What harm could this do?

“Proud to be a hutter”, is the slogan of a new campaign called A Thousand Huts which has sprung up to champion and revive hutting as a way of life. Widespread in Scandinavia, its supporters say hutting promotes low-impact, ecological living and rural regeneration, and puts city dwellers back in contact with the countryside.

In 2012, hutters, landowners and environmental activists will launch a new Scottish hutting federation to spearhead a campaign aimed at reforming planning and land rights laws, to give hutters proper status in the planning system and protect them against eviction and exploitation by landlords.

Secretary of the Carbeth Hutters in Stirlingshire, Scotland’s largest hutting colony, Gerry Loose says the attractions are immediate and obvious. A poet, playwright and garden designer, he and his daughter Marie first got their hut 13 years ago as a weekend retreat and an escape from Maryhill, a tough neighbourhood in north Glasgow.

“I was living in a 22-storey high-rise and I had a wee daughter. I didn’t necessarily want her to see this was the only possible way to live in the world,” Loose said. “And just getting the hut meant that there was an avenue of escape; just mooching about, getting away from the city.

“As Marie grew older, she came out here with her chums and I knew she was perfectly safe. Everybody keeps an eye on the kids here. It sounds corny or old fashioned but it’s true. Everyone knows who the children are; they go around building gang huts and the older ones look after all the younger ones.”

Peeping out from a stand of conifers as Loose arrived at Carbeth was a young female red deer; the hutters often see woodpeckers, birds of prey and hosts of woodland birds. Morven Gregor, Loose’s partner and chair of the Carbeth Hutters, said that harvesting the colony’s profusion of wild raspberries for jam-making was a tradition.

The hutters hold dances in the village hall, and impromptu music sessions in the summer. “It’s just a magic, restorative place to be, for all its quirkiness,” Gregor said.

Many take inspiration from Norway, Sweden and Finland, where hutting is central to family life. In Norway alone, there are nearly 430,000 cabins and holiday chalets. Propelled partly by the Wallander detective novels by Swedish novelist Henning Mankell, Scandinavian writers have brought that culture – of remote huts overlooking lakes and beaches or in forest clearings – to British horizons.

In Scotland, the only solid estimate, made in 2000 by the then Scottish executive, suggested there were nearly 650 huts scattered across the country, some in established communities such as Carbeth, which has about 140 huts dotted across 90 acres of woodland, some in smaller colonies near towns such as Peebles, others in more isolated alternative settlements in remote peninsulas such as Assynt in the north-west.

Hundreds are believed to have disappeared in the past few decades, going out of fashion or being pushed out by rising property prices.

In an accidental parallel with the hutting campaign, the Forestry Commission has just launched an initiative to set up legally protected “woodland crofts”, giving foresters and rural people land and a building plot next to their conifer plantations and woodlands across the Highlands and Islands.

Ninian Stuart, the hereditary keeper and steward of Falkland Palace in Fife – a medieval hunting lodge and palace which is now a crown property – and one of the main forces behind the campaign, believes there has been a marked shift in mood.

“If you look back 100 years or even 50 years, there was a strong tradition of hutting in Scotland,” he said. “Over the last 25 years, there has been a serious decline, but the Thousand Huts campaign has shown there’s a real thirst to revive hutting. For me, 2012 looks to be the year when the curve turns upwards again.”

One important model is legislation introduced in the Welsh assembly that promotes low-impact and low-carbon housing, said Maf Smith, former director of the Sustainable Development Commission, and a campaign adviser. The Welsh now treat these cabins and huts as a specific class of dwelling in planning law. “That has been a game-changer in Wales,” Smith said.

In Scotland, campaigners want hutters to have legal rights of occupation and tenure after several notorious cases where communities have been evicted or faced with huge rent increases.

The 140 hutters at Carbeth – a community founded partly by socialists and communists from Glasgow and Clydebank before the second world war – famously began a rent strike 14 years ago after their landlord tried to double and triple rents. After forming a co-operative company, they have struck a deal with the owner to buy their land under Scotland’s community buyout legislation and have until January 2013 to raise £1.75m. They have raised nearly £520,000 so far and are preparing to bid for public grants to help meet the shortfall.

Hutters at Barry Downs near Carnoustie in Angus were less lucky. A handful of residents in the prewar hutting community have been fighting an eviction order by their landlord, the neighbouring caravan site owner. In south-west Scotland, there are uncorroborated reports that a hutting colony has been bulldozed by the site owner.

Daye Tucker, a rural affair campaigner who is prominent in Scottish Land and Estates, the body for Scotland’s most powerful lairds and landowners, said landowners and farmers were beginning to welcome hutting as way of reviving rural areas, using poor quality land and generating income. “Lots of us understand there’s a dangerous disconnect between urban and rural people,” she said. “We’re at a very early stage. It’s just about dropping a pearl into a pool, and watching the ripples form.

Break free and make dough

Having an off-grid home used to reduce its value but now being off-grid can increase a property’s value says a national firm of valuers in the US.

