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.…
Many of the same guidelines apply for fall gardening as spring gardening. The site for the garden needs to have a water source, full sun and well-drained soil.
The timing of the planting is important: Use a garden guide that is based on the first average killing frost date – ours is Nov. 16. Based on days to maturity, you can calculate back to when a vegetable needs to be planted.
Some of our vegetables have cold tolerance and will survive even if the temperature drops below 32 degrees. These frost-tolerant vegetables include beet, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, chard, collard, garlic, kale, lettuce, mustard, onion, parsley, spinach and turnip.…
Growing vegetables in a small space, like a roof-terrace or a backyard has different rules and skills (and work-rate) compared to a larger piece of land. Firstly – expect a lower amount of produce. That said, it still amazes folks how much you can get out of a tiny space.
Some people mix edibles with ornamentals, that might seem the permaculture way, but there are advantages to keeping them separate — like its easier, and you can be more focused while looking good too.
Depending on how much space you have, build between one and three raised beds. These measure approximately 90cm by 120cm. Pretty much any receptacle that will drain freely and hold compost will work. There are plenty of books to help you along – here is one example.…
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!…
Now that you have chosen to raise rabbits for meat, it’s time to learn how to tan their hides, you can either use the fur or lose the fur, you can use the leather for many things, you can also sell it to earn some extra money.…
Living more frugally can mean growing your own food, that can include more than just plants, it can mean meat. Many people who live in more rural areas grow chickens for eggs and meat, it’s just as easy to grow rabbits, this is something that has appealed to me ever since I moved off-grid, I would have no problems eating them, but it would be difficult, at least in the beginning, to dispatch one, I’m sure after it’s dead I would be able to skin it, gut it and prepare it… I did see a video of a man who invented a method of humanly dispatching the rabbit, here is the video…
IF you don’t already grow your own veg, now is the time to convert – and you could be reaping the benefit by October – or even sooner.
In the past, it was widely accepted and widely practised. If you had a bit of garden or an allotment in then you would almost certainly have grown some of your own food.
What goes around comes around – it was a necessity for people back then has now become a trend that is increasingly important in times of austerity. When you sow your first beans or plant out your potatoes you are joining a tradition that goes back to the earliest days of civilisation.…
There’s a sense of urgency in the prepping community lately that is at an all time high. Between the global elite warmongers, the impending financial collapse as the government makes plans to attach pension funds, the new viruses, Monsanto’s GMO seeds running amok and threatening the world’s food supply, and Big Food’s toxic food-like substances in the grocery stores with no regard for actual nutrition, it is clear that we are going downhill fast. The soothing ”everything-is-just-fine” propaganda is so blatant that even the most die-hard zombie is beginning to see that something is amiss and that a massive change is soon to take place.
Many of us have stocked our homes to the rafters with beans, rice, bullets, and band-aids. Each trip to the store adds more to our stockpiles as we try to get what we need before time runs out. Newbie preppers are feeling even more frantic, wondering how to prepare when each week it takes more money to put less in the grocery cart. (If you’re new to preparedness, here’s a little primer with some great links.)…
Preppers are always trying to get everyone else to at least begin stocking up on some short and long term food storage, honestly the biggest reason is because the more of you who prep, the fewer of you we have to worry about showing up on our doorsteps if/when the SHTF… of course we ALL hope that none of this is ever needed, I wouldn’t be a bit upset if 20, 30, or more years from now I get a big “I told you so…” from those who never prep… but the reality is, it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
So with that said, here are a few videos showing the sorts of things that are relatively inexpensive and easy to stock up on. Things like protein, it’s something we all need in our diet, the good thing about these sources of protein is they don’t require refrigeration and most of them are relatively easy to open, they have pop-tabs or come in pouches that don’t require anything but your fingers to open.…
I’m not a vegan, a vegetarian or anything remotely like that, I have nothing against anyone who chooses not to eat meat, they have more willpower than I do :)
That being said, in the past, I have tried some of the meatless burger and sausage patties, honestly they tasted OK, just OK, but each time I tried them I ended up with stomach issues, quite frankly it was bad enough that NO ONE would want to be around me for the rest of that day into the next… most of those meatless products are made with soy, something I avoid like the plague, most soy is GMO now, plus the fact that soy mimics estrogen so for most of us, that is not a good thing.
I’ve seen recipes for meatless burgers, often made with TVP (which is soy based), beans, rice, various other grains, quite frankly none of them looked very interesting or good, not enough to get me to try to make them, I’m just not that on board for substituting for meat products……
Had to clean out my fridge today, while that’s not such a big deal to most, to me it’s (almost) a pleasure to do because of the kind of fridge I have. Living off-grid, using solar panels and batteries, on limited power, one looks for ways to use as little power as possible, one of the things I found that really ate up my power was my little, tiny dorm sized cube refrigerator, the kind that opened in front, had a tiny tiny tiny freezer, in fact I couldn’t even put a full size ice tray inside it, they make micro-ice cube trays.
Most of the time I didn’t even plug in that cube fridge, we just learned to live without refrigeration for the most part, honestly it just sucked up too much precious photon juice from my system. So on the odd occasion when I brought home a gallon of milk, or some meat that didn’t get used up quickly, I would plug in the darned thing and wonder how much time it was taking from my surfing the internet…
With the cube fridge, it ran 15+ minutes at a time, a couple of times an hour, more if I actually opened the door, think about it, when you open the door on a standard fridge, all the cold air drops out of the box onto your feet, feels good for the moment but the compressor kicks in immediately to compensate for all that lost cold air.
I’ll not go into detail about this because I’ve written about it (in detail) in previous posts here… this is really just a follow up on how well I like (love) my chest freezer-fridge conversion. :)…
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