BOOKS: The off-grid community and the battle to live their way.
Off The Grid in America (Penguin, 2010)
How to Live Off-Grid UK (Bantam, 2008)
Wierd weather provides yet another reason to dabble with self-sufficiency. Last summer’s floods left more than 300,000 Brits without fresh water and 50,000 without power.
2008 is shaping up to be another bumper year for kayak sales. If things do go wrong, many of us lack the wherewithal to fend for our family. But it doesn’t have to be that way. (more…)
This year�s World Economic Forum is planning a major project to bring off-grid electricity to rural poor in Africa and elsewhere. Canadian BC Energy is heading the initiative which will announce a pilot project during the January 23-27 event in Davos, Switzerland.
Davos is dominated by businessmen, and some women, looking for networking opportunities with politicians and each other. (more…)
OK, sorry about the pix thing, I had a lot of pix uploaded but apparently they weren’t showing up, I could see them but they weren’t visible to anyone else, I fixed the problem, now the pix will be visible to everyone.
Here are the entries with pix:
http://wretha.blogspot.com/2008/01/big-accomplishments.html
http://wretha.blogspot.com/2008/01/solar-stuff-mice-and-smoke.html
I believe the other entries with pix were visible.
01-20-08
Big accomplishments, we now have a metal roof, our big wood burning stove and the sink drain has been plumbed.
First, the metal roof, we were gifted with the material for the metal roof, it was left over material from other projects, it was given to us by our good friends out here, it’s about 3 different colors, but no one can see it unless you are standing on the roof, and we are now water proof and much more wind proof. A few days ago, the weather report said we might get some rain, thunderstorms and possible snow, we had one day’s notice! So Bob went to work in the morning and didn’t stop until it was complete, in fact got sick from doing it, breathing all the dust (the panels were coated in dust and dirt, like everything out here) and the wind was relentless that day, sunny but cold, he had gotten a bit run down and having to cover the entire roof in one day just about finished him off… (he’s getting better now).
I didn’t get to help him, I wished I could have, that was the day I watched my neighbor’s dog Sam, and Sam couldn’t be left alone. Bob did a really good job, as usual :)
The next day, it drizzled, for about 10 minutes, just enough to make the tiniest layer of moist dirt, couldn’t even call it mud, but it was enough to make water run off the roof, nothing dripped inside, it’s also more quiet, when the wind blows it’s a lot quieter. We never got the rain, thunderstorms or snow.
Bob also plumbed the sink, no running water yet, but I can do the dishes inside at the sink now, and I can pour liquids down the sink, it runs through the floor, outside to the ground, we dug a pit and will fill it with gravel, basically gray water disposal.
Yesterday, I made a water run to my neighbor’s house, as I was leaving, Bob was hauling the big wood stove from the side of the house to the back of the house, this thing is big, it weighs around 300 pounds, Bob designed and made this wood stove, it works great, we used it to heat our whole house where we used to live, so it should have no problem heating our little one room cabin! :) I told Bob that I would help him with it when I got back, he smiled and said he would see me when I got back. Well, when I got back, he was on the roof, finishing the chimney cap and spark arrestor. He had, all by himself, removed the small wood stove, and put in the big wood stove, please understand, our cabin sits about 7 feet in the air, there is a 4 step tall wooden porch, that takes you half way to the door, you have to use a ladder for the last few feet to get inside the cabin, so carrying ANYTHING into the cabin is harder to begin with, somehow he managed to lift a 300 pound metal box, over 7 feet into the air, and got it inside the cabin and moved across the floor, and completely installed, all by himself!
He used a tow strap with a ratchet, like it was a block and tackle to lift the wood stove, I wished I could have seen that, I am continually amazed at what he does, all by himself. Last night, we were able to burn real logs, ones that last for hours, we cranked that baby up so hot, we had to open the windows to let in some cold air. I decided that I could use the surface of it for a cook surface, I took some heavy foil and layed it on top, I cooked homemade tortillas on it, they turned out great! It also heats up water for various purposes, mainly for making coffee, I also heat food on it, I open cans of soup or other foods, and I put the can on the stove top, it pretty quickly heats up the contents of the cans, fewer dishes are always welcome!
Animals
Oh, I almost forgot, I have to list all the animals we have seen in the last 2 weeks. We saw a family of collared peccary, these are wild pigs, native to the area, we saw 2 adults, a couple of juveniles and a couple of babies, they walked from the west side of the property, through our “back yard”, and up the mountain. One of the adults came over to investigate the compost pile, that was when I could gauge how big it was, and I must say, if it wanted to, it probably could have pushed over our wire compost pile if it had wanted to, no matter how many stakes it had. I was very happy to see it amble off after just sniffing around.