The rising price of energy is the reason says Propell National Valuers chief executive officer Bart Mead

‘‘Some properties have had considerable amounts spent on ‘improvements’ that, if not attractive to others, may provide no added value,’’ he said.

He used the example of the use of alternative energy sources to power properties.

“While owners of ‘off-grid homes’ may have spent a lot of money installing alternative energy systems and value them highly, until recently potential buyers may not have valued the improvements as highly.”

He said it was an attitude that was slowly changing.

‘‘I watched an old movie recently where everyone in it was smoking, but now you hardly ever see smoking unless it’s a bad guy. Attitudes change,’’ he said.

He said four to five years ago overvaluing a property that was off-grid may have been a problem, but with soaring electricity prices and the increasing popularity of solar power it had already become “much less of an issue.”

Katie - mucks out the stables herself, apparently

Katie Price, referred to in the media as a “reality TV star,” has been given planning permission for a temporary shed in her grounds to house her family while improvements are carried out to her main home.

The local planners near her home in Sussex said that because the millionaire celebrity owned horses which she might need to look after at night, she had a right to live there.  This is an important ruling which the off-grid community in the UK will be studying closely. Clearly its no obstacle even if you have grooms to the the main work for you as long as they live elsewhere.

Her agent Paul Tither wrote to the council in a bid to allow Katie – who keeps horses on her land – to have the cabin put up temporarily.

According to the Daily Mirror newspaper, he told them: “The proposals are to provide adequate living accommodation for a family of five including a disabled child for a temporary period. The applicant needs to be on site to tend to the horses within the stables in case of an emergency overnight.”

Council officer Lisa da Silva said: “The planning authority would not normally grant permission for such development but under the circumstances it is considered reasonable to make an exception and to allow the development for a limited period.”

well thank go0dness for that!

Our pre-off-grid life was pretty much like most anyone else, we lived in a regular house, a mobile home actually, in a regular neighborhood in north central Texas. PB owned his own business, taking care of restaurant equipment for several big name companies and a smattering of smaller ones, he was a one-man-band, no employees. I worked 2 jobs, the first as a merchandiser and pricing coordinator for a big box electronics company and the other job was as a trainer in a semi-well known gym for women. We weren’t what you would call well off financially, but we were happy.

We were both empty nesters from previous marriages, in the beginning neither one of us knew the other had a secret desire to live off grid, when we began to explore the idea of actually doing this, it didn’t take us long to find our perfect plot of land in far west Texas, it was just under 6 acres of unimproved, rough, almost inaccessible land on the side of a mountain in the high desert.

I cashed in my stock from my job and had enough to buy the land and had a little left over to buy some building material for the start of the cabin (soon to be renamed the sky castle). In less than 2 weeks, PB had a minimal structure built, it was enough for us to move in. We were able to get some solar panels, a charge controller, a few deep cycle batteries and a few other things we needed to get started. We began to disassemble our current city lives, PB shut down his business, I quit both of my jobs, and on December 22, 2007 we moved all of our remaining belongings to our new life in west Texas.

The first few months were pretty rough, we lived in a most primitive manner, some might even say our first few years were pretty primitive, I suspect some might even say we still live very primitively, that’s OK, it’s quite wonderful to me. We met a great neighbor who gave us some help, it made life a bit easier, things like access to his water well instead of having to go to the community well, access to his washer and dryer instead of washing by hand and hanging to dry, access to his shower instead of taking spit baths… all things we were prepared to do on our own, but having such a great neighbor we were able to do many things a little easier, in return we do most of the maintenance on his house, we do other things for him too, so it’s a fair trade.

We quickly learned about the barter system and before long we had enough connections with the community that when anyone had some used, scrap or excess building materials, they would contact us first to see if we could use it. Most of the rest of the sky castle was built using this scrap material that would have otherwise gone to the landfill. PB would go and tear down a building at a friend’s property and we would get to take the material home. Please understand, we aren’t tree huggers, we aren’t doing any of this because it’s “green”, for us it was cheap and expedient, the fact that we were in fact being green was merely a bonus.

Little by little we built up our little place into a home, with running water, eventually installing on demand propane powered water heaters, water tanks for more water storage, we built another room, the first one was 16×16, the addition was 12×12, we built on decks and eventually, my favorite addition, the shower. We also began to work on other things, like the garden, putting up out buildings, sheds and such.

All of this has taken time and lots of sweat, we have spent very little money, mainly because we do everything ourselves, and a lot of experimentation, some of which worked great, some which failed miserably. We have been blessed by good health and only minor accidents, mostly scrapes and splinters. We have grown to really love our little community, I’d say that has been as important as anything we have done. No matter how perfect your place might be, if you aren’t happy with or welcome into your community, that will not end up in a good way.

