OFG-HowToFreeYourself.svg

Lucy Williams

Spirit

Go Your Own Way

Many of us have bellowed ‘Go your own way!’ at the top of our lungs when listening to Fleetwood Mac, but it’s in that pause that we imagine just what going our own way might be like. Of course, in the context of the song it’s a defiant refrain to a love lost, but this is also what the emotional context might be for those who wish to get away from the artificial nature of self in the twenty-first century and instead experience something real.

How do you have the strength to go your own way, and what might this look like? Perhaps it’s purchasing a set of private number plates. For others, it’s feeling happy simply being who they are and liking what they like, such as a gruff forty-year-old security guard who just loves singing to musicals in his spare time. Perhaps we may not consider those two things to go hand-in-hand, but not caring about image would be a strength on this part of this person.

Going your own way, perhaps to the point where you may wish to live off-grid, can be an exhilarating and also quite worrying prospect if you’re not used to this at all. How might you find the strength to live this kind of lifestyle? We would recommend the following mindset:

A Question Of Values

Questioning your values to begin with can be a solid first step. What is it that is important to you? Do you feel that working in the corporate rat race and living in a heavily urbanized environment to be incredibly tiring? Do you wish for more land, or to be more self-sufficient, or to simply feel like less of a node in a machine rather than a living, thinking, breathing person? It’s important to understand what your values are, because when you have them in line, you can begin to generate principles that help you along this journey. Perhaps having your own land and the means to stay practically self-sufficient are important to you, or perhaps you lament the loss of privacy in urbanized areas.

It’s easy to feel as though you’re making the wrong decision if you haven’t yet considered things.

Being Unafraid

Being unafraid takes, by definition ,a little courage. This sounds completely tautologous, but it actually isn’t. Fear keeps you sensible, and it allows you to use your sharpest senses to make the best decision going forward. If your fear of trying something new is put in its proper place, that can revoke the power fear has over you. This is where you can become more of a maverick, allowing yourself to focus on sustaining yourself through perhaps building your own shelter, negotiating the deed to land or renovating an old house for your purposes. It can also help you with protective tasks such as marking out your property borders and …

Read More »
Community

Nuns growing medical marijuana

Holy Smoke!  From the LA Times to ABC Nightline, everybody loves the Sisters of the Valley, a group of nuns from Northern California who make and sell cannabis-infused medicines.

Nightline tracked them down in their remote off-grid growing location near Merced, CA and screened a short report – here is the transcript:

 

NIGHTLINE ANCHOR:  Religion, something so personal for many of us. But the self-proclaimed weed nuns you’re about to meet put their faith in an all-encompassing, cannabis-based farm where the key to healing is hemp. Here’s my “Nightline” co-anchor Juju Chang.

NUNS (GROUP)

Bless our food and bless our folk, and keep us in your grace.

JUJU CHANG (ABC NEWS)

(VO) Prayer. Ministry.

CHRISTINE MEEUSEN (“SISTER KATE”)

Lead the way over to the abbey.

JUJU CHANG (ABC NEWS)

(VO) Servitude. But these are not your typical nuns.

NUN (FEMALE)

How much have we had today?

JUJU CHANG (ABC NEWS)

(VO) Meet the Sisters of the Valley, the self-styled weed nuns, putting their faith in the healing power of cannabis. And their sermons, so to speak, aren’t just shaped around the sticky icky, they’re political, radical feminists to boot.

CHRISTINE MEEUSEN (“SISTER KATE”)

My big, dirty sin is I voted for Ronald Reagan. But I grew out of it and I think I see more clearly now.

JUJU CHANG (ABC NEWS)

(VO) Their convent is nestled deep in northern California farm country, where I traveled to meet the unorthodox sorority.

NUN (FEMALE)

W for weed nuns.

JUJU CHANG (ABC NEWS)

(VO) But before I could enter the premises, a peculiar request.