The other animal we saw was our little fox, it is really cute (yes, I know it’s a wild animal and I respect that), it came around at night, we threw a tortilla to it and it ran off with it’s prize. We don’t intend on making that a habit, the occasional handout is fine, but we don’t want it getting used to getting freebies all the time, we do intend to have chickens at a later date, and I don’t want any more problems with the foxes than we have to.
I also saw the herd of feral donkeys, these are the descendants of the working animals that were part of the ranch land that this used to be. I don’t know exactly how many there are, but usually I see 4 or more, they are on the small side, and seem to do very well around here. This is the first time I have seen them since I have been back here to live, I did see them once before while visiting, I was happy to see them again.
nanabird2000 said…Hollywood’s most reluctant – and increasingly strange � star, Daniel Day-Lewis, insisted on living off-grid during filming There Will Be Blood.
For the past ten years, the London-born actor has led a resolutely reclusive existence, locked away on a remote 50-acre estate in the mountains of County Wicklow, Eire.
He has emerged to make just four films including his latest role as a violent oil prospector in There Will Be Blood, which just won him a Golden Globe, has been nominated for a Bafta, and is tipped to earn him a second Best Actor Oscar. (more…)
Leonardo DiCaprio recently told Air America host Thom Hartmann that Hartmann’s book, “The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight,” helped inspire DiCaprio’s documentary “The 11th Hour.”
Now making the rounds of festivals, “The 11th Hour” explores what DiCaprio sees as grave crises in ocean depletion, global warming, deforestation and species extinction.
Hartmann, who lives on a houseboat on the Willamette River with his wife, Louise, works as a host for Clear Channel and Air America. He has written more than 20 books, including works about attention-deficit disorder, which he wrote after his son, Justin, was diagnosed with the disorder.
Hartmann’s main argument is that oil (stored sunlight) has allowed untrammeled population growth. Nowadays, it takes about 12 years to add one billion people to the global population. So, sooner or later we face the uncomfortable transition from the population level that peak oil production can sustain, to the level current sunlight (think �renewable energy�) can sustain. (more…)
Felix Dennis is best known as a publisher accused of corrupting the nation’s children in the Oz obscenity trials in the 1970s. Today, he seems keener to maintain the status quo and hopes to scupper plans for a new eco-town in the picturesque British countryside where he lives. He has written a book called How to Get Rich and spends his time trying to stop others from achieving the success he has been allowed.
A hero to the 1970s youth movement, Mr Dennis, 61, claims to be an environmentalist, but he has shown himself to be just another selfish rich old geezer. The opening salvo in his fight against the eco-town was a letter of protest to Hazel Blears, the UK�s Communities and Local Government minister. (more…)
Living the 12-volt life is easy if you know how. Without a mains connection, you can either generate power and then turn it into 110 or 240 volts using an inverter, or you can leave it as 12 volts to save money and power.
There are so many 12-volt gadgets these days – made for cars, RVs or boats that you can get anything from a stereo to a washing machine in a 12-volt variety. But this excellent book is overstating it by calling itself “A Do It Yourself Guide.” After reading it, I would be more inclined to hand it to an electrician and tell him, or her, to follow the complex diagrams.
When it comes to wiring a 12-volt set-up you need to be extra careful to use the right kind of extra-thick cable, because 12 volt cables become very hot and can cause fires. You also need to be careful you get your positive and negative wires the right way around, or you can cause battery explosions and fires. (more…)
Two giant Vestas wind turbines in the UK collapsed within weeks of each other in an indication there may be a serial failure in Vestas turbines taking place.
THE firm has insisted there are no major problems with their structures. An executive from Vestas Wind Systems gave the reassurance after it emerged that one of its turbines had fallen in Scotland just weeks before the most recent incident near Caldbeck in Cumbria. They have launched investigations into the incidents. The global manufacturer has produced about 35,000 turbines since being formed in the 1970s. (more…)
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Bollywood star’s off-grid home
Jewel spurns Discovery
The Simpsons to go off the grid for 500th episode
Brad Pitt to build waterfall-powered home
Glenn Beck goes off grid
Nancy
January 23, 2008 9:33 PM
The bug takes the roads great! It’s rough, but these bugs were designed for this, on Christmas, we took the bug to go to a friend’s house for dinner, one of the wheels on the bug was loose and fell off! We walked back to our property, it wasn’t far, we got a few tools, found the lug nuts on the road, and put everything back together, nothing was damaged, this was the one tire that we didn’t change before we left, Bob hadn’t checked it, I’m glad it didn’t happen when we were traveling out here! Anyhoo, it didn’t hurt anything, we put it back on, tightened it back up and went on to dinner. :)
January 25, 2008 9:22 PM