All you need to go off-grid

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Going off-grid before we went off-grid

Before we moved to our off-grid home, long before, we had begun purchasing the things we would need to live off-grid. This meant solar panels, inverters, charge controllers, lots of wire and much of the other things we would need. Buying these things before we were ready to move meant we could bargain hunt, we could find deals on used items (Craigslist is your friend!) and none of this hit us too hard in the pocketbook.

Little did I know that we would be forced to put our off-grid goodies to the test before we moved off-grid. …

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February 28, 2013 2 Comments

Taking care of your feet

Most of us give little thought to our feet, those things we stand on, run on, tread on, but there are so many things that can go wrong, and if something is wrong with your feet, well quite frankly it can be miserable at best and debilitating at worst. So let’s take a look at caring for those tootsies.…

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February 24, 2013 1 Comment
Communities

Coconut Oil: A Prepper’s Panacea

LOL, if you read many of my posts, you will notice I have a fetish for food, I also write about health and living off-grid, but food is one of my major passions. I love cooking and baking from scratch. I cook by the seat of my pants, I’m one of those who can look at a kitchen full of staples and can whip up a tasty meal. Give me the basics, flour, butter, cornmeal, leavening (yeast, baking powder, baking soda…), seasonings, some protein like chicken, beef or fish, perhaps some fresh veg and I can put together a meal fit for a king.

Today we will focus on one ingredient, coconut oil. Not too long ago, it was considered to be a “bad” oil, it was cheap and often the oil of choice for fast food restaurants for deep frying. Like many foods that have been demonized in the past, now it’s considered a healthy fat, go figure……

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February 23, 2013 2 Comments
Communities

Prepping on a budget – part 7 – getting started

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It’s NOT too late to start prepping! If you are still breathing, and you are reading this, it’s not too late to start prepping! Even though the main stream media is doing its utmost best to make preppers look like the bad guy, that’s not your problem, your focus needs to be on taking care of yourself and your family, the more people you are responsible for, the more you need to buckle down and get ready for whatever may be coming down the pike.

The USA is still considered a prosperous country with lots of safety nets, I’m here to tell you that we are on a very slippery slope, what is at the bottom of that slope? Well, look around at what’s going on in other countries that were once prosperous and see where they are now. With the dollar being devalued quicker and quicker, hint that means the buying power of a dollar is less and less, saving money, ie savings accounts, hiding it under your mattress and such shouldn’t be your top priority right now, unless you already have a major stock of food and other necessities put back.…

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February 18, 2013 5 Comments
Communities

Relationship (Part 2)

Today is traditionally the day when men are supposed to show their love and affection for their women by buying flowers, chocolates and cards, then there is the obligatory dinner, if you have more money to spend, maybe a splurging on a bit of bling for your woman…  All month, the world has been filled with red hearts and cherubim flying around shooting heart shaped arrows, all the commercials on the TV and radio has been trying to make men feel guilty if they do not do the traditional things that are supposed to be done by today to make the woman in their life feel complete.

BLAH I say! I had a discussion with PB today about this very subject, I don’t understand why some women feel so giddy when their man spends half a C note or more on a dozen roses and a box of chocolates, in a week the flowers will be turning brown, the chocolate will be on its way to adding inches where they aren’t wanted, then you have to toss the refuse in the trash. I say, if you are going to spend money like this, why not spend it on something that is really useful?…

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February 14, 2013 6 Comments
Communities

Baking without Eggs

Since I live so far from town, it’s a 40+ mile round trip to go to the nearest town that only has one grocery store, it’s 80+ miles round trip to go to the next closest town that has 2 grocery stores, and we don’t have our own chickens, yet! I sometimes find that I am short an egg or two when I want to make something that requires eggs. It’s just not worth it to drive to town just to pick up a carton of eggs. I ran across this article with lots of good info about how to substitute other things for eggs, and the good thing is these are things you probably already have in your pantry. :) …

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February 10, 2013 2 Comments
Communities

Thermal mass rocket heaters

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With it still being winter time, and with many mega-blizzards going on though out the USA, there will always be a need for alternative ways of keeping warm and cooking. Rocket stoves and rocket mass heaters neatly fit the bill here, what is really great about them is they don’t use up loads and loads of wood, in fact you can burn twigs in them quite nicely. Since I first wrote about rocket stoves, there have been many experiments and improvements made by industrious tinkerers, and fortunately for us, these tinkerers also have cameras and are putting up videos of their progress.…

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February 9, 2013 2 Comments
Communities

Off-Grid lighting

Whether you live off-grid or in a regular home, you need light. With the right number and position of windows, you can get along just fine during the day, but once the sun goes down, you start needing some sort of lighting. Fortunately today there are lots of options for those of us who live off-grid.…

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February 3, 2013 12 Comments
Communities

Elderberry Extract: Nature’s “Tamiflu”

Flu season is in full swing, everywhere I look I see advertisements for flu shots, something I personally would not take, I can’t speak for anyone else, everyone has to make their own decision, hopefully an informed decision. At the very least, I would say to read the information packet that comes with the flu shot BEFORE taking it, read the warnings, read what they put in it, read the effectiveness of it.  Or you could take nature’s flu remedy.…

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February 1, 2013 No Comments

How to save money on food

Saving money, everyone talks about it, everyone wants to do it, but it’s hard to do. With most of us on tight budgets, it’s more important than ever to save every penny you can.

The main reason saving money seems hard to do is it usually means having to give up something that you would normally want to buy or do. My hubby and I live off-grid, we budget ourselves tightly, that includes food, but we still eat very well, the trick is to find ways of saving that doesn’t hurt so much. Here are some of the ways I save money. Let’s focus on food, something we all have to have to survive.…

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January 25, 2013 4 Comments
Communities

Cooking freeze dried style

Lots of things are going on today, the one getting the most news coverage is the president of the US being sworn in today, I read recently that the inauguration ball was going to be scaled down in respect of the bad economy and unemployment numbers being high, then today I read that it’s going to cost over 300 million… THAT’S CUTTING BACK? So, in light of this, today I’ll write about something really important, cooking and eating! A few weeks ago, we were snowed in, fortunately we had enough provisions to get us through.…

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January 21, 2013 1 Comment