From what I have read, the underground house is often considered the holy grail of off-grid living, it’s known to be warm in winter, cool in summer, making life more self sufficient for the occupants of the home. I ran across this video recently about a family creating an underground home, taking advantage of a former sandstone quarry, most of the “hole” their home would go in was already there.…
A major challenge when living from your stockpiled foods is getting enough fruits and vegetables. Without produce, your family can be at risk for nutritional deficiency diseases like scurvy and their immune systems will be compromised. A minimum of 5 servings per day is recommended, but during the long winter, how can you meet that goal with the contents of your pantry?
Supplying your family with produce that will provide the necessary nutrients that their bodies need to thrive is a twofold process. Not only should you preserve the summer’s bounty for the winter ahead, but you should also come up with ways to add fresh greens outside of the growing season.…
I just listened to a Coast to Coast am show featuring Marjory Wildcraft as a guest, I have heard her name before and probably watched a YouTube video or two about her, but after listening to her interview, I’m so much more impressed with her, if you aren’t familiar with her, I think you will be impressed too… When I first heard about her, I thought she must be some kind of hippy tree hugger, not that there’s anything wrong with that :) it just wasn’t my cup of tea. Turns out I was way wrong, well she may be a hippy tree hugger, but she is so much more than that!…
I’ve been talking a lot lately about prepping, getting ready for whatever is coming, whether it be a personal issue (job loss, cutting hours, illness or injury), to a local problem, a national or global problem, you need to be ready. Unfortunately our governments don’t tend to agree with this, it would seem that they would rather have us unprepared, reliant on them for everything. It’s easy to make people want to leave their homes voluntarily to go to FEMA camps when there is nothing to eat or drink at home. Some countries even have laws against so called “hoarding”, and believe me, this isn’t new, they can come into your home, search and confiscate your hard earned supplies if they believe you have too much. They can even do much worse than that……
I am starting to see more and more of these shed style homes, they remind me of Morgan buildings. They are a glorified shed that can be finished out to turn into a living space, perfect for the rural areas with fewer or no “codes”. I am seeing these cheap, really cheap and they will usually deliver them to just about anywhere. I see lots of potential, you could start out with one and add to it, or even have multiple units for the different parts of your living areas, living room/bedroom, kitchen/bathroom, guestroom/art studio… Many of these can be had for less than it cost to buy a car.…
OK, so you are on board for raising and eating rabbits, but you want more for your furry food source than just living in small cages, or perhaps you don’t want to duties of having to clean up said cages. There is another option, free range rabbits. Of course there are pros and cons to this. Doing a quick read online, I have found sites where people are saying, been there-done that and don’t try it, others say it’s the best thing they have ever done… you will have to decide. The nice thing is you can start out slow, keeping rabbits in hutches or cages and allowing a few to roam free to see how it works out for you. The rabbits clearly prefer being free, but they can be destructive, and many of them (mostly the bucks) can be escape artist, the last thing you want is your flock getting free, bothering the neighbors (especially their unprotected gardens), being easy targets for local dogs or other predators.…
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
…
This is the 3rd in a series on raising rabbits for meat and fur. Some look at the cute bunnies and can’t imagine eating them, I would suggest looking into where your meat comes from, unfortunately today’s generation tends to be so separated and isolated from the reality where their meat products come from.
Rabbits are good for homesteaders and off-gridders, they are fairly easy to raise, they are quiet (think stealth!), they aren’t going to draw a lot of attention of close by neighbors like chickens or other livestock, don’t require a lot of space, they grow fast and breed readily, their meat is good and they have fur and hide.…
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.…
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……
