Self-Sufficiency Archives - Page 7 of 24 - Living Off the Grid: Free Yourself

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Homesteading with a family

Winter is just around the corner, I’m sitting here tonight, with drops of rain falling on the roof, it’s a chilly 55 degrees F outside, not much warmer inside, it’s not cold enough for the woodstove yet, though we have been enjoying the fireplace PB is building on the semi-enclosed deck.

This yet again stirred my interest in thermal mass rocket stove heaters, you know the one I’m talking about I’m sure, the one built into the cob bench, the idea is using a rocket stove for efficient burning, using less wood, heating a thermal mass (the cob bench)… I have little hope of having one in our current living space, mainly because of the weight, we “live” on the second floor of the SkyCastle. BUT there is a ground floor level that will someday be finished, becoming a bedroom, that space is perfect for a thermal mass rocket stove heater, I’m just biding my time until PB begins to finish that part of the house.
Rocket Mass Heaters
Lessons from Our Rocket Mass Heater: This book is bursting with photos, tips and resources all from our own build! A companion guide to the experts manuals you’ll get a personal look at a real build.

Meanwhile, I will watch and learn from other folk who build and use these, I REALLY appreciate the ones who post follow up videos or blogs showing their experiences over the years, the good and the bad. While looking for such a video, I found the most adorable homesteading family, a mom, dad and 4 kids. They moved from the city to the country, jumping in with both feet, I have enjoyed watching their videos, especially the ones from the kids, they are truly learning here and sharing this experience with the rest of us.

Here are the videos about cob building and thermal mass rocket heaters. Links to their YouTube and webpage to follow.

This first video shows a really interesting floor treatment as well as a thermal mass rocket stove heater

https://youtu.be/Yei0a6OeRbo

This shows the thermal mass rocket stove heater with cob bench.

https://youtu.be/NYJyxptclos

This shows the thermal mass rocket stove heater some 3 years later, an improvement they made and how well it is doing.

https://youtu.be/nG9-hyg7r4k

MyLittleHomestead YouTube page
MyLittleHomestead webpage

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October 3, 2015 No Comments

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Sold up and gone to Crete

Artist and carpenter Julienne Dolphin Wilding has recently sold her flat in Kings Cross and bought land in Crete. She shipped out all her possessions in a 20 foot container – including all her tools, her bed, a small caravan she had lovingly restored and her favourite pieces of furniture.

Once she had emptied out the contents of her container onto her new [property, she set about converting the container into her primary residence. With the caravan as a guest bedroom

“I would love to have done all this in the UK,”said Dolphin-Wilding, “but it wasn’t possible — even if the weather was warmer, the main obstacle is the planning regulations. you just canot buy affordable agricultural land and then move on and live in it. You have to get change of use permission, and locals will oppose that.

“But I am very happy here and my next project is building some off-grid holiday homes which will give me a regular income.”

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October 2, 2015 2 Comments

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Must have fire

Here is another Bobbage project, we have a semi-enclosed deck space between the bedroom and the laundry room or whatever that room is this week :)

We are able to use that space for much of the year, it’s cool in the summer because of the tall roof and mostly open ends that allow cool breezes to blow through. In the winter, it’s protected enough to keep us cozy, last winter PB put a small wood burning stove in there, it worked well enough, but we wanted more.

So late this summer, PB began to design a large, more open fireplace fit for a castle. I didn’t know how serious he might be, he has many plans for this and that, but having plans is no guarantee that it will be done. As per usual around here, this project is being put together using scrap material laying around the SkyCastle, stainless steel we brought from Dallas (leftover material from the work PB used to do), an old rusty mortar tub we got from a friend out here, a fireplace grate that was picked up from an abandoned property PB helped clean up, several large slabs of slate scavenged from a home PB helped clear out when the owner passed away…

Of course there are more parts than that, but you get the idea. PB knows each and every piece of material and where it came from, he loves to recite the backstory behind each part.

The biggest plus to this particular fireplace is we will be able to burn pine and other normally undesirable wood, wood that normally burns too hot or causes creosote buildup in normal chimneys. I’ll explain this more in future posts.