Now we are living like kings, at least that is my opinion, of course by most people’s standards including the government, we live well under the poverty level, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, I love my life, I love living with the freedom I have, I love working hard for what we have, it really does make me appreciate each and every little thing we have. When we first started out, I was hauling 3 one gallon containers of water up the hill from my neighbor’s house every day, sometimes twice a day, I guarantee you that makes me appreciate my 1550 gallon poly plastic water container with all the plumbing involved, doing dishes and laundry by hand inside my sky castle, getting to shower with hot running water…

I look forward to many more years with PB, improving our lives and the sky castle. The last couple of days has been quite fun for PB, one of our friends and neighbors came by, he had been eyeballing the gravel in our creek bed, he offered a trade for a few trailer loads of gravel, he let us use his Bobcat tractor to do some dirt work, PB achieved in a few hours of work what would have taken him weeks if not months of hard manual work, it cost zero dollars, but was priceless for us. I have to say that life is good.

A big part of my happiness is because of my faith, I found a little church in the neighborhood (we are blessed with 2 of them close by), I joined and quickly became active in the church, now I’m on the board of trustees, working to make things better and better. I have been a Christian for many years, most of my life, but living out here and being part of this church and community has helped me grow in my faith and get closer to God. I’m not saying that is necessary for you, (though for me it is), it’s a choice you have to make, I am saying that going to church is a good way to get closer to your community, and hopefully to God too, I am blessed everyday and in every way, even in the bad times, there is always a lesson to learn, a period of growth, a strengthening. Getting to live in and near nature allows me to personally witness Divinity on a daily basis.

I have many people contact me to ask for my advice on how they should go about moving off grid, how to do it cheaply, how they should do it… it’s difficult to answer because everyone is different, everyone has different standards of how they want to live, everyone has different ideas and circumstances. My biggest advice is to have a dream and set goals, let nothing come between you and your goals, I have found that people will do what they really want to do, and unfortunately there are many who wish but don’t take the action necessary to make their wish a reality. I’m not judging, just stating the facts about what I see.

If you truly want to live off grid, then do it, you don’t have to do it all at once, but start taking the steps necessary to get you to the place where you want to be. Each step you take is a step closer to your dream, don’t let life get in the way, don’t let family, friends, a job, or anything else get in the way, do what is necessary to make yourself happy and the rest of everything will fall into place. I’m not advocating doing anything illegal, I’m assuming that most of my readers are reasonable, law abiding people. I am advocating living your life to the fullest extent, and if that includes living off grid, then do it.

If you want to learn more about our lives living off grid, you can read more of my stories here

http://www.off-grid.net/section/wretha/

you can also read about us in the book Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America by Nick Rosen, we are chapter 9 in the book.

Paladino: Fighting the Utilities

Buffalo developer Carl P. Paladino has filed separate lawsuits against National Grid and Verizon over what he claims are outrageous charges for moving utility lines and poles to accommodate new businesses.

Describing the utilities as “sick with greed,” Paladino says he has no choice but to take legal action because the state’s Public Service Commission has failed to hold “monopolistic” utilities accountable.

Paladino,a GOP politician, claims the utility companies refuse to detail how they arrive at prices when running lines to a newly constructed building or reconfiguring service to renovated properties.

The refusal, Paladino says, indicates the utilities have something to hide.

“In both cases, there has been collusion, overbilling, mis-billing and fraud,” he said.

Nonsense, say the utility companies, insisting they charge fair prices and dismissing Paladino as someone who files frivolous lawsuits.

“Mr. Paladino’s accusations of collusion and fraud are false,” said Verizon spokesman John Bonomo. “Verizon’s charges for its work are fair and reasonable.”

National Grid spokesman Stephen F. Brady added, “Regulations in the state require us to recover our costs, but without profit.”

This is not the first time Paladino has taken on adversaries much bigger than his development company.

In 2006, a lawsuit he filed against the state Thruway Authority was credited with spurring the removal of the Breckenridge and Ogden toll booths, collectively saving downtown commuters millions of dollars.

More recently, in July Paladino filed a complaint, which is still active, with the U. S. Attorney’s Office alleging that several Buffalo Public Schools officials, the teachers union president and a School Board member are involved in a conspiracy to benefit from school district business.

Paladino’s utility cases, which are now pending in State Supreme Court, involve a $45,441 charge for relocating a telephone line one block where he built a discount retail store; and a $41,000 bill for moving an electric line on the site of a new drug store.

Verizon, he said, charged an hourly rate of $139 for each of its construction crew workers. Based on a 40-hour work week, Paladino said the utility’s laborers would receive close to $300,000 annually.

He does not believe workers earn that kind of salary, but that the high hourly rate reflects efforts by the utility to make profits at the expense of developers and their customers.

Bonomo, the Verizon spokesman, said this latest court action is one of a series of misguided lawsuits filed against Verizon by Paladino’s company, Ellicott Development.

“In each case, Verizon provided Ellicott with reasonable cost estimates for work that Ellicott requested,” Bonomo said. “After receiving Ellicott’s approval, Verizon performed the requested work, including relocation of Verizon’s cables, poles and other communications facilities.

“Inexplicably, after Verizon completed the work, Ellicott demanded a refund of amounts already paid to Verizon,” Bonomo said.

