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DIY

Food

Water kefir farming

I appreciate today’s short attention span theater, I have a lot to say about kefir. If you want the short version, scroll down, you’ll see it. ?

We have known for many generations about the health benefits of consuming probiotics. Fortunately there are many ways to get those good bacteria into our body. Our ancestors used to make their own probiotic rich foods. Things like yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi (one of my favorites!), miso (another favorite), pickled foods (salt brined as apposed to vinegar preserved), sourdough starters, the list goes on and on. These were often used as a way to preserve foods before refrigeration was common. Foods would only last so long in their fresh state, we needed to introduce friendly bacteria that would prevent any unfriendly (to us) bacteria from colonizing the food. A beneficial side effect of these friendly bacteria, besides preserving the food, is they are often very good for our gut microbiome.

This is something I absolutely believe we need to get back to doing, being more self sufficient, being able to grow and preserve our own food, being able to propagate our own health products/produce, not only for our own personal use, but something that can be shared with family, friends, neighbors… as well as a potential source of income, trade or barter.

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Community

Confessions of a off-grid granny

I cannot believe it’s October already, the days are still warm but the evenings and nights are getting cooler, it’s almost sweater weather! I am so looking forward to our first woodfire in the wood stove. I have a little confession that I’m going to tell you, but don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret just between us… I’ve been looking for a set of footed pajamas, just like the ones I wore when I was a little girl. Yeah, I know, it’s a little silly for a 50+ year old grandma to want to wear footed PJs, but it’s what I want. I have looked around and there are quite a few to choose from, but most of them are in the $30+ range and I’m not ready to spend that much money on something I’m going to lounge and sleep in. The really good ones, the thick cushy ones are a lot more expensive than that! I think what I’ll end up doing is making my own, I found a quite a few tutorials on YouTube about how to make these and I like the idea of knowing what they are going to be made of.

OK, now that we have that out of the way, I’m also thinking about Christmas, with Halloween a month away and Thanksgiving the following month, Christmas is truly right around the corner. If I start now, I’ll have plenty of time to put together some fun homemade gifts. I tend to think too complicated for these sorts of things, I need to simplify my ideas, I have lots of raw materials out here on my 6 acres, twigs, rocks, sand… Turning to YouTube I am in the process of getting some crafty DIY ideas, here are some I found.

Actually this first one I’m thinking about making for a friend whose birthday is on Halloween, I looked around and found some solar rechargeable lights for Mason Jars that would work great with this.
https://youtu.be/jgufxIUwslw

https://youtu.be/6t7wnNg8tkc

https://youtu.be/pAmwWuyr6Ng

https://youtu.be/TJe_fM1rZCQ

https://youtu.be/0nIaBlpOsEQ

One more :) actually this would be more for Halloween, but you have a month until that hits…
https://youtu.be/r8P2va94ml0

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desalination, potable, cheap drinking water
Water

DIY Desalination

Earth isn’t called the “Blue Planet” for nothing, but the majority is saltwater and therefore not immediately drinkable. Hence we need the desalination process which removes the salt from saline water so we can drink it.

One of the main hurdles living outside the system is having a reliable source of clean, fresh drinking water.  Dr Rahul Nair of Manchester University in the UK has just announced a breakthrough Graphene micromesh that will be on the market in 3 years time that will literally strain the salt out of water.  Meanwhile,  how about cheap DIY methods you can do at home?

Desalination can take advantage of evaporation. The dirty or saline water is heated and the water turns to steam, leaving the impurities (salt) behind. All that then needs to be done is capture the steam, condense it and voila clean drinkable water.

 

Below are some videos of easy and cheap methods of making your own DIY desalination devices!

The first is based on a whistling kettle, some pipe, a coolant around said piping and a collection tin – easy peasy!

 

Here is another version of a similar system using a pressure cooker instead – who said they are only good for canning!?

 

If you want to invest in some specific desalination kit, then check out this video which uses the non-electric distiller by Water Wise.

 

No camp fire or stove to hand? No problem! Check out these solar distillers – not exactly top tech, but proves you can capture the power of evaporation really easily. (Ignore the soil eating cat!)

 

And one using a plastic bottle!

Let’s face it we have all wanted to live by a golden beach in a sunny spot at some time in our lives. But with water at a dollar a pop for a 100cl plastic bottle, desalination has a definite cash benefit.

What do you think? Have you tried any of these methods? Let us know in the comments below!

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The Road to Self-Reliance

American families have been going off-grid for more than forty years, but for most it’s a gradual process, involving a lot of learning by trial and error. In a recent article published in Reason, J.D Tuccille wrote about how his experience going “semi-off-grid” in 2008 led him to reconsider his attachment to the mains, and begin a journey towards self-reliance that is still ongoing today.

Dipping into off-grid waters

In 2008 a power failure lasted a week at J.D’s former home in remote Arizona. While he had his own well, it was controlled by a pump that required electricity, and the surface of the water was too low to dip some out by hand. Then there was the issue of modern plumbing without electricity, and the requirements of coffee pots to consider. However, outages were common – so J.D had come prepared. He and his wife Wendy Wendy had stored water, cut firewood, and fueled up the camping stove and lanterns. They remained hydrated, warm and fed through that and every other experience with the electric grid’s unreliability.
“All in all, it was a bit Little House on the Prairie for our tastes, though with a better wine selection – but ultimately more of an inconvenience than a disaster,” he wrote. “But tolerance for inconvenience can decline with the years.”