Meanwhile, please enjoy the pictures and videos of the SkyCastle fireplace.

https://youtu.be/WkzUKHOdq4g

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September 27, 2015 No Comments

How the Do It Yourself World came to be

Several years back, I found a YouTube channel featuring Troy and his Do It Yourself World, he posted videos about going off-grid on the smallest of budgets, I suspect his budget was even smaller than ours was, and that was pretty small.

Troy seemed to struggle quite a bit, he lived in a small, run down camper, things went wrong more often than they went right, winter was particularly hard on him. But he persevered, he kept trying, he didn’t give up, I think perhaps he didn’t really have anywhere else to go so he had to make it work, it’s amazing how motivating that situation can be.

He has come a long way since that time, he recently created a video explaining his history and how he got where he is now, it’s quite the interesting tale, I’m not sure most folk would have lasted as well as he has. One thing I do know for sure, he is extremely thankful and grateful for his followers on YouTube and on his website.

Watch and enjoy

https://youtu.be/SL2Fl7Sw8Io

Troy’s YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/techman2015
Troy’s websites https://www.thedoityourselfworld.com/ and https://www.theoffgridproject.com/

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September 16, 2015 1 Comment

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Two flats in three days

Two flat tires in 3 days, what are the odds? Well for me, apparently, pretty good. I was planning on buying new tires in the near future, just not this quickly. What happened? The first flat, I was on my way home from work, I was very near home, just a few miles, I have a series of cattle guards to cross, they are large pipe structures in the road that people and vehicles can cross, but livestock (cattle, horses and the such) will not cross. The final cattle guard I cross to get into my neighborhood has 2 damaged places in the pipe and one of them gouged a hole in my tire. Within 5-10 seconds of crossing, my low tire light came on in the truck, I stopped to check and sure enough, I was losing air fast from one of my front tires.

I gauged how long I could drive before the tire was completely flat and headed home, I made it a little farther before having to stop, I didn’t care if I damaged the tire by driving on it, but I didn’t want to damage the aluminum wheel. I was close enough to my house to easily walk, I didn’t relish changing the tire in the dark and knew PB would take care of it, I just had to get to him. Cell phones don’t work out here, and even if they did, we don’t have a home phone. I noticed the lights were on at one of my neighbor’s house, he drove me home, we got PB, and he drove us back.

So now I have my spare on my truck, my low tire light is staying on because of that. It’s getting close to the end of the week, payday, that’s when I’ll get a new set of tires. I had to work 2 more days before that would happen, on my way out of my neighborhood, that same cattle guard got me again, this time I made it nearly to the town I was to work in that day, being daylight I would have changed my tire myself, but I was using my spare. So a quick phone call later and I had help on the way.

Living out in a rural area with miles and miles of nothing between towns, it’s nice to know that people will still stop and offer help when you are sitting on the side of the road. I love small town life.

Now I’m sporting two spanky new tires on the front of my truck, next payday I’ll get the rear two replaced. What this has reminded me of is to always be prepared. I had the ability to change the first tire, but not the second. I was prepared to sit out quite a long time on the side of the road, I carry water, …

September 12, 2015 No Comments

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Low-energy rotisserie made from scrap

The chicken cooker went live, this is something PB has been working on for a few months now, I might have thought it wouldn’t be finished, but I stopped doubting PB a long time ago.

He wanted a dedicated chicken rotisserie cooker and needed a way to make the chicken turn on a spit, we considered buying an electric motor to achieve this, but in good PB fashion, we call it Bobbage, he used miscellaneous parts found on the property and manufactured a clock works pendulum and weight that would turn the chicken over the heat.

He spent the most time working on and tweaking the clockwork mechanism, going through several different iterations, he finally settled on this design. The body of the cooker used to be the main body of a Lehman’s manual washing machine, we received that many years ago from a neighbor, PB fixed her chainsaw that is no longer made and parts aren’t available, she really liked that chainsaw and didn’t want to have to buy a new one, she had this manual washing machine but never used it. I didn’t like it much once I tried it, but the wringer on it was worth its weight in gold.