CHRISTINE MEEUSEN (“SISTER KATE”)

We’d like to ask you if it’s okay to cleanse you and sage you. We ask anyone who comes, invited to our to house to be cleansed before they enter. Is that okay?

JUJU CHANG (ABC NEWS)

(OC) Of course.

CHRISTINE MEEUSEN (“SISTER KATE”)

Thank you.

JUJU CHANG (ABC NEWS)

(OC) What is this?

CHRISTINE MEEUSEN (“SISTER KATE”)

This is sage, it’s a white sage the natives used to cleanse your aura, to cleanse emotions.

JUJU CHANG (ABC NEWS)

(VO) On this sun-drenched property tucked among vineyards and apple orchards, the women grow cannabis, using a strain of marijuana that eliminates THC but still contains CBD, touted for its healing properties.

CHRISTINE MEEUSEN (“SISTER KATE”)

It’s medical marijuana. So, just like over the years they’ve been able to develop strains that get you super high, we’ve also developed strains that don’t get you high at all.

JUJU CHANG (ABC NEWS)

(VO) Which is the variety they grow in their “Garden of Weeden.” Sister Kate says their top seller, a topical salve to soothe achy joints, which rakes in $3,000 a day. A few of the ladies live in the compound, and a total of six sisters work in the business alongside two brothers.

CHRISTINE MEEUSEN (“SISTER KATE”)

We do …

Read More »

Cannabis growers lead off-grid energy development

Its a little known fact that the Marijuana growers of Northern California were amongst the first to use solar panels to improve their crop yields, back in the mid 1970s.  Forty years later they are still at the forefront of energy innovation, and a burgeoning number of utility companies are working with cannabis cultivators to better manage costs by:

* Assigning employees to work exclusively with marijuana businesses.

* Recommending lighting, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems, which they say can save cultivators tens of thousands of dollars annually.

Here are some of the points growers are focusing on as they consider potential energy savings:

1. Electricity consumption typically is the second-largest cost incurred by indoor cultivation facilities.T

2. Find a Utility executive who is willing to focus on you  0 In May of 2017, I started devoting 100% of my time to the cannabis operations coming into our territory, knowing that all those companies were going to fill one portfolio of commercial account management,” said Matt McGregor, strategic account manager, cannabis operations, for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD).McGregor estimates he has roughly 200 marijuana customers, mostly growers, but also about two dozen customers involved in extraction, infusion, processing and packaging.

3. Go to private utility companies, not government funded or municipal Utlities. Private utilities are investor-owned, for-profit corporations; public utilities are government-owned.Public utilities risk losing their licenses.Private utilities don’t have those constraints. Consider Puget Sound Energy (PSE) in Washington state, which has helped about 80 cannabis customers with about 100 energy-savings projects since 2014.  PSE buys the power it sells to customers off the market or from its own power generation.“So, we didn’t have to be concerned about losing federal funding by serving the cannabis sector,” said David Montgomery, an energy management engineer with PGE.

4.Find a private energy company that operates in your own State.  Xcel Energy – a private utility operator serving eight Western and Midwestern states including Colorado – goes by the same premise.“We work with marijuana companies because they are legal operating entities in the state of Colorado,” Xcel spokesman Mark Stutz said.”We are regulated at the state level, and to deny services would be in violation of state law.”

5. Remember what the Utility stands to gain –  Utility companies may have to build new power plants to supply customers’ demands, which is costly. It’s cheaper to persuade existing customers to reduce energy usage by using conservation practices and buying newer, more efficient lighting and HVAC.

