The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: tombogan03884 on July 31, 2009, 06:32:43 PM
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Rastus suggested it so here it is
Ground rules
This is not about fighting off Zombie snipers from Mars. It is about skills and sources for the off grid self sustaining home
http://www.hardenedstructures.com/2050727/default.aspx
This site is included for 2 reasons, Underground houses are the most energy efficient, and this site includes electrical hook up equipment and storage systems
http://www.bomb-shelter.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&Itemid=71
More underground structures
Now I'm looking to the rest of you to come up with info on Food (heirloom seeds for vegetables, methods of preservation )
Energy sources, Wind, solar, steam, water turbines.
Eco friendly waste systems, there are systems the use electricity or gas to incinerate waste so you can safely use it in the garden.
Most sites that will have this type of information are geared toward "Surviving" a nuke war or other disaster but what I'm looking for is simply the way our great grand parents lived. Being able to live comfortably with out depending on any thing out side your property.
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Sounds like a good thread. thanks Tom and Rastus.
I second the motion for everyday practical information on being more self suffecient. Sounds like we want a thread kinda of geared toward Mother Earth News or Backwoods Home. I use to get Mother Earth years ago and had about 10 years worth of issues at one time. Starting to sound like a left over hippie from the 70's. Peace Man! ;D Lot's of good information, but the ideas that expanded from the information in it could lead to even better ways of doing things. I may not be able to get off the grid, but I figure the more I can do for myself the better.
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Rastus suggested it so here it is
Ground rules
This is not about fighting off Zombie snipers from Mars. It is about skills and sources for the off grid self sustaining home
www.zombiesnipersfrommars.com
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Two very good ones.
http://www.thereadystore.com/
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/gentleman0711.html?en
A subscription to backwoods home will answer nearly any question you may ever think of, and many you wont think of.
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Somewhere in a box, I have the old Foxfire series books. Notable and very popular back in the day. Still available in print through amazon.
Hog Dressing to cabin building to making soap, even making you own rifle.
I need to pull them out and refresh my memory... Here's a list of important things they cover.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxfire_books
# apple butter
# banjos
# basket weaving
# beekeeping
# butter churning
# corn shucking
# dulcimers
# faith healing
# fiddle making
# haints
# American ginseng cultivation
# long rifle and flintlock making
# hide tanning
# hog dressing
# hunting tales
# log cabin building
# moonshining
# midwives
# old-time burial customs
# planting "by the signs"
# preserving foods
# sassafras tea
# snake handling and lore
# soap making
# spinning
# square dancing
# wagon making
# weaving
# wild food gathering
These are based on Appalachian territory, but the skills work anywhere...
Thanks for reminding me about them... I'm still glad I kept them...
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I think I have some of those old Foxfire books around also.
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Here's a handy item Ping posted about else where just because your off the grid doesn't mean you have to talk to your self, you can still have tunes
http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/LOW558-1.html
Back woods man is good I have several back issues that were given to me and every one of them has something useful.
Foxfire books were good too.
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http://www.waltonfeed.com/blog/listCategory
Food preservation and storage.
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Good thread Tom, here is another site.
http://www.survivalcenter.com/birdflumask.html?idaff=3231
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First you need shelter, I mentioned somewhere else that underground homes are easy to heat in winter and stay cool in the summer which saves energy. Thats a big plus with todays prices and a bigger plus if you are making your own power.
Here are some links for info.
http://architecture.about.com/cs/greenarchitecture/a/eartharch.htm
http://www.earthshelter.com/
http://www.subsurfacebuildings.com/Links.html
Now you need POWER ! Electricity is the most versatile source of modern energy, it can provide efficient heating and cooling as well as light, but it can also power all of todays modern conveniences, and it is cleaner than any other power source. there are many reasons for getting off the Grid, but the 3 biggest are price increases, location, and reliability. The price of electricity is only going to go up, Some really nice places are just to remote to make grid power practical, and even where it IS available the wires are at the mercy of weather and other types of damage (power here has been knocked out twice by vehicles hitting poles) Here are some options:
http://www.homepower.com/home/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WDZISfOtfc
http://www.mrsolar.com/
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/technology/solar-power/
http://www.awea.org/faq/rsdntqa.html
http://www.windpowerexpo.org/
Now that we have a source of power we can run all sorts of stuff, Battery chargers for Phones/radios, CD/DVD players, laptop computers and so on. We also have heat for cooking, If we are aiming for self sufficiency we will probably be hunting, fishing and either raising live stock or trading with some one who is. in that case VEGETABLES might not only be good for you, they might will also make good trade goods. Now when we buy tools we always (if we're smart) buy the one that will last a lifetime, well you can do something similar with seeds. Most vegetables that you buy have been Hybridized for color shelf life and other things, BUT, the seeds when planted will often not grow, or will not give good results this is where "heirloom seeds" come in these are old time varieties of veggies that have not been genetically manipulated. If you take the seeds from an Heirloom squash and plant it, you will get exactly the same kind of squash, In effect you buy the seeds once and each crop generates the seeds for the next.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heirloom_plant
http://www.heirloomseeds.com/
http://rareseeds.com/
Fruits and berries for dessert or wine making can also be grown at home.
http://growingtaste.com/fruit.shtml
Herb gardens are also a very important item for the home
http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/hortcult/herbs/ne208hrb.htm
Then of course there are the wild foods around you. Whats the point of living in a rural area if you never get out in it ? Where you are will determine what plants you have available.