When they moved to a new house in the foothills, Wendy had a strict requirement – a climate-controlled environment in the house at all times. This required some research into the best off-grid power systems to use for the climate, so J.D had to get serious.
“This being Arizona, where everything bakes for much of the year under the fireball in the sky, my first thought was solar,” J.D writes. “But I quickly discovered that all of those panels adorning people’s roofs were nothing more than expensive shingles during a power outage. Most solar installations are designed to feed the grid, not keep you independent of it. I priced adding batteries to the mix to gain some autonomy, but they more than doubled the cost. And batteries couldn’t handle the power demands of an air conditioner anyway. So we settled, if that’s the right word, for a 22 kW standby generator, which can handle the well pump and keep the air conditioning running.”

He said they were “especially pleased” with the decision when the European Union completed a coordinated cyber-attack simulation and found it leading to a “very dark scenario,” including crashed power grids.
J.D also beefed up the water storage capabilities at the house with rain barrels hooked to the gutters, which are conveniently located near the garden where he now grows tomatoes, olive and fig trees.

“Wendy and I have stumbled down our path incrementally over the years out of a combination of necessity and curiosity,” he writes. “We also keep tweaking our set-up. In addition …

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Community

It’s not illegal to DIY

diy not1
When I was a kid, electronics and appliances came ready for the end user to repair when necessary, radios and TVs had vacuum tube that you could replace, warranties weren’t voided as a result of breaking the seal on the case. Now days, most electronics are made to be disposable, or you are forced to send it or take it to a licensed, authorized professional to get something repaired.

Being an independent lady, when I’m told there is something I can’t do, that makes me try even harder. Last summer I got a tablet,the idea was to use less power than my laptop, this was a https://amzn.to/214uoqL, it was refurbished and worked well. But lately the battery hadn’t been holding a charge, it got your the point where energy plugged in with a full charge, it would lose power quickly, I could forget about trying to use it off the charger. Since it was refurbished and I’d had it for a while, I decided to change out the battery myself.

They are not supposed to have an end user changeable battery, but a quick search on Amazon let me know I could purchase a new https://amzn.to/1tdzA0R inexpensively, and a quick check on YouTube showed me how to do it. I ordered this battery, I didn’t need the one with a video included so that saved me some money. A few days later I had the package. It came with tools, they were cheap, but they did the job.

I had trouble getting the case cracked open, PB helped get it started, once apart it was just a matter of a few tiny screws and a few ribbon cables to remove the battery, reverse the process to install the new battery and I was in business. I did make one mistake, I didn’t have the battery cable completely seated, it booted up but immediately shut off, I took it apart and checked everything, once I fully seated the battery connection, it worked just fine.

I had a 50% charge, so I fully charged it and after rigorous testing, it works great, I am happy with it. I will be doing this for my smaller https://amzn.to/1tdApa8 soon, I am noticing that battery is holding less of a charge. What about you? Have you replaced something that you weren’t supposed to be able to do?

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Community

Gravel vac Bobbage

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I seriously considered using a title that said something like “my hubby sucks”, but honestly I don’t need to hype what he does, he is a Macgyver’s Macgyver! I quit doubting the things he says he is going to do, I just listen, put aside my skepticism and wait for the magic to happen. We like to call it Bobbage :)

As you may or may not know, PB uses concrete (soilcrete) for building around here, Portland cement is inexpensive, read cheap, all he has to add is the gravel and water, we have an abundant supply of gravel that restocks itself each time we get a good rain, the problem is the location of this gravel is at the bottom of the creek bed, down at the front part of the property, and “down” is the key word here.

In the past, he has used 5 gallon buckets to haul the gravel, on occasion we have bartered with neighbors and friends to get the use of earth moving equipment, but that doesn’t happen very often, and since he’s put in the bridge, it’s near impossible to drive down into the creek to load up on gravel.

PB began working out a way he could vacuum the gravel to the upper part of the property, he used an old shop vac, a metal 55 gallon drum, the sidewall of a tire and a long piece of 3 inch black poly pipe along with some duct tape to seal things up. It’s quiet, it’s efficient, it’s quick and it works great. Here is a video, actually 4 quick videos showing the gravel vac in action, along with some pictures.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnjG-ZmtxGQgGH4sFFDxoxKuXUh6XRiEX

 

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Community

Is it too late?

toolate

What are your skills? Everyone has something they can do and do well, something that you enjoy doing, hopefully you are making your living doing it.

If TEOTWAWKI were to happen, assuming you have your food, water, shelter and other necessities taken care of, (you do, don’t you?), if we were to go back to a life like yesteryear, what could you contribute to your society? Unfortunately, all too many are skilled in spending money, or using technologic gadgets, that just will not get it if the power were to go out for an extended amount of time.

For me, I know how to cook from scratch, I can cook on a woodstove, I am familiar with our local plantlife for medicinal purposes. I can also cut hair, it’s funny that in the olden days, barbers were also the local medicine folk, you went to the barber to get minor, and sometimes major medical help.

I am well practiced at living in more primitive ways, choosing to live this way on purpose. PB is well versed at taking junk and turning it into useful things, he has a knowledge of electricity, gas (propane and other cooking & heating gas), engine repair, welding, building, he is an all around handy man.

Between the two of us, we have the skills to survive and the things we don’t have or can’t do, we can barter our skills with other people who have skills we don’t have. You don’t have to know how to do everything, but the more skills you do have, the better off you will be, both in this life, and in a potentially radically different world.

A neighbor and friend up the street is versed in leathercraft, another friend is