Now, utilities are looking to the cannabis industry as a place where they can help customers take pressure off the grid.“With the legalization of the cannabis market in Massachusetts, and the fact that this business is extremely energy-intensive, this is an agricultural area where there is opportunity to proactively influence the design of these facilities in order to mitigate their very significant energy demand,” noted

Read More »
hemp encompasses the globe
Community

Hemp – key off-grid industry, USA & global events 2018

Hemp is Hot! It is going to be a busy 2018 for Cannabis expos and conferences domestically and internationally. Below is a running list of some of the events taking place in 2018. At Off-Grid HQ, we have also been invited to a few below-the-radar events and will be reporting from them in due course.
Off-Grid.net recognises that the hemp industry was the catalyst for the solar industry and the off-grid movement, and we will continue to cover the industry in great detail. Please send any info to nick@off-grid.net

UPCOMING USA HEMP EVENTS

March 7 — 11, 2018 — Expo West – The CBD Summit — Anaheim, CA

The CBD Summit is your chance to better understand the opportunities and challenges that exist for the hemp-derived cannabidiol market in the United States. With a better understanding of the regulatory, supply, scientific, labeling, retail and standards issues surrounding the hemp-derived CBD market, you will leave the CBD Summit with new intelligence to help inform your next steps as a supplier, manufacturer or retailer of CBD products.

April 6, 2018 — NoCo 3rd Annual Hemp Summit — Loveland, CO

The NoCo Hemp Expo is proud to host the 3rd Annual Hemp Summit, an important gathering of hemp-focused executives, founders and investors. Receive an intimate, insider’s view of the hemp industry during this VIP-level networking and special programming featuring business-focused information, market intelligence and analysis from leaders and influencers in the hemp industry.

April 6-7, 2018 – NoCo 5th Annual Hemp Expo — Loveland, Colorado

An important gathering of hemp-focused executives, founders, and investors. Receive an intimate, insider’s view of the hemp industry during this VIP-level networking and special programming featuring business-focused information, market intelligence and analysis from leaders and influencers in the hemp industry.

April 14, 2018 – PDX Hempfest Expo — Portland, Oregon

A full day of educational sessions with professional Cannabis speakers to bring you up to speed on rapidly changing developments in the Cannabis industry. A high concentration of Cannabis industry technology buyers will be present.

April 14, 2018 — Oregon Hemp Convention — Portland, Oregon

A full day of educational sessions with professional Cannabis speakers to bring you up to speed on rapidly changing developments in the Cannabis industry. A high concentration of Cannabis industry technology buyers will be present.

May 9 — 11, 2018 – MJBizCon 2018 — New Orleans, LA

MJBizConNEXT focuses on the near future of the expanding Cannabis industry. For executives growing their companies and emerging industry professionals looking at cutting-edge innovations, new technologies and how cannabis businesses grow in a rapidly advancing market, NEXT is your show!

March 2 – July, 2018 – First Friday Tour — Spring Hope, North Carolina

These exclusive bonus tours will take shareholders behind-the-scenes of North Carolina’s burgeoning industrial hemp epicenter to see Hemp, Inc.’s processing equipment in full operation and producing product… from the cultivation of its …

Read More »
Water

Raw Water – big money – but should we take it?

It’s called water consciousness – a movement of people who drink unfiltered, unsterilised spring water and even rain water.

Why? Well, for the supposed health benefits. Devotees of bottled ‘raw’ water claim it has salubrious benefits that are lacking from fluoridated tap water and regular bottled water.

Plus, they say, it’s the H20 version of farm to fork. Call it spring to glass.

Such is the growing popularity of the raw wet stuff in the US that Oregon startup Live Water is able to charge a whopping $36.99 (£26.70) for a 2.5-gallon glass bottle – and then $14.99 per refill.

While grocery stores love the idea of 500% profit margin, a growing number of critics are springing up appalled at the hipsters, splurging cash on what they see as a barefaced con. Aren’t people donating millions of dollars to projects all around the world to make sure people aren’t drinking raw water? said one comment on Reddit

The brand is particularly popular with hipsters in San Francisco, where a grocer describes it as having “vaguely mild sweetness” and “a nice smooth mouthfeel”, according to a New York Times report earlier this year.

