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    #76
    Re: Homesteading, Living Off Grid, and Other Alternative Living

    Yup - that would be a nice house!

    My fantasy house is the Viking Pit house, in the "alternative building" thread just below this one. I've got the spot picked out, plans drawn up, and a materials list...

    I just need a shovel and lumber...
    Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

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      #77
      Re: Homesteading, Living Off Grid, and Other Alternative Living

      When I get a home of my own, I'd greatly like to grow some food in a garden and maybe keep poultry.
      But otherwise...yeah, I like living on the grid. I like having electricity, wireless internet, clean running water, and living in the suburbs near a city where I can do a lot of things in my leisure time. Don't get me wrong. I like some aspects of the off-the-grid idea, like having more self-sufficiency and reducing one's environmental impact. And I'd love to know more about how to do those things in a suburban or even slightly-rural environment. But there's too much gridded stuff that I like, and most rural areas I've been to are utter hellholes (granted, this is Kentucky I'm talking about).
      Last edited by Louisvillian; 30 May 2012, 21:44.

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        #78
        Re: Homesteading, Living Off Grid, and Other Alternative Living

        I looked at snaring rabbits, and don't think it's for me.

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          #79
          Re: Alternative Building Ideas

          so , this is a problem, but I didn't meet it in my daily life , good luck .

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            #80
            Re: Alternative Building Ideas



            I love the shipping container homes.

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              #81
              Re: Alternative Building Ideas

              Here's something on buildings - Futurist structures.
              Anyone want to mix this with natural/alternative structures, or is that just me?
              The Venus Project is a non-profit organization that presents a new socio-economic model utilizing science and technology toward social betterment to achieve a sustainable civilization of abundance for all, without exception.

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                #82
                Re: Homesteading, Living Off Grid, and Other Alternative Living

                This is just a cool little idea from a cool little company...when I again have outdoor space, I want one for my herbs!
                Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
                sigpic

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                  #83
                  Re: Homesteading, Living Off Grid, and Other Alternative Living

                  My parents are semi-self sufficient and working on complete self sufficiency. I've been bought up with a lot of the simple things, and lived with them up until three years ago. My husband and I currently live in a rental house, but when we get our own we will be doing pretty much everything my parents do, depending on the land we get. We'd really like to homestead.

                  My parents practice aquaponics, which is a self contained system where you have a tank of fish (it also works with yabbies) that is hooked up to a hydroponic vegetable garden. The fish water is what feeds the vegetables, and the vegetables filter the water, which is then sent back to the fish tank and is cycled all over again. You can have very simple systems, or complicated ones. The only thing that my parents have to add to the system is pH balance - otherwise they just feed the fish and that's it. No other chemicals, no extra nutrients for the plants, nothing.

                  http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/ is the main website and http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/fo...hp?f=18&t=1959 is my parents' system (the linked forum thread has been going since 2007, with photos and evolution of the system almost from scratch). They recently had to empty it all out and start again, as some tree roots got into the plumbing and tore it up (also damaged the house plumbing).

                  Otherwise they also have a normal dirt veggie patch (or... a veggie yard - there are multiple beds and pots as well as the greenhouse that houses the aquaponics - my parents don't have any lawn or grass, just veggie patches) where they grow just about everything - they don't buy vegetables. They grow blueberries and strawberries but otherwise do buy fruit, because there's not enough room in the yard for fruit trees. They also don't raise livestock as it's an urban yard and they aren't even allowed chickens. They compost and recycle. They have solar panels and feed so much back into the energy grid that their last electricity bill put them in credit with the power company, which means that if they had it wired straight into the house they would be self sufficient for electricity. They have rainwater tanks, though it's not piped directly into the house yet. My mum also cans and preserves her own fruit and veg (and the trout from the aquaponics) and sews and knits. When I was growing up we lived in the country and raised sheep and chickens.

                  My husband and I plan on most of this when we have our own house, though we would like property so we can homestead properly and raise livestock as well. I'd like to raise sheep (or maybe goats or rabbits) for their fibre too, as I spin. We don't own a dryer - we use a clothes line or indoor clothes horse. We recycle, which is actually ridiculously easy here in Adelaide because we all have a recycling bins along with garbage bins and green waste bins - my family has recycled for about 15 years though, even when it used to be bundling up the newspapers and bottles into batches with twine. We only have one car and I use public transport when I need to. I've had a rainwater tank for as long as I can remember (as far as I can tell this is an Australian thing) except in this current house. We plan on having rainwater tanks plumbed into our house, as well as solar panels (when we get a house lol). I also plan on a self-composting toilet, though I'm not 100% sure how Torey feels about the matter lol. We will use our grey-water. We use fabric shopping bags - again, ridiculously easy here as Adelaide has actually banned plastic bags at supermarkets (they are still allowed in retail) and so Adelaidians all have to buy fabric shopping bags or try to carry their shopping in their arms. We also use fabric bags for buying fruit and veg (as in the individual bags you put them in to weigh them). We use recycled toilet paper, tissues and paper towels. We never use plastic plates etc. We use a dishcloth instead of paper towel to wipe up spills. We use eco-friendly and grey-water-safe washing detergent and shampoo. We practice a million little water-wise techniques, which started mostly because of the permanent water restrictions that South Australia had during the ten year drought. Some of these things are just second nature to me, and I take them for granted. I remember when I went to America (my husband is from Louisiana) I felt actual physical discomfort at throwing used bottles and cardboard in the garbage, because recycling is just so ingrained into my nature that I don't think twice about it. We even recycle at work and bought a second recycle bin out of our own pocket because we produce more recycling than waste! I remember feeling like his family were just so wasteful and out of tune with how many resources they consumed. Sometimes being eco-aware and eco-friendly is not about the big things like homesteading or self sufficiency, but the little things.