http://theforagerpress.com/fieldguide/guide.htm
http://www.wildfoodadventures.com/
That should be enough to kick off some discussion. ;D
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The sad thing is, Tom is right. Its not sad that Tom is right, as he is more often than I like to admit. What is sad is that if gas and electricity were to vanish tommorrow and stay gone, tens of millions would die. Yet our ancestors did just fine and produced a prosperous society without them. The key is infra-structure and the intellectual capital to run it. We have lost than knowledge. Most engineers would be helpless without CAD and unable to use, much less build a slide rule, yet those got us to the moon. How many farmers could make a go of it with no pesticides, herbicides, irrigation, much less trucks to get their crops to market? The grid is fragile because we have become too dependant on stuff that can break. I'm not a survivalist or a Luddite. I like my GPS, depth sounder and eotech. I just know that they are disposable. We need to look at survival in terms of communities, not just individuals, or what the heck is the point? Those basic bits of knowledge and skills should not be allowed to die.
FQ13 Who now officially feels like an old fart
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Not sure if this one was mentioned yet? http://www.americansurvivalstore.com/
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The sad thing is, Tom is right. Its not sad that Tom is right, as he is more often than I like to admit. What is sad is that if gas and electricity were to vanish tommorrow and stay gone, tens of millions would die. Yet our ancestors did just fine and produced a prosperous society without them. The key is infra-structure and the intellectual capital to run it. We have lost than knowledge. Most engineers would be helpless without CAD and unable to use, much less build a slide rule, yet those got us to the moon. How many farmers could make a go of it with no pesticides, herbicides, irrigation, much less trucks to get their crops to market? The grid is fragile because we have become too dependant on stuff that can break. I'm not a survivalist or a Luddite. I like my GPS, depth sounder and eotech. I just know that they are disposable. We need to look at survival in terms of communities, not just individuals, or what the heck is the point? Those basic bits of knowledge and skills should not be allowed to die.
FQ13 Who now officially feels like an old fart
You are being to pessimistic FQ. If we learn, remember and practice the ways our fore fathers did things we can modify them to let us keep our fancy modern toys, if we generate our own power there is no line loss, so it it more efficient, the wind mills of today started out hundreds of years ago grinding grain, irrigation is one of mans oldest technologies and the did it with out pumps. What I'm talking about is combining the technologies of yesterday with the knowledge of today and establishing a style of living that doesn't mark each community with a brown haze and frees us from worrying about a squirrel in upstate NY blacking out the North East AGAIN.
You are right about SURVIVING in communities but that doesn't mean you have to be living in each others hip pockets
It is interesting to note that while they are held in low esteem by many here, it was the Hippies, thinking along these same lines that saved many of the old crafts from extinction like basket making, pottery, and weaving.
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Here's a tip that might help someone raising there own their own trees for fruits, nut, or timber. A friend of mine with a few acres put in some fruit trees a few years back. There ended up being a long hot dry spell and the young trees weren't doing to well. He had a tractor and a water tank to water them, but most of the water ran off unless applied slowly witch took a lot of time. He had access to a lot of the white 5 gallon buckets often used for food items in restuants. He drilled small holes in the bottom and placed several around each tree. The water slowly drained from the buckets saturating the ground with out running off. He used the tractor hauled water tank to quickly fill the buckets and cut the time to water his trees significantly and didn't need to water as much as the water use was more effecient. He lost a few trees that were probably already stressed but the rest of his "orchard" is doing very well and producing fruit. Obviously you could use the method to water other plants.
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+1 on Quakers comments. One family on their own stands little chance. Dont forget medical emergencies! Chopping firewood, dropping timber, working the land is a bit more hazardous in practice than many have thought. In particular to the unpracticed.
A great source of food that requires little, to no maitenance. Even provides a great source of entertainment... FISH. When looking for a homestead, one with an existing pond would be ideal. But man made ponds can be very good to, and not as expensive as you may think to have built and stocked. It takes research on having proper structure for bigger fish to survive, but once in place its hard to beat as a renuable resource of food and water. ;)
Something else to consider when choosing a power supply. Solar panels break very easily in high winds! Even if you only get one storm a year it may do thousands of dollars of damage (if replacement parts are available). The weight of ice can crack them before your even out of bed in the morning. :( Wind generators are rarely sufficient by themselves, and can be seen from great distances. Also require dangerous maintenance. Priority number one to me when considering a homestead is a strong creek that runs cleanly all year. NOT hard to find in most parts of the country either. Just stay away from rivers! To many reasons to list. :( :( :(
I know I posted it before, but its a reeaaallllly good read!
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/gentleman0711.html?en
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For plantings in general, there is a lot of discussion on various boards about permaculture.
For heirloom seeds, checkout the following - note: "heirloom" sometimes describes hybrids, so check carefully:
http://www.seedsavers.org/ (http://www.seedsavers.org/)
http://www.territorialseed.com/ (http://www.territorialseed.com/)
http://everlastingseeds.com/ (http://everlastingseeds.com/)
http://www.tomatoseeds.net/ (http://www.tomatoseeds.net/)
http://www.heirloomseeds.com/tomatoes.htm (http://www.heirloomseeds.com/tomatoes.htm)
http://thetomatolady.com/ (http://thetomatolady.com/)
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One of my uncles had solar heat. It was like hoses zig-zagging up and down on the roof. The water went in at ambient temperature and came out HOT. I'm not sure what the rest of the system was. It survived several years of storms in Michigan's U.P.
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http://www.survivalblog.com/ (http://www.survivalblog.com/)
is a good one, I wrote several articles for it myself.
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Just found this one
http://www.ki4u.com/