March 2013

Community

Dry canning ground beef

There are 3 main ways of preserving meat, freezing, drying and canning, I’m sure there are a few more ways but those are the main ways we do it. Freezing meat is probably the most common method, the problems with freezing meats are if you leave it in your freezer for too long, especially if it’s not property packaged, you will find a nasty case of freezer burn when you open the package. There is also the risk of losing what is in your freezer if there is a power outage or your freezer fails. Today we will talk about preserving one of the cheapest meats, ground beef.

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March 31, 2013 5 Comments

Community

Canning other goodies

There are many ways of preserving foods, dehydrating, freezing and canning. Today we will discuss canning. There are many foods that can be canned, meats, vegetables, fruits and such… but did you know you can can other foods as well? How about crackers? Breads?

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March 29, 2013 No Comments

Gleaning information from the older generation

Look around you, how many grey and white heads are nearby? If you are lucky, you will have at least one, if you are very lucky you will have multiple to choose from. Why is it so fortunate to have older folk around? Simple, beneath all that gray and white hair is a plethora of knowledge and experience. This is a valuable resource, and one that is dwindling each and every day. Often the biggest feat is to find those who lived through the great depression and still have their mental faculties and are willing to sit down and talk about their lives, that’s the trifecta!

These folk grew up during a time when most things were done by hand, black and white TV was something for the wealthy, that’s if they had electricity. Lighting was often candles and kerosene lanterns. Some lived on farms and had to get up before dawn to take care of farm animals before eating breakfast and heading off to school. These folks grew up in circumstances that most of us can’t even imagine.

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March 27, 2013 1 Comment

Land

Two luxury properties for sale

As the idea of living off the grid goes steadily mainstream, increasing numbers of properties are being offered on the market. Here are two, at very opposite ends of the spectrum….. and the world.

In Argents Hill, Coffs Harbor, Australia, a dwelling for 230,000 ozzie dollars. In Woodstock, NY, a 2.3 million dollar property.

If you want your own private bushland oasis of 100 timbered acres, there is a council-approved two-bed home plus 7m x 5m Colorbond shed. The basics are all in place. A small solar system, generator, water tanks with pump, two seasonal creeks and a hidden dam. An extensive list of fruit trees are already planted.

In Woodstock, an iconic village north of Manhattan, an off-grid retreat for the 15.

“When I first bought this property,” Miller said, “everyone told me you couldn’t build here. But it was exactly where I wanted to live.” Woodstock is one of those iconic places, both beautiful and convenient, and it s great to see an off-grid home there – a showcase that might encourage many others to do the same.

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March 23, 2013 No Comments

Gardening roundtable

Last Sunday afternoon, I went to a gardening roundtable discussion in my community. I live on a mountain side in the high desert of far west Texas (yes, Texas does have mountains, the Davis Mountains to be exact). It was quite interesting talking to the various gardeners out here. Some were just starting out, some were experienced gardeners but not in this location, and some had gardened out here for many years.

I have been really itching to get out and garden this year, I haven’t gardened much for the last 2 years because of water issues, we didn’t have much of a rainy season those two years. Our rainy season usually starts in July(ish) and ends in September(ish), during those few months we get most of our yearly amount of rainfall. It’s hard to wait for the rainy season to start, typically I would start in spring and hand water.

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March 22, 2013 3 Comments

Why British bank accounts may be next for a raid

Huge deposits of hot money mean UK economy is dwarfed by banking activity

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March 19, 2013 1 Comment

Community

My favorite recipes

Food, it’s something I really REALLY love, I love cooking and eating. As a young child, while my little sister was busy playing with her dolls and tea sets, I was in the kitchen watching my mom cook and bake. My mom was great in the kitchen, she could take a few basics and whip up a grand meal, fortunately that rubbed off on me. :)

I have a few old standbys, one is a tuna casserole, this recipe always makes me think of my mother in law, she makes a similar one and is quite the good cook herself!

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March 18, 2013 No Comments

People

Last American Man gets eviction order threat

The rugged outdoorsman dubbed the ‘Last American Man’ is facing a government shutdown of his camp in the Appalachian Mountains for not adhering to building code.

Eustace Conway dedicated his entire fortune and nearly 30 years of his to building and living off of his 500-acre farm. Now he is facing having his entire way of life shut down by the North Carolina state government. In the YouTube film (click the pic above) he says what motivated him.

You can read much more here about Conway, 51, in an excerpt from my book OFF THE GRID – Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government and True Independence in Modern America

According to the Wall Street Journal, several officials showed up to his Turtle Island Preserve home and found that his outhouses,

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March 18, 2013 26 Comments

Growing food to survive

How much land do you need to survive? This is not a theoretical question if, like Carol Deppe, you bellieve the zombie apocalypse is just around the corner.

The author of The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times,Deppe says you need an acre. But others say a quarter acre is enough.

Deppe’s book might help you build a veggie-garden with climate change in mind, but she lives in temperate Corvalis, Oregon, population 54,462. In other parts of the country such as New Mexico, Texas or Nevada, she might have other concerns. As it is, the book is mainly about surviving when the world infrastructure collapses and she has nothing to rely on but herself.

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March 12, 2013 1 Comment

“Callous” Bill McKibben, eco-fraudster

Letter published in The Burlington Free Press earlier today:

We attended a lecture by Bill McKibben at the Rutland Free Library hoping to hear real solutions in the green energy sector and ways to reduce our carbon footprint. Not only did we come away disappointed but infuriated!

We sat instead in an overheated room viewing his slide show of places all over the world that he had jetted off to. The carbon emissions from his trips alone far exceeded many Vermonters’ carbon footprint. He expressed sympathy for caribou affected by the Hydro Quebec dam and people on the other side of the world but had a cold, callous response to a family here in Vermont, living off the grid, but suffering from Wind Turbine Syndrome.

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March 8, 2013 3 Comments

Community

Womyn’s Day

Its International Women’s Day tomorrow, so a good time to highlight the off-the-grid, female-only colonies which have sprung up over the past decade.

Across America, there are around 100 off-grid communities where anybody saddled with a Y chromosome is forbidden. Welcome to America’s Womyn’s Lands. These largely lesbian communities started life in the 1970s when a cluster of revolutionary women founded a camp on the beach in St Augustine, Florida. Today, one of the largest Womyn’s Lands is found in rural Alabama, in a camp called Alapine Village.

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March 7, 2013 No Comments

Energy

Cooking with Gas

Tokyo, 4 MArch – Japanese scientists have developed a way to generate electricity from chemical waste – a byproduct of paint-manufacturing.

IHI Corp. envisages receiving its first order this year for a next-generation gas-turbine cogeneration system it developed that uses volatile organic compounds (VOC) emitted by chemical, paint and printing plants as fuel to generate electricity, allowing users to lower their VOC-abatement costs while cutting their fuel costs by as much as 40%.

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March 3, 2013 No Comments

Dry canning ground beef

Canning other goodies

Gleaning information from the older generation

Two luxury properties for sale

Gardening roundtable

Why British bank accounts may be next for a raid

My favorite recipes

Last American Man gets eviction order threat

Growing food to survive

“Callous” Bill McKibben, eco-fraudster

Womyn’s Day

Cooking with Gas

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March 2013

OFF-GRID.NET

For films about individuals and technologies for living off the grid

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