Paladino says that he had no alternative but to initially go along with the pricing under protest, since Verizon and National Grid own the utility lines and the work might never get done.

National Grid, Paladino said, refuses to send him detailed bills on how expenses are incurred for moving lines and poles.

In a letter last month to National Grid, Paladino lambasted the company, saying, “I am tired of receiving your idiotic billings and taking them on faith that they are proper, correct and not a rip-off.”

National Grid, he said, owes it to its customers to provide bills that offer detailed explanations on how the construction billing is calculated, rather than “four-line invoices.”

An April 15 National Grid email to Shannon Heneghan, one of Paladino’s attorneys, cited “trade secrets” and “confidentiality” as reasons why the utility does not release additional information on how the cost of a project is determined.

“National Grid does not, as a matter of policy, provide more detailed information than that already provided. By law, National Grid is required to charge only the actual cost for work it performs in these situations,” the email stated.

To provide additional information might give “insights as to how the company manages its business,” particularly with how “National Grid’s cost accounting systems allocate costs across its business units,” the email said.

The utility, Heneghan also stated, “works very hard to obtain the best prices for all work,” whether it be for material purchases or the services of contractors, and to reveal actual prices of supplies and labor could impede future negotiations with those vendors.

Brady, National Grid’s spokesman, said bills provided to Ellicott Development are the same as statements sent to all of the utility’s customers.

“The format and the content of the bill that Ellicott Development received is fairly common in our industry,” Brady said.

Brady also disputed Paladino’s claim that the utility is profiting from the installation or relocation of utility lines, noting that the utility is precluded by the state Public Service Commission from making a profit.

While both lawsuits are in their early stages, Paladino said he eventually will present snapshots of typical work days for utility crews proving that there is collusion among the laborers and their bosses to pad costs.

Paladino says that when he complained about the lack of billing information to the state PSC, which regulates utilities, he received form letters explaining that his complaints have been referred to staffers, but no action is ever taken.

James Denn, the commission’s spokesman, said that he could not specifically address Paladino’s criticisms, but said the commission reviews every complaint filed with it.

“We deal with thousands of complaints a year and each complaint is closely reviewed,” Denn said. “The first step is for the consumers to work with the utility. If that fails, they are encouraged to come to the commission for resolution.”

Developers, Paladino said, are not the only ones facing high labor costs from the utilities.

“It could be anybody. What about the taxpayers when the utilities do work for the government?” he said.

Other smaller businesses, he said, are fearful of speaking out against the utilities.

“They either don’t have the resources to challenge them in court or they are afraid that if they complain, the work projects they’ve requested will be put to the bottom of the list by the utilities,” he said. “That’s why I’m suing the utilities.”

Homesteading, it’s a buzzword that means different things to different people, back in the day, it meant getting land for free as long as you lived on it and improved it for x number of years. It was a way to get people to move west (in the USA), back when travel was slow and painful, even dangerous.

Today it usually refers to someone who is living more like our ancestors did, in a more self sufficient manner, on a plot of land, often raising livestock, growing their own food, living more independently. Most of us are more than one generation removed from those who lived on a farm or homestead, so we don’t benefit from the knowledge of our family members who lived in a more self sufficient manner. I know in my family, it was my great grand parents who had lived on a farm, my grandparents and parents lived in suburban neighborhoods with small yards and animals no bigger than a dog.

Because of this, those of us who want to live closer to the land have to resort to alternative methods of obtaining  knowledge. I continually scour the internet for books about living off grid, gardening and such, I found this book The Ultimate Guide to Homesteading: An Encyclopedia of Independent Living (The Ultimate Guides), actually I didn’t find it, I was offered an opportunity to review it and I jumped at the chance, it was a book I had been looking at previously and was more than happy to review it.

I keep getting distracted from writing because I keep finding more and more interesting things in this book to read, I just read about growing cotton, then picking it, cleaning it, and spinning it. Since I crochet, this is especially appealing to me, and something I think I can do with little trouble. For now, I’m not set up to raise wool bearing animals, but I can grow cotton and process it.

This book has a lot to offer, it doesn’t go into extreme detail on any one subject, but gives you enough information so that you can decide if that particular thing is something you really want to try.  Nicole Faires (don’t you just love her name?) the author, has certainly lived the life, she is not just spouting theory, she grew up on a hobby farm raising chickens and growing her own food among other things.

While not an exhaustive list of homesteading subjects, I believe it covers the majority of them quite nicely, such as:

• land-buying, communities…
• water-getting it, purifying it and such
• food-finding it, growing it, preserving it…
• animals-livestock, domestic…
• shelter-various home styles, barns, fences…
• financial-making money from your skills…
• health-medicines, herbal medicines,
• and lots more

There is a great  dictionary in the back so you will at least sound like you know what you are talking about when chatting with the old timers at the feed store, LOL, seriously, I have had a good time reading the terminology and their meanings. Such as “butt-up”, before reading this book, I would have said that is how one lands when tripping over a rock and doing a face plant, now I know that is a type of roof ridge made in thatching which forces the straw together from both sides of the roof to form a peak. “Flying change”, I would think it’s what happens when you lose control of your change purse, but it really has to do with horses.