Devotees of raw water insist it fills them with health-giving bacteria and minerals not found in treated water, while Live Water is confident its product “has all the healthy minerals and probiotics fully unobstructed” and that “no one has ever gotten sick” from drinking it, not even expectant mums.
However, health and hygiene experts have warned untreated water may contain all sorts of nasty bacteria and parasites that can cause illness – especially if it isn’t protected from contamination by bird droppings or cattle dung. That can mean risk of food poisoning, dysentery and infectious diseases such as cholera. And then there’s the arsenic and radon in some types of rocks found in water sources.
Nevertheless, the de facto leader of the water consciousness crusade, Live Water founder Mukhande Singh (formerly Christopher Sanborn), is adamant raw water is the real thing – not the “dead” liquid that comes from our taps, he told the NYT.

“Tap water? You’re drinking toilet water with birth control drugs in them,” he said. “Chloramine, and on top of that they’re putting in fluoride. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but it’s a mind-control drug that has no benefit to our dental health.” (There is no scientific evidence that fluoride is a mind-control drug, but plenty to show that it aids dental health.)

Another prominent proponent of raw water is Doug Evans, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. After his juicing company, Juicero, collapsed last September, he went on a 10-day cleanse, drinking nothing but Live Water. “I haven’t tasted tap water in a long time,” he said.

Before he could order raw water on demand, Mr. Evans went “spring hunting” with friends. This has become more challenging lately: The closest spring around San Francisco has …

Read More »
Vandweller at the wheel of her vehicle
Community

Ducking and diving in a van

Izzy is a  vandweller somewhere in England.  She chose the life as it was a way of getting an affordable home as a low paid worker.  Here she describes some of the pitfalls of her chosen life:

F*ck off you crusties!” The familiar call of a particular lycra-clad cyclist whistles through the air as he commutes past me. Again, this morning, I heard a distinctive throat-clearing and loud phlegm-spit outside my home.

I live in a van. Lots of people do. We do this for a multitude of reasons, whether it is cultural background, choice, or necessity. In my case its financial insecurity. Everyone knows rent is unaffordable and many working people struggle to pay it. Van-living affords some people a way to survive. It allows independence from the rental market and some freedom to move around, it costs the Council nothing, and it costs the environment significantly less than living in a house. Yet it also brings with it a level of precarity and marginalisation.

van-piss-off-note-700x393-7069056

I love living in my van. I know other people in vans and we have cups of tea, share meals and generally help each other out. People walk past and smile; they inquisitively peer in, admire our homes, and stop and chat. As I generally feel supported by my community it is easy to find the cyclist’s call – “F*ck off you crusties!” – humorous, but otherwise I might feel vulnerable.

I felt that way when my van was graffiti-tagged and I had a window smashed. Last summerI received rude notes and even an elaborate fake Council-letter warning me about an imminent ‘van removal project’. I did not move on, and I later came home to my tyres stabbed. When I replaced them the same thing happened again. I called the police but their response was minimal. I have since learned that about 10 other vans got their tyres slashed by residents around the same period, in the same well-to-do area. We’re sometimes treated badly simply because we live in vehicles.

Earlier this week my van-neighbour awoke to a policeman opening his door, allegedly “looking for someone in a caravan”. It is against the law to enter a home without permission or warrant. My vandweller friend protested that it was rude to just come in without knocking. The policeman retorted that it was rude to live on the street without paying local tax, implying he felt he could act with impunity. He drove off before my friend got a chance to get dressed and speak with him properly.

Local Tax

I imagine my van-neighbour would have liked to say the following: Van-people pay vehicle tax, and our wages are taxed. We may not pay local tax, yet services such as rubbish collection and recycling are less readily available to us. But this is beside the point: why should our status as fellow human beings …

Read More »
winery self sufficient
Work

Tasmanian Winery

Increasing number of businesses are unplugging.

Tasmanian Wine label Moores Hill recently installed a multi-million-dollar on-site processing facility powered by 108 solar panels, making it the state’s first off the grid winery.

