Category — SELF-SUFFICIENCY

I have the opportunity to talk to people about storing foods from time to time, especially since we are off grid and do not use refrigeration very often, we have a couple of small dorm sized fridges but rarely plug them up, I also have access to my neighbor’s refrigerator. I have heard more than one conversation where people confuse dehydrated food with freeze dried foods. They are in fact, two different things. (more…)

People, it’s time to stock up on what you can now, things aren’t getting any better, and our money is losing value every day. The best way to maintain the value of the money you have now is to go ahead and buy the things you need now, you can just about guarantee that what you buy now will be going up in price in the near future. (more…)

Dehydrated chicken

I found this today on YouTube, these guys are dehydrating chicken, it looks very simple and I suspect you could do this with other meats as well. This will save you major $$$s over buying dehydrated meat from a commercial source. Watch and enjoy! (more…)

Werner - Saint or Sinner?

The tragic dichotomy of saintly David Werner is that he has written one of the world’s most important manuals of medical self-help, and at the same time he apparently went through a delusional period where he thought that sexual relationships with minors was “part of their mentoring.”

Werner is celebrated in some off-grid circles for his book Where There Is No Doctor: A Village Health Care Handbook – Other Off-Grid web sites report Werner’s “extraordinary life story, including:

• The real, in-the-field solutions he has chronicled
• The difference between what to do before the doctor arrives and what to do when no doctor is coming
• The secret discovered by indigenous Mexicans centuries before European science caught up
• How to implement creative, practical solutions in an emergency…even if you have zero medical experience

And the new edition of Where There Is No Doctor is all this and much more.
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Could Cicida wings help save our species?

When scientists at U. Florida developed a new anti-reflective, water-repellent coating based on moths’ eyeballs and cicada wings, they hoped to  improve solar cell efficiency  by 30% – and make the panels self-cleaning into the bargain.

Moths’ eyes have thousands of rows of tiny protrusions each measuring less than 300 billionths of a meter. When a light is shone on them these orderly arrays interfere with its reflection, rendering the light nearly invisible. The same principle applied to solar panels increased their efficiency.  Biologists believe the trait evolved in moths because it prevents their eyes from reflecting moon or starlight, which would make them easier targets for predators. Similar features on Cicada wings deflect not light but water, to help them fly in humid environments.

“Nature is an amazing innovator,” explained Peng Jiang the assistant professor of chemical engineering at University of Florida who is leading the research. “What I’m interested in doing is mimicking the structure of some remarkable biological systems for real-world use.”

He’s not alone. Biomimicry or biomimetics is a red hot discipline these days. Defined as ‘the study of biological systems in nature to help solve human problems’, it is being touted by many as the holy grail of future sustainable development. And it’s not hard to see why. (more…)

Rousson and friend

A low tech, man-powered  yellow submarine may not be high on the list of requirements for la vie off-grid, but French adventurer Stephane Rousson and designer Minh-Lôc Truong have gone ahead and made one anyway. In Rousson’s garage.

The Scubster  is the world’s first pedal powered submarine and it has recently successfully finished its first test in the Mediterranean off Nice. (more…)

What if?

What would I do if _____________ happened, right here, right now. You fill in the blank, it could be anything, from walking up upon a crazed animal on the trail, being confronted by a gun wielding thief, someone (a stranger) knocking on your car window at an intersection and you can’t drive away yet, have you left enough room between your car and the car in front that you COULD pull around that car and get away if need be? What if you blew a tire while going highway speeds on the freeway during traffic time, what if you pressed on your brakes and nothing happened… during moments of high stress, in a life or death situation, you don’t have time to think, and in the heat of the moment, you probably will not even be able to think, you just have to react, chances are you have one chance and one chance only, assuming you are able to think about what to do, you had better make the right choice and in a timely manner. Have you ever thought about what you would do in a given situation or are you just living your life from moment to moment with no thought about what you would do in an emergency? (more…)

American Homesteaders

Two very different projects reported this weekend show how, everywhere you look, ordinary Americans are building their off-grid future.

In Jasper, Georgia, the Pickens County Progress (which is more used to covering bear sightings and armed robberies) reports on Vered Kleinberger’s “Green Building Adventure.” Executive Assistant Kleinberger is building a small, downtown off-grid show home, with 90% upcycled construction materials – and locals are queuing to take a look around.