Near the back of the book, just before the index, the author’s bio and several blank pages (perfect for adding your own notes), there is a great bibliography with tons of resources, mostly in the form of internet links. These will send you to more detailed resources for the subjects found in this book. This alone is worth the price of the book.

The book is easy to read, well made, with lots of color photographs and diagrams, nice thick glossy pages ensure this book will last for a long time, that’s a good thing because once you have this book, you will be referring to it over and over again throughout the years.

PB (my hubby) has been trying to steal this book from me ever since I received it, his comment on it was that it is a good all over resource, not detailed on each thing, but a good book and he’s glad we have it, he has also been going on and on about how well this book is physically put together, the binding, the paper quality and the pictures. Now that I’m finished with this review, I can safely give the book to him, I’ll not see it again for a while. :)

See my other book reviews here:
http://www.off-grid.net/tag/book-review/

Honesty disclaimer:
I did receive this book free from the publisher for the expressed intent of giving a review, that in no way influenced my review, all of my reviews are honest and from the heart.

Whatever next?

He sold his life on eBay and travelled the world – now Ian Usher has bought his own Caribbean island.

Situated just off the coast of Bocas del Toro, in north-west Panama, Mr Usher’s private tropical getaway has no name and is undeveloped.

The 47-year-old, who hit the headlines in 2008 when he sold his Australian home, car, job and friends as a package on internet auction site eBay after splitting from his wife, bought the 2.2-acre island from an anonymous British ex-pat for an undisclosed sum.

It was purchased by Darlington- born Mr Usher for less than $50,000 (£30,000).

The proud new owner, who was educated atBarnard Castle School and who emigrated to Australia in 2001, plans to build an off-grid house on the island when he moves there in six weeks’ time.

He spotted it on a property finding trip to Panama, in April.

Speaking from Canada last night, where he is living with his partner, Moe, he said: “The island’s main asset, I believe, is its location. It is in a relatively sheltered part of the Caribbean, so has very calm water.

“It is about 15 minutes by boat to town. There is snorkelling and diving almost right off the dock, and some lovely restaurants a short boat ride away. The island hasn’t ever been used for anything – it’s just an overgrown, forested, undeveloped island at the moment.”

Mr Usher is now planning on relaxing and living the simple life, at least for a while.

“I plan to make a relatively simple home there, all off-grid and as self-sufficient as possible,” he said. “Water will be from rainwater collection, power from solar. I plan to grow coconuts, bananas, pineapple, mango, and maybe some coffee, and keep chickens for eggs, too, perhaps.

“I also want to have some toys, maybe a sailboat and a jet ski, and some diving gear.

“Hopefully, over the coming years I can make it pretty special.”

Better without the Towers

Help persuade National Park Service (NPS) to block massive powerlines across Everglades National Park.  Our voices are definitely being heard.

The deadline for electronic submission of public comments is next Monday, July 25th, at midnight.  Comment form is here:

http://m1e.net/c?86992467-OI.yp3JDVmPx6%406643204-IJ3mSNbgWPMxo

Some things to consider with regard to submitting comments.  Everglades National Park contains remnants of a completely unique planetary ecosystem.  In addition to being the first “biological park” in our nation’s history and by far the largest designated wilderness in the eastern United States, the park is also a World Heritage Site, an International Biosphere Reserve, and a Wetland of International Importance.  Unfortunately, Everglades National Park also consistently ranks among “top travel destinations to see before they disappear” – and approximately one million visitors per year take that opportunity.  See example here – article also provides a good summary of the basic problem:

http://m1e.net/c?86992467-PaVpuAZlvVjFo%406643205-3Spcot2crYumY

NPS has created a rather complex public comment form for this project and folks wanting to comment are free to jump to the final box and tell the park service in your own words how you would like your park to be managed with regard to these powerlines.  Answering the questions posed by NPS is completely optional and should not keep folks from commenting in the open comment box at the bottom.  While signing a petition is easier  it is NPS policy to treat all form letters – no matter how many come in – as a single response.  Unique letters of any length are definitely the way to make an impact in this case.  Also good to keep in mind – officers of the National Park Service are your public servants – they work for you.  No need to be shy.