Winery director Tim High was excited to test it out this vintage. “It’s off the grid in terms of electricity, it’s off the grid in terms of water, it’s off the grid in terms of effluent treatment,” he said.

“Basically, this is a standalone, 100 per cent, self-sustained Tasmanian winery.”

Co-owner Fiona Weller said the winery will open the processing facility to visitors as a tourist attraction.

“We can take them out into the vineyard, they can taste grapes and then they can come into the winery and see grapes being fermented and taste wine from the tank,” she said.

“While the investment… is large, over the long term it’s a very positive investment.”

Read More »
Bureaucracy attacks Rancher
Land

Dealing with Bureaucracy

Off-Grid living and Government Bureaucracy are totally opposed to each other. Many people go off the grid just to get away from the Bureaucrats. but you can never escape them altogether. An anonymous rancher from the mid-west tells his story:

I’m sure most everyone would agree that public service is a noble calling. We are indebted to all those since our founding fathers who have stepped up to serve the greater good. Unfortunately, serving the good of the public and that of the bureaucracy seems to be almost diametrically opposed.

I know many ranchers who have considered just moving out of the system entirely versus dealing with bureaucrats and bureaucracies. But the reality is there is no way to avoid them, no matter how frustrating, impersonal, complex, incompetent, and arrogant they may be. In fact, the reach of bureaucracies into our daily lives seems to be growing exponentially, almost at the pace of their incompetence.

In business, we have to innovate, we have to do things more efficiently (reduce overhead), we have to improve the quality and timeliness of our decision-making and we have to become more customer centric and deliver more value. It is a never-ending, daily struggle for survival that ensures that businesses have this type of focus.

The great irony is that bureaucracies, because of their nature, often perversely have the opposite incentives. They must spend all their money, grow their sphere of influence and gobble up more and more resources while often doing less and less.

Thus, innovative, cost-effective, efficient, customer focused, responsive to change, or even user-friendly are not words that one usually associates with bureaucracies, and for good reason.

For example, I recently had to go to a local social security office—local when you are a rancher includes traveling 180 miles to the nearest government office—to get a replacement social security card for my son. I won’t go through the month of wasted time attempting the process through the mail that his mother suffered through.

I knew I was in trouble when the alert security guard sent me back to my car as he spotted my pocket knife. When I returned, I had the privilege of standing in line to answer several questions on a touch screen computer so that I could be issued a number that would allow me to speak to a human.

There was not enough seating so we had to stand. The only thing to do was to watch the Social Security TV network that was playing on several big screens around the room. The weather was the focal point, along with admittedly well-conceived marketing messages that would make you inclined to be supportive of the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the job it does.

The other tidbits were kind of shocking as they were highly reflective of a political agenda, which ironically was mostly focused on global warming. While …

Read More »
Bottled Gas is a gas
Community

Calor Gas offers up to £5,000

Bottled Gas supplier Calor Gas is offering funding of up to £5,000 for schemes that will improve life in off-grid communities.

Calor Gas spokesman Paul Blacklock said: “We provide energy to homes and businesses and understand the challenges country living can pose, especially when it comes to community facilities. Projects we support could be anything from community centres, village halls and sporting venues to youth clubs and Scout groups, or they could be initiatives to support the elderly.

“Entries open on April 3. We will be encouraging the whole community to get on board by voting for their favourite.”

Calor Gas Limited (Calor), a subsidiary of SHV Holdings N.V. is an energy service company that provides liquefied petroleum gas supply and other energy services. The company offers products and services such as home energy supply, boiler and heating services, gas bottles, Calor liquefied petroleum gas autogas, and renewable energy for residential customers. It offers LPG solutions for FLT, fork lift truck training, heating solutions, radiant heating, warm air heating, wet system heating, water heating, farming wit LPG, and servicing and maintenance, among others to business customers. The company also sells gas cylinders, outdoor living, commercial appliances, in the home, and solid fuel pallets. Calor is headquartered in Warwick, the UK.

