Former Rep. Roscoe Bartlett lives tucked away on an off-the-grid swath of West Virginia woodland that serves as an implicit indictment of the inside-the-Beltway life he and so many others have led — a life reliant on the federal government.
At first glance, Bartlett is following a conventional post-politics path. After the 10-term congressman lost his bid for re-election in 2012, he began consulting for the defense industry, advising firms on how to pitch federal agencies, a part-time job that brings him to Washington occasionally.
What are you good at? What do you know how to do? One thing I have found to be invaluable to being more independent and self sufficient is knowing how to do things.
I’m talking about being a jack of all trades, someone who can do most anything, and the things you don’t know how to do, you should be able to figure it out enough to get by, or at the very least, have enough other skills to trade/barter with someone else who can do that one thing you can’t.…
I ran across a book and an article all about making your own root cellar, this being the end of the summer, beginning of fall, having a cheap and easy to put together root cellar is the thing to have, both for budding homesteaders to seasoned off-gridders.…
AKA, doing what you love and getting paid for it!
Have to be careful here, it’s starting to sound like one of those infomercials :)
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
I have had people ask me how I earn a living, since everything we have here is paid for, it makes it very easy to live on very little. Saving money is as good as making it, bartering is gold! Voluntarily living on less, doesn’t make me feel like I’ve given anything up, in fact I feel like the richest person I know :) My main “job” is being a caretaker for my friend, I get paid to do a little cleaning, some cooking, some shopping and walking the roads with her, the hours are flexible, and it’s not hard work at all.…
Living out in the wilds of far west Texas, major shopping (for me) has been curtailed… not that I mind though, I’m not a big shopper in the first place. I think that’s why I have not gone crazy since moving from the big city. :)
It’s a 20 mile drive (one way) to the closest town, it has one grocery store, a small one… there is a thrift store and a couple of restaurants, not counting the 2 hotels with their restaurants… I tend not to eat in them, not that they aren’t good, they are very good, BUT they cater to the tourists and tend to be a little more on the spendy side.
Another 20 miles down the road, gets us a slightly bigger town with more shopping, but still nothing like big towns like Dallas, Fort Worth, Odessa and such. To get to a town with malls, WalMarts and such is a 3 hour drive.…
It’s Sept 1, summer is all but over, the days are still warm but the nights are cooling off quite a bit, I notice the cottonwood trees in town are starting to turn that crisp yellow color, in a few more weeks it will be a riot of yellow with some reds, rusts and burgundy from some of the other trees.
The animals are putting on their fall into winter coats, adding weight to make it through the cold winter that is about to beset us. I just saw a fluffy squirrel looking in the window at me, this year has been a banner year for the squirrels, they are still fearful of us, but don’t get too concerned over our daily coming and going. …
I love seeing how other people live off-grid, each of us has our own ways, some are hard core, no electricity of any sort, some have all the modern conveniences… it just all depends on what you are looking to do and the finances you have to spend… of course the more modern conveniences you wish to have, the more $$$s it’s going to cost. We went somewhere in the middle, leaning towards slightly primitive……
How to get off-grid with not a lot of money… that is the holy grail, right? I see many people posting messages here and on other websites, all saying very much the same thing, they want to be independent, to have a piece of land, to have a small place to live, to be off-grid, but they don’t have the money to do it, they often want to join other people in hopes of pooling resources, or just jumping on someone else’s bandwagon.
I am here to tell you it is possible to do this without resorting to illegal means and without having to join with other people or a group to get off-grid.…
Your pantry is only useful if you can make tasty, filling meals from it. It is vital that you purchase “ingredients” rather than meals, so that you can make a wide variety of foods. Not only is this healthier, but it is also a much more cost-effective way to build a stockpile.
The ingredients that you buy or preserve are the basis of your future health should a situation arise in which you must rely on your pantry. It is imperative that you have the ability to cook from scratch if you intend to use a pantry full of ingredients, so brush up on your skills by using these items now, and not just storing them away.…
This is one method of dispatching and butchering a chicken, I noticed he said “sorry” to the chicken before starting the procedure… it’s what I would do too.
He uses a killing cone, a plucker, I will say that I think he needs to sharpen his knives, he does a good job but I noticed a couple of times he had to saw more than I thought he should have to cut through… this is part one of two…
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It’s hot, hot hot, those of us with gardens are in full swing… now it’s time to start your fall gardens. Things like greens, spinach, lettuces, garlic… honestly in the past, I haven’t given much thought to fall gardens, I have gardened so hard all summer that I’m pretty worn out for thinking about planing more things. But this is not the mindset of a good homesteader or off-gridder, especially if you are relying on that garden to supplement your food.
So let’s keep that excitement we had during the late winter and spring and get that fall garden started!…