NPS has identified three alternatives for folks to consider:

1. The “No Action Alternative”.  Florida Power and Light (FPL) would retain their old corridor inside the park and it would be up to FPL to try and get their massive powerlines permitted.  Just about impossible since the 1989 Everglades National Park Protection and Expansion Act required that this land be acquired and be managed as “park”.  Utility lines have already been considered and rejected as an “incompatible use”.  This alternative – leaving in place a corridor which could lead to 150 foot high transmission towers inside a National Park – is also completely inconsistent with the mission of the National Park Service as stated in the Organic Act of 1916:

“…to promote and regulate the use of the…national parks…which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

2.  Do the land swap which was authorized (but not mandated) by a rather strange inclusion buried deep in the massive Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (Section 7107).  NPS would acquire the original FPL corridor – but would give up NPS land on the east side of the park.  Everglades National Park would also gain a new industrial horizon visible to visitors throughout the area.  Along with the necessary utility access road which would be constructed, the project would likely lead to severe impacts on wetlands, bird and animal populations (especially bird collisions and electrocutions), and facilitate the spread of invasive plant species throughout the area.  A good summary article dealing with potential impacts of this project is here:

http://m1e.net/c?86992467-9GeTPmiiEIdT6%406643206-nMldH5BgWWJ5I

3.  Acquire the land as required by the 1989 Act.  In 1996, NPS wrote a short letter to FPL telling the company that the “fair market value” of the  property was determined to be $109,300 (ironically, NPS now intends to spend over $500,000 of the taxpayers money just to do a “study”).  The company could do a voluntary sale or – if they refused – NPS would acquire the property by eminent domain in order to fulfill the purposes of the Act – the ecological and hydrological restoration of Everglades National Park.  No powerlines or access road would be built.

Alternative 3 was exactly what congress intended when this important piece of public land was acquired.  It is fully supported by South Florida Wildlands Association and numerous local and national environmental organizations.  It is also supported by the 1989 Act and the NPS’s own 1991 Land Protection Plan written to implement that Act.

After over 20 years of foot dragging, it’s high time for the NPS to fulfill the promise made to the American people.  Your comments can insure that happens:

http://m1e.net/c?86992467-D4MQF7BjVgABo%406643204-V1PM/x3vtfSB2

Folks preferring regular mail can submit written comments to the following address:

National Park Service Denver Service Center – Planning

Division

Attn: FPL Project Planning Team

P.O. Box 25287

12795 West Alameda Parkway

Denver, CO 80225-0287

Feel free to share your ideas on protecting wildlife habitat in south Florida – or post photos of your own favorite places in the greater Everglades – to this Facebook page

http://m1e.net/c?86992467-1/D2rZQVOI036%406643208-7Ih1PjaHhbxeU

Many ways around the law

As the numbers who cannot afford a conventional home continue to climb,there is greater interest in living off grid as a solution to the housing crisis.  The problem is that property developers sit on available residential land, making it unaffordable for groups of ordinary people to get together and live somewhere pleasant.  Sure its always possible to move to some god-forsaken windswept piece of moorland or desert, but living off the grid should not be so miserable. Here is a summary of the rules and how to get around them: In the UK, the rules state that if you manage to live in a caravan for 10 years or a building for four years, without being discovered, the dwelling becomes ‘lawful’ and you can apply for a ‘certificate of lawfulness’. But skulking around for four years, lying to locals about your true whereabouts is hardly good for your peace of mind. Should someone complain about your dwelling, even at the 11th hour, you can be served an enforcement notice and rendered homeless. And the strategy only works for single-households making it all the more lonely. It would be hard to conceal a community for years. Another better option avaible to small groups is to buy a piece of agricultural land and submit an ‘agricultural prior notice consent form’ to the local planning office detailing the agricultural building you intend to build on your land. This is ‘permitted development’ on agricultural land and hence doesn’t need planning permission. You should receive consent within 28 days and are then entitled to commence building. You can then legally site a temporary mobile home on the land to live in whilst you build your agricultural building (and set up your business). Your temporary accommodation can remain in place while you build for up to five years  while you also develop your business. After five years you can apply for planning permission for a house. You must still prove that you need to live on-site in order to run at least part of your business, and that your overall business generates sufficient income to support you. Parts of Scotland have a long tradition of smallholding known as crofting. Although crofts for rent can be  hard to find and crofts for sale are now as absurdly priced as other housing land, the Scottish Parliament recently made it possible to create new crofts. It is now possible to buy land and apply to the Crofter’s Commission to have it crofted; the main benefit being that planning permission is generally granted for one house on a working croft. Since this legislation is relatively new it’s not clear how it will work in practice, and since the Crofter’s Commission has to consult the relevant planning office it is still possible for planning permission to be refused, so plans should be discussed with the local planning office before buying land. A legal body such as a housing co-op could purchase the land and apply to create a number of new crofts.This also applies to land owned by Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS) , even if the land is not for sale. Elsewhere in Scotland a policy allows small farmers with holdings of 100 acres minimum to boost their income by creating ‘crofts’ on their land. These ‘lowland crofts’ are  aimed at ‘hobby farmers.’ In Wales the development of ‘Low Impact Dwellings’ in the open countryside is legal. Adopted by Pembrokeshire National Park Authority in May 2006 and by Pembrokeshire Council in June 2006, Policy 52 ‘…provides a context for permitting development in the countryside as an exception to normal planning policy…’ This is the policy under which the Lammas group finally achieved planning permission and is developing their site. In July 2010 the Welsh Assembly Government issued planning guidelines entitled ‘Planning for Sustainable Rural Communities‘. The guidance states that ‘Low Impact Developments’ may be located within or adjacent to existing settlements or in the open countryside. Useful Websites www.crofting.org www.forestry.gov.uk www.lammas.org.uk www.planningportal.gov.uk www.scotland.gov.uk www.tlio.org.uk/chapter7 http://wales.gov.uk

The home, from Monolithic domes is just 320 square feet – cheap to heat cool and maintain, but amply priced at $74,000, given the cost of similar homes in the area.