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                    #84
                    Re: Homesteading, Living Off Grid, and Other Alternative Living

                    That sounds awesome, Rae'Ya!


                    Mostly art.

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                      #85
                      Re: Homesteading, Living Off Grid, and Other Alternative Living

                      Originally posted by thalassa View Post
                      This is just a cool little idea from a cool little company...when I again have outdoor space, I want one for my herbs!
                      This is so cool. It kind of reminds me of what a coworker did. He took a swing set minus the swings and hung three beds from it. They weren't allowed to plant where he was living so he came up with that idea. He says he get a lot of food from it to.
                      We are what we are. Nothing more, nothing less. There is good and evil among every kind of people. It's the evil among us who rule now. -Anne Bishop, Daughter of the Blood

                      I wondered if he could ever understand that it was a blessing, not a sin, to be graced with more than one love.
                      It could be complicated; of course it could be complicated. And it opened one up to the possibility of more pain and loss.
                      Still, it was a blessing I would never relinquish. Love, genuine love, was always a cause for joy.
                      -Jacqueline Carey, Naamah's Curse

                      Service to your fellows is the root of peace.

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                        #86
                        Re: Homesteading, Living Off Grid, and Other Alternative Living

                        Living in south Australia just makes some things easy doesn't it Rae'ya? Rebate on cans and bottles, 3 bins, banned shopping bags, rain water tanks (ours are plumbed in, we don't have mains, and it finally rained! Yaaay!).
                        ThorSon's milkshake brings all the PF girls to the yard - Volcaniclastic

                        RIP

                        I have never been across the way
                        Seen the desert and the birds
                        You cut your hair short
                        Like a shush to an insult
                        The world had been yelling
                        Since the day you were born
                        Revolting with anger
                        While it smiled like it was cute
                        That everything was shit.

                        - J. Wylder

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                          #87
                          Re: Homesteading, Living Off Grid, and Other Alternative Living

                          Originally posted by Heka View Post
                          Living in south Australia just makes some things easy doesn't it Rae'ya? Rebate on cans and bottles, 3 bins, banned shopping bags, rain water tanks (ours are plumbed in, we don't have mains, and it finally rained! Yaaay!).
                          It almost feels like cheating sometimes lol "Yeah we do this, this, this and that, how cool are we?" and then you stop and realise that it would be harder NOT to do it!

                          My husband, sister and I were in Mildura (Vic) for the weekend and saw plastic bags on offer at the supermarket for the first time in years. It was almost painful to accept one! lol

                          Though I have decided that solar panels are a mixed blessing. In the weekend that we were there, my dad (who we went over to visit) washed and dried our bath towels and my niece and nephew's clothes every day. Every day! His reasoning is that he has solar panels and thus it costs him nothing to do it because he feeds so much power back into the grid. Totally missing the point of environmentally aware alternative energy systems!

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                            #88
                            Re: Homesteading, Living Off Grid, and Other Alternative Living

                            Originally posted by Rae'ya View Post
                            It almost feels like cheating sometimes lol "Yeah we do this, this, this and that, how cool are we?" and then you stop and realise that it would be harder NOT to do it!

                            My husband, sister and I were in Mildura (Vic) for the weekend and saw plastic bags on offer at the supermarket for the first time in years. It was almost painful to accept one! lol

                            Though I have decided that solar panels are a mixed blessing. In the weekend that we were there, my dad (who we went over to visit) washed and dried our bath towels and my niece and nephew's clothes every day. Every day! His reasoning is that he has solar panels and thus it costs him nothing to do it because he feeds so much power back into the grid. Totally missing the point of environmentally aware alternative energy systems!
                            I always get so confused when I go interstate and they have plastic bags! But I think they get confused when I'm all like 'um, no, use my green bags please' haha

                            I can imagine that problem with solar panels... I'd probably be prone to that as well... But they we don't have a drier so I have to hang everything outside anyway!
                            ThorSon's milkshake brings all the PF girls to the yard - Volcaniclastic

                            RIP

                            I have never been across the way
                            Seen the desert and the birds
                            You cut your hair short
                            Like a shush to an insult
                            The world had been yelling
                            Since the day you were born
                            Revolting with anger
                            While it smiled like it was cute
                            That everything was shit.

                            - J. Wylder

                            Comment


                              #89
                              Re: Homesteading, Living Off Grid, and Other Alternative Living

                              Originally posted by Rae'ya View Post
                              It almost feels like cheating sometimes lol "Yeah we do this, this, this and that, how cool are we?" and then you stop and realise that it would be harder NOT to do it!

                              My husband, sister and I were in Mildura (Vic) for the weekend and saw plastic bags on offer at the supermarket for the first time in years. It was almost painful to accept one! lol

                              Though I have decided that solar panels are a mixed blessing. In the weekend that we were there, my dad (who we went over to visit) washed and dried our bath towels and my niece and nephew's clothes every day. Every day! His reasoning is that he has solar panels and thus it costs him nothing to do it because he feeds so much power back into the grid. Totally missing the point of environmentally aware alternative energy systems!
                              Don't his water costs add up then, though?
                              We will be the jerks the world needs.

                              Comment


                                #90
                                Re: Homesteading, Living Off Grid, and Other Alternative Living

                                Originally posted by Starling View Post
                                Don't his water costs add up then, though?
                                Also this:



                                - - - Updated - - -

                                Better source:

                                http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5650

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