So PB took the stainless steel body and made that be the body of the chicken cooker. He used a lightweight sink for the lid. The main part of the clockwork mechanism is an old circular saw blade, the chain and sprockets came from an old trash compactor that someone gave us years ago.

This is propane fired, but it can be made to use wood or charcoal.

The rest of the materials were scavenged from here and there. I purchased a chicken from the grocery store a few days ago, I am shocked at how expensive chicken is now, they were running near $10 for a medium-small chicken! When I got home, PB had the chicken turning on the spit.

It still needs to be tweaked, but for the first test run, it was pretty tasty :)

https://youtu.be/xtkgOgu45wY

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August 23, 2015 No Comments

Underground housing guru

How many of you remember Mike Oehler and his “$50 & Up Underground House Book“? I have a copy of this book and if I didn’t already live in a Sky Castle, I would want to live like this, since we have a mountain side we live on, it would be perfect!

I found this recent video, I am excited to find he is still alive and kicking and his mind is still sharp.

https://youtu.be/8B6xR3T37gI

I was quite excited to see how he is living now, underground, and it’s clear his design is still relevant and stands the test of time.

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August 19, 2015 No Comments

Backup plan for internet

What’s your backup plan? Do you have one? I hope so, everyone needs one no matter where or how they live. Today I’ll discuss communication. A few weeks ago, we had a huge thunderstorm that knocked out the electricity where I live, that’s not such a problem for us because we are off-grid and make our own power, BUT it also knocked out our internet, that is our only source of communication as well as entertainment and other things.

Eventually the power came back on for the neighborhood, but the internet didn’t come back on for nearly 2 days. That is our local wireless internet that comes from 2 towns away, it’s some 40 miles away. I do have a cell phone, but it doesn’t work here, no signal, I can use it when I get out on the road, but for here, it’s useless. My backup for communication and internet is my neighbor, he has satellite internet and a landline phone.

I was able to take my tablet down to his place and at least check my email and do some other things online, I really dislike satellite internet, it’s slow, expensive and they meter your bandwidth (ie they give you X amount of data download per month, if you go over then they knock you back to dial up speed for the remainder of the month unless you pay extra to have your data bandwidth reset), but with that being said, I will say it’s pretty reliable, as long as you have power then you will have internet.

I have been trying to talk my neighbor into changing over to our wireless internet, but I’m just as happy he hasn’t because of times like this.

This is our setup, what would you do if your power went out or your internet went down? Are you prepared with a backup? Perhaps you could use a neighbor if they used a different internet provider, or chances are you could even go to a local store or restaurant, most of them have free wifi, I wouldn’t want to rely on that exclusively, but it’s good in a pinch.

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August 14, 2015 No Comments

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Do what you love, love what you do

What is your passion? If money were no object (and just what does that actually mean anyhow???) what would you be doing right now? Now, how can you turn this passion into your living?

Something I enjoy doing is taking pictures, I fully intend on turning this passion into a living. The first thing that makes this possible is I have to take better pictures than the average person, my photos have to be of a quality that someone will want to part with their money to posses one of my photos.

Most EVERYONE has the ability to take pictures with little trouble, nearly everyone has a smartphone and some of the those phones can take some great pictures. But not everyone knows how to take really good pictures, look on most phones and you will find dozens of selfies and mediocre shots.

I did not go to school to learn how to take pictures, what I did was I looked at other photographers to see how they take fantastic pictures, I looked at how they framed their shots, I have learned about lighting (morning and evening tend to be the best times to take outdoor pictures), framing and lighting are the 2 biggies, being in the right place at the right time, I am always making note of a particular place that would make a good shot, but knowing I’ll come back at a time of day when the lighting would make for a great shot.

I have also learned about filters, color enhancing, basically taking a good picture and making it fantastic, something special. This requires a LOT of experimenting, taking lots of pictures, lots and lots. I would say that if I would take 1 picture of a scene, I actually take 20 or more shots of that same scene, using different filters, different angles, sometimes the difference between a mediocre shot and a prizewinning shot is just a matter of a slight angle change.