Monolothic dome homes are made by inflating a balloon and then smearing a PVC coating on top of that.

The dome is in the Taos area of New Mexico, feature in my book OFF THE GRID – Inside the Movement for More Space Less Government and True Independence in Modern America.

The story also features John Kejr, a local Realtor, notorious for the high prices he seeks on behalf of his clients.

Easier to manage than 5 acres

As I traveled the US writing my recent book OFF THE GRID, I was also looking for an off-grid place of my own – at first in Northern California or North Carolina, or Kentucky, but latterly I have homed in on West Virginia as a place to suit my needs.

I want somewhere that I can use to get away from the relentless 24/7 media cycle, ads, facebook, twitter feeds, traffic, fast food and slow food – the grinding pace of modern life.

I couldn’t find the right place at the right price. Then the economic woes hit me just as hard as everyone else so I put my plans on hold for a while. Now I want to get on the case again, so I am offering my most prized possession in return for the perfect piece of land – an authentic first edition of WALDEN by Thoreau – one of only two thousand printed – a true slice of Americana. I bought it at auction several years ago, and it comes with a full, money-back guarantee of authenticity. It is in fine condition.

I am looking for a south-facing, gently sloping, wooded five acres, with a creek, a couple hours from a big airport, and with nice neighbors. West Virginia is my favored area. But any suggestions carefully considered.

If anyone can help , please feel free to get in touch. nick@off-grid.net

Hannah on horseback - this could be you

Hi everyone at off-grid – I was wondering if you’ve ever considered relocating to another country? I’ve recently moved to Ecuador and have a goal to be off-grid and living self-sufficient in the very near future. I used to own horses in the U.S. and would love to find equestrian minded people to live in our community.

I want to live in harmony with nature, but I also plan to have modern conveniences. I don’t feel there is a reason you have to give up technology to live in harmony with nature. Most people think Ecuador is a third world country in which there are no modern conveniences. This is not true. We have all the conveniences here as we did in the U.S. The larger cities also have excellent health care and good health insurance is available at a very cheap rate (our family of three costs $79/month).

Ecuador is a very diverse country with beaches, the Galapagos Islands, jungles & mountains. The beauty of this country is breathtaking. The couple areas I’m considering purchasing land would be in areas that boast “eternal spring” like weather and a year round growing season. The nights are cool and the days are warm with an average temperature between 50 and 85 degrees year round. Houses don’t need or have HVAC systems here! This I think is a huge bonus for living an off the grid self-sustaining lifestyle!

The land I’m most intrigued with is over 600 acres and is untouched virgin land. There are natural springs, waterfalls, streams, abundant pasture, forests, mountains, etc. It would be very ideal for hydro-electric power. From what I’ve researched it seems like the most reliable and cost effective source for electric. The asking price for the land is extremely low. And property taxes are virtually non-existant here in Ecuador.

I’m looking for down to earth people who are easy to get along with. I’m not a fan of drama or gossip. I would like to find individuals who are open minded, willing to compromise in order to settle disputes, forgive & forget attitude, honest, hardworking, clean, have strong family values and a good moral compass. Not looking for people who have criminal backgrounds (will check), problems with violence, drug or alcohol issues.

I think it would be very advantageous to find individuals or families with experience in the following areas: organic farming (fruits, vegetables, herbs, animals), construction, off-grid technology, previous experience with eco-communities, etc.

I have many possible ideas for this community including many community based businesses. At this point I’m still very flexible. However, the most important features would be our own source of water and power along with the capability to grow most of our food.

There are a couple wonderful families here in Ecuador who are very interested in being part of this community farm. One lady is a natural holistic doctor.

If you have any interest, please send an email to mattclaims74 at aol dot com.

Joseph Diliberti -lived here for 20 years

County officials in the town of Dehesa, East of San Diego,call Joseph Diliberti a scofflaw. But who can respect a law that tries to tell a harmless old man how to live his own life? At the moment, Diliberti can still call his wooded hollow home after officials tried Friday to auction off his rural land because of the back fees and penalties he owes, largely stemming from an unpaid weed-clearing bill. It was a task that Diliberti actively opposed.

The thing was, no one wanted to buy it.

At a public auction in downtown San Diego, county Treasurer-Tax Collector Dan McAllister failed to get a nibble when he offered the 3.7-acre parcel for a minimum of $71,100.

He said will try again in May, when his office will hold an online auction of local properties.

The failed sale was the latest twist involving the parcel that has served as Diliberti’s handcrafted, off-the-grid home for more than three decades.

Diliberti, a Vietnam War veteran, built a rounded clay house and other structures on the site, which is lush with vegetation. There’s no indoor plumbing or electricity.

