Category — SELF-SUFFICIENCY

Britain’s Chelsea Flower show won plaudits today for its off-grid sustainable garden from Australia.
Prince Harry visited, and Chef Jamie Oliver said: “I’ve had a good look around and my favourites so far (include) the Australian garden.
The design features a lush desert gorge with huge boulders, a native wildflower meadow and a natural billabong (water pool) and waterfalls using recycled water from nearby buildings. (more…)

Little by little I have been actively working on removing GMO foods from my pantry, to make it more painless I focus on one food or one food group at a time.

I have always been an avid label reader, when my (now grown) son was a child, he had been diagnosed with ADHD, something that is unfortunately all too common, especially in boys. One of the things we did was to modify his diet by removing everything, and I do mean everything that was any sort of sugar, that meant every ingredient that ended in “ose”, the only exception to that was lactose, fortunately that didn’t seem to bother him. Some of the items removed from his diet was sucrose (table sugar), glucose, sucrose, dextrose, fructose, the hardest one was dextrose, that can even be found in table salt! As long as we kept his diet going, he behaved so much better, fortunately I was a prolific and adventurous cook, I had no problems making anything he wanted or needed, my son and the rest of us ate quite well. It’s my son’s birthday today, happy birthday Josh! (more…)

Summer’s coming, and our thoughts are turning to outdoor fun and relaxation. Here are some items you can find online that are useful or essential, either to a camping weekend or a full-fledged off-grid life.

BUNK COT
When it comes to stacking the kids friends where you don’t have that much room, try this bunk-bed cot:

The Disc-O-Bed Cam-O-Cot makes an instant bunk bed and holds up to 400 pounds. That’s two fit adults or several children.
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Has anyone tried the new line of Soleta zeroEnergy range of sustainable off-grid homes? Developed by a Romanian environmental group, they are made from 97% recycled materials and boast a range of energy-saving features — as well as energy-creating options such as solar panels.The dwellings are said to be available in several shapes and sizes, and combine rustic modular design with multiple energy saving and producing technologies. But despite a blaze of publicity, it is hard to track down anyone who has actually seen, far less tried out, one of the homes.

They range from a small unit with just 48 square-meters (516 sq ft) usable floor space (plus attic), up to a relatively sizable model suitable for a family of five, with a main area floor space of 100 square-meters. (more…)

How many of you would like (love?) to to have your own place and live for just what you’d pay in taxes? Assuming you already have a piece of land (hint, look for so called “junk” land and you can often have it for a song)… Well that’s precisely what Anna Hess and her husband Mark did. (more…)

When I moved off grid, I looked around the internet for kindred souls, I found one in Mayberry, no not the town in that old beloved show, but a man who was very tired of living in the rat race, he became infamous for his “rants” against modern society and all its trappings.

I ran across one of his articles that really touched my soul, this is about how he wants and plans to live, specifically the house he wants to build, as I read what he wrote, I realized he was practically describing our sky castle, made me feel good that another human, especially one I consider to be in the higher echelons of intelligence and common sense wants to design and live in a home that is so similar to how we built. I’m not talking about the castle look, but how it’s built, the structure, inner workings and such. (more…)

On Monday, the rationale for owning gold collapsed along with its price as the yellow metal dropped more than 10%, settling above $1,350 an ounce at the close before bouncing back a bit Tuesday.

That was its lowest level since February 2011, breaking through every support level in sight and pushing gold deep into bear market territory. It’s down 28% from its peak above $1,900 in August 2011.

But gold’s price could be headed much, much lower, in our opinion. Sell now! We think the price will go below a thousand dollars later this year. Many disagree – if you want to get the best price for your gold bullion, jewellry, and even your silver – try this Gold and Silver price calculator from In Gold We Trust. (more…)

With the tragedy of the bombing in Boston, this is just one more reminder that we need to be prepared for as many different situations as possible. First I want to say how saddened I am by the actions of whoever is responsible, this is an unspeakable tragedy to those who were injured, killed and traumatized by this bombing, to all their friends and families. (more…)

At last – a TV series about living off the grid that does not patronise or belittle the lifestyle. Instead New Lives in the Wild but allows the stories to come out of the real lives of real people with something to say.

Presenter Ben Fogle meets people who left the modern world behind; He wrote about it in the British Daily Telegraph.”My long-suffering wife Marina has become accustomed to my returning from wild expeditions with suggestions for a new life. I’ve never acted on such impulses. But what sort of people do follow their wildest dreams? (more…)