I also know that some days I may come home with a memory stick full of duds, and that’s OK too. I am not at a point where I can just go out merely to snap pictures, but since the job I do requires me to drive all over west Texas in some very scenic areas, and since I have a very flexible schedule, I have the opportunity to get some wonderful pictures. Honestly I would be taking these pictures anyhow, I love doing it, it’s my passion and in the year I’ve been doing this, my skills have improved greatly.

So now I have all of these pictures, how do I get money for these images? I plan on turning my photos into postcards and such for the tourists that pass through our towns. Living in such a scenic area, much of the income that comes into these towns come directly …

July 30, 2015 No Comments

Rainwater harvesting, and a teaser!

Shelter, food and water are the trinity of life, actually that should be in the reverse order, water absolutely comes first, without it, there would be no life for us. Water is becoming an increasingly rare and expensive commodity, fresh clean water is even more rare, there are but a few ways to get water. Where I live, many get their water from wells, fortunately our water is good water, the only reason to filter it is because of having to store it in tanks.

Another way of getting water is to collect what falls freely from the sky, I know that some states (in the USA) restrict rain water catchment, which I think is such a wrong thing to do to people. But for the states that do not restrict rain water catchment, it’s a great way to supplement your water use, it can even be used for your main water use.

We have a few water tanks around the Sky Castle, we have two tanks directly connected to the roof to catch the rain water, we have another tank under the house that holds more water, we gravity pump the water into that tank, it’s a 1550 gallon black poly tank, the other tanks are around 1000 gallon metal tanks. I am looking at getting two 3000 gallon black poly tanks, we could fill those easily in just a few good rains, considering we use between 200-300 gallons a month (yes, I said per MONTH), that amount of water would easily hold us. I would treat this water with bleach and run it through our Berkey Light water purifier for our drinking and cooking water.

Right now we are in our monsoon season, it lasts a couple of months, we get rain nearly everyday, usually in the evening, yesterday we had a deluge, a couple of inches of rain in a couple of hours, this morning as I was going out to work, I stopped at one of our low water crossings, the water had drained away, but there were some large rocks and small boulders in the middle of the road. I had some extra time before I had to go to work, so I hopped out of my truck, donned my heavy leather work gloves and moved rock. One of them was at the extreme end of my ability to pick it up, but I endured and got the road cleared. I could drive around it in my truck, but not everyone out here could have, I don’t mind doing that, it’s part of living out here on unpaved, mountain roads. It’s amazing how powerful water is.

On a completely different subject, this is a teaser for an article I’ll write this coming weekend, PB has been busy working on a clockwork mechanism, he manufactured it using spare parts, a saw blade, all thread, various metal …

July 24, 2015 No Comments

Community

Off-Grid with his own personal natural gas well

Ted Baker is my kind of man, independent, sharp, knows what he wants but is also flexible to change his path when need be. As I was watching this video, there came a mention of natural gas, my first thought was how is this guy using natural gas when he’s that far away from civilization? I quickly learned that Baker has something most of us would only dream about having, a natural gas well! I have never heard of anyone having their own personal natural gas well, this was preexisting on the property before he purchased it and was able to make use of it, I’m a little jealous :)

Watch and enjoy this video

https://youtu.be/yoIuvOSRRw4

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July 22, 2015 No Comments

Arvo off-grid

Arvo Thompson went from wanting to live off-grid to actually doing it, a step that sadly, not enough people actually do. He has been living the life for 15+ years, designing and building everything on his property himself. He is truly a self made man living his dream.

I found this on YouTube and thoroughly enjoyed watching this. I will say, like some of the comments on this video, he does seem to need a woman’s touch there, but it would have to be a very special person to share a life like that, no high maintenance women need apply :) No, I’m not trying to hook Arvo up with anyone though, just making an observation.

Here is the video, the direct link is below the video, enjoy.

https://youtu.be/vI9k9_EQR3g

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July 16, 2015 No Comments

All you need to go off-grid

Self-Sufficiency

Homesteading with a family

Sold up and gone to Crete

Must have fire

How the Do It Yourself World came to be

Two flats in three days

Low-energy rotisserie made from scrap

Underground housing guru

Backup plan for internet

Do what you love, love what you do

Rainwater harvesting, and a teaser!

Off-Grid with his own personal natural gas well

Arvo off-grid

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