The untamed property hasn’t sat well with some of his neighbors and firefighting officials. In 2004, the San Diego Rural Fire Protection District called in a company to strip the parcel of brush and weeds after the district said Diliberti failed to comply with an order to clear the land.

Diliberti has refused to pay for the weed-clearing. He has said he believes the district treated him unfairly and without proper notice.

One of his supporters, Richard Halsey with the California Chaparral Institute, said Diliberti is resigned to losing the property — if not this week, then soon — and has been looking for a new home.

“He’s just decided he’s going to take the path of peace instead of bitterness,” Halsey said.

According to county officials, the assessed value of the parcel is $91,155.

Green power in Red Oak

OK folks, I got this from the survival preparedness blog  and thought it was relevant as to my reasons for going off the grid…. and something to consider when looking for land to survive on in case of national emergency.

Away from the shadow of a major city is the top priority.

Here is the list in reverse order – Number one at the end.

10. Pikeville, Tennessee.  A small town of about 2000 people with moderate land prices with great natural resources for living off the grid with an added bonus of being in the picturesque Sequatchie Valley.

9. Cedar City, Utah. With a population of 25 to 30.000 people and one of the largest cities to make this list. Utah has an independent attitude as far as other states go. Cedar City has some reasonable priced land with some having beautiful mountain views wich also helped it make the list.

8. Thayer or Alton, Missouri, Located in the South central part of MO, and population of about 2,000. Good hunting and fishing areas and reasonably priced land.

7. Sierra Blanca, Texas

6. Hettinger, North Dakota,  Population of about 1000. In the Southwestern part of the state with reasonable priced land.

5. Carlin, Nevada,  Population of about 2000. Hot high desert area with cheap land.

4. Pennsboro, West Virginia, A cozy little town of about 1200, with a lot of Railroad history — beautiful 100- year-old tunnels and countryside and friendly townspeople. Great place if you’re into hunting and trapping. With land prices starting at $1,000 per acre. This is where I picked to live. And we love it here.

3. West Liberty, Kentucky, A small town in the mountains with a population of about 3000 in the eastern part of the state. Also with reasonable land prices with some as low as 500 per acre in large tracts

2. Mountain Home, Arkansas  Population of about 13000 in the Ozark Mountains

And the number one place to go off the grid — Red Oak, Oklahoma Another small town of only about 500 in Southeastern  OK.  Very reasonable land prices, some for less than 1000 per acre.

Something else to think  about when looking for, or buying rural properties is that people from the illegal drug industry also look for rural places like this to set up shop. So be safe when looking for your off the grid oasis.

Malone - in need of landbuddies

Chorus:

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

Mr. Malone, who lives in Colorado, has a controlling interest in QVC cable channel; Expedia.com, travel Web site; and Sirius XM satellite radio.
But what will he do with the land – enough to house hundreds of thousands of Americans? He intends to keep the land as a working forest, aides said, and will continue to supply timber to local paper mills and keep the land open to the public for recreation. Environmentalists are ”cautiously optimistic” that Mr. Malone will not develop the land, said Cathy Johnson of the Natural Resources Council of Maine.
Mr. Malone owns various parcels of land around the country, including more than 68,000 undeveloped acres in Maine and the 290,000-acre Bell Ranch in New Mexico. Once he buys roughly 980,000 acres in Maine’s North Woods and about 20,000 acres in neighboring New Hampshire, under a deal to be completed by Tuesday, he will own 2.1 million acres nationwide.
Mr. Turner, who is a longtime friend of Mr. Malone’s, owns about 2 million acres in the United States, much of it ranch land, and he also owns about 100,000 acres in Argentina. He raises more than 50,000 head of bison across his various ranches and has long reigned as America’s No. 1 land holder.
”The odds are, when the tabulations are done and this transaction closes, Mr. Malone definitely will be America’s largest landowner,” said Eric O’Keefe, editor of The Land Report, a magazine that keeps track of such things.
Mr. Malone is buying the land from GMO Renewable Resources for an undisclosed price. John Cashwell, a consultant in Maine who is helping with the transaction, said the land came with a long-term wood-supply contract with Verso paper mills.
”It’s a working forest that will supply jobs for hundreds of woodcutters and truckers in this state and the employees of two paper mills,” he said. He said Mr. Malone would keep it as sustainably managed forestland. And by allowing public access, he said, Mr. Malone would not receive a tax break, but the state provides some liability protection for personal injuries, such as snowmobile accidents.

The purchases of huge tracts of land are striking, but not uncommon in Maine, 95 percent of which is privately owned. Of the state’s 19.5 million acres, 17.7 million are forest land.

Here is the full list of top US landowners: http://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-landowners-america?slop=1

And the rest of the song goes like so….

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

I’ve roamed and rambled and I’ve followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

As I was walkin’ – I saw a sign there
And that sign said – no tress passin’
But on the other side …. it didn’t say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

Chorus

In the squares of the city – In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office – I see my people
And some are grumblin’ and some are wonderin’
If this land’s still made for you and me.

Chorus (2x)