Calor Gas Limited Competitors include

Alpha Petroleum Resources Limited

FCL Petroleum Limited

Gasrec Ltd

Linton Fuel Oils

Sonatrach Petroleum Corporation

BOC Group Limited

 

Read More »
Food

Trail Cameras for Hunters or Animal Lovers

Whether you are an avid hunter or just love watching animals behaving normally in their natural habitat, you will want to read this.

A trail camera is a relatively low cost way to improve the efficiency of hunting as well as being the only way you can watch animals in their every day situations without disturbing them by your presence.

Trail cameras have huge possibilities for hunters. You can carry out a survey of the animal population in your chosen location, study the habits of your prey and even catch poachers and trespassers who have no right to be in the area. This last benefit is also one for animal lovers and vegans who wish to protect their local fauna from invasive hunting.

One thing to worry about is your beautiful new camera being stolen by other humans – whether they be hunters or just ramblers. That is why camouflage is an important consideration.
At around $150, one of the best buys is the Bushnell Trophy Cam Aggressor No Glow with Xtra Camo. As well as having excellent battery life and great night vision, it is also extremely hard to spot (other than when it actually goes off and uses the built in flash).

Choosing the best camera for your needs though leads you to consider the correct criteria. Features that matter most include portability, image resolution, night vision and storage space. To guide you in selecting the best option, have a look at this buyers’ guide .

Read More »
Water

Why your water supply may cost more in future

A New York Times investigation into rapidly rising water and sewage bills highlit the involvement of Wall Street finance in upgrading century old waterworks.

The paper has a detailed case study of three small towns across America,including Bayonne NJ, a rustbelt area.  The story shows that you might consider investing in your own well or rainwater harvesting if you live in a similar city:

n 2012, this blue-collar port city cut a deal with a Wall Street investment firm to manage its municipal waterworks.

Four years later, many of its old brown pipes have been replaced by shiny cobalt-blue ones, reflecting a broader infrastructure overhaul in Bayonne. But the water and sewer bill jumped so much that some are thinking about moving out of town.

“My reaction was, ‘Oh, so I guess I’m screwed now?’” said Ms. Adamczyk, an accountant and mother of two who received a quarterly bill for almost $500 this year. She’s not alone: Another resident’s bill jumped 5 percent, despite the household’s having used 11 percent less water.

Even as Wall Street deals like the one with Bayonne help financially desperate municipalities to make much-needed repairs, they can come with a hefty price tag — not just to pay for new pipes, but also to help the investors earn a nice return, a New York Times analysis has found. Often, these contracts guarantee a specific amount of revenue, The Times found, which can send water bills soaring.

Water rates in Bayonne have risen nearly 28 percent since Kohlberg Kravis Roberts — one of Wall Street’s most storied private equity firms — teamed up with another company to manage the city’s water system, the Times analysis shows. City officials also promised residents a four-year rate freeze that never materialized.

In one measure of residents’ distress, people are falling so far behind on their bills that the city is placing more liens against their homes, which can eventually lead to foreclosures.

In a typical private equity water deal, higher rates help firms earn returns of 8 to 18 percent, more than what a regular for-profit water company may expect. And to accelerate their returns, two of the firms have applied a common strategy from the private equity playbook: quickly flipping their investment to another firm. This includes K.K.R., which is said to be selling its 90 percent stake in the Bayonne venture.

Bayonne’s sales pitch to its citizens illustrates the bold steps town officials can take — including making promises that are at odds with the actual terms of the deal — to attract private equity money.

At a public meeting in city hall, a lawyer for the city promised that, after an initial rate bump, there would be “a rate freeze for four years,” according to a meeting transcript. Bayonne’s mayor, Mark Smith, later reiterated the four-year freeze in a magazine article.

That promise turned out …

Read More »

off-grid.net

Join the global off-grid community

Register for a better experiencE on this site!