Self-Sufficiency

Community

Off-Grid update

Winter is coming, it’s well into fall and the season is definitely changing. The air is cooler, especially in the mornings, crisp, I can smell the smoke from a nearby woodstove, with the cooler weather comes dryer weather, I noticed I am getting static shocks when I get out of a vehicle, which is something I am doing a lot more often lately. Right now, I am about to get up and get into my sleeping clothes, something warmer than I have been wearing all summer long.…

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Community

The ultimate bachelor pad on wheels

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Brett Sutherland built the ultimate bachelor pad on wheels to suit his need for a home, balancing cost with useability without sacrificing style, this is one of the best looking tiny homes on wheels I have seen. Brett didn’t care for the tiny homes he had seen before, he felt like they were too cramped for his liking, wanting lots of head room for air flow, especially in his bedroom loft area, the design he created looks great and is very functional, there is lots of air movement as well as light.…

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Community

Picking the wrong plant

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Since having such a wet rainy season, as compared to the previous several rainy seasons, I have seen many more species of wild plants growing, specifically wildflowers. Normally I’m not interested in growing flowers, I don’t want just a pretty face, I generally require any plants I plant and tend to do something useful for me, it needs to be edible and/or medicinal……

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Community

Bobbage bridge update

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Strange name for a title, Bobbage, well if you have followed me for any length of time, you will know that Bobbage is what we call the thing that PB (Primitive Bob) does, he takes things that most would toss in the trash and makes the most wonderful (and wondrous) things with it. Today we will talk about the bridge he is building for us.

This isn’t just any bridge, not a small garden bridge, but one that will not only take foot traffic, but will hold up to trucks driving across it, one at a time of course. :)…

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Community

Permaculture in Moretown, Vermont

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Ben Falk is a permaculture designer based in Moretown, Vermont. In this video, he speaks about different aspects of homesteading and cold weather, notably his wood cook-stove which also heats water, and his compost-powered greenhouse heating system. He also talks about the importance of being engaged with the land around us, and how gardening is just basically awesome!…

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Community

A bridge to Bobbage

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Living here going on 8 years and we still have to hike up to the sky castle, the reason is because of a seasonal creek that runs in front of the property near the road, it can be navigated if you have 4 wheel drive and the creek isn’t running (which it isn’t most of the year). It isn’t the water that makes it difficult though, it’s the depth of the creek bed.…

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Gardening roundtable

About a week ago, I got a phone call from one of my neighbors and friends out here, it was time to do another gardening roundtable. That’s where a bunch of us gets together to discuss our gardening experiences. Living in the high desert mountains in far western Texas, we have a unique growing area, and within this area, there are even microclimates to deal with, so my garden may have different qualities (temperature, moisture, wind, soil conditions…) than someone who lives at the same altitude as I do but just around the corner from me…

So today after church and our second Sunday church potluck lunch, we just had enough time to get over to the community center just up the road. There were about a dozen of us there, most are experienced gardeners, a few were very new to gardening, a few had gardened out here for many years.…

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Community

How to build your own water cistern system

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What Is A Water Cistern System?

Those living in a municipality often take for granted utility services that many rural property dwellers are not privileged to enjoy. Many people living in rural regions are extremely fortunate if they are able to afford the huge expense to drill a water well and even more fortunate if the drill actually strikes good potable water. For those rural proprietors or tenants who are challenged by the absence of a drinkable water source on their property a cistern system is a practical and economical alternative.…

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Self-Sufficiency

Tiny Homes – the Big Picture

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OFf-Grid News reports on the booming Tiny Homes movement.

The houses are the size of a regular settee or a little bigger. They are painted in happy colours — yellow, pink, blue — and have names, RDX2, The Chuck Wagon, Uni-Bomber and so on. The floors are made of wooden pallets reclaimed from leftover construction material; the windows are discarded washing machine doors. The insides are insulated with the help of pizza delivery bags. And these dwellings have wheels. Total cost of construction: $30-40 per house. Selling price: Free.…

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Former Law enforcement officer has had it with the man. Living off the grid is his solution
People

Ex-cop predicts collapse

Former Law enforcement officer has had it with the man. Living off the grid is his solutionHarold Smith cam on our YouTube page today, commenting on our video Inside the Movement as follows:

I spent 20 years in law enforcement, and over that time I’ve seen a lot of changes not only in the federal government, but state and local.

At this moment I’m making plans to go totally off-grid. Why?…

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Nova Scotia bans new off-grid homes

Dear Off-Grid,

I live on the south shore of Nova Scotia and I want to build a tiny, off-grid homestead. So far, it is proving to be a near impossibility.

The building inspector says I have to have 3 radiators and an air exchanger and these must be powered by electricity (as per the National Building Code). He says I must be able to maintain a temperature of 22.5 degrees Celsius in my home at anytime during the year! Who keeps their heat that high anyways?…

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Community

Tiny home in Hawaii

Tiny home in Hawaii

I think we can all appreciate Johnny Sanphillippo’s situation, he worked hard at a job he loved that unfortunately didn’t net him a large salary, of course if you were to ask him, I’m sure he would tell you that money isn’t the most important thing in the world, not something to run after at all costs.

Johnny cleaned houses, he painted homes and gardened for a living, he lived in California, there was no way he was going to be able to qualify for a mortgage on a home of his own, something he really wanted. He decided that going small would be the best thing for him, he purchased a lot in Hawaii and began working toward building a small home, one that he could afford, and one that allow him to retire later on without having to worry about having a pension or major money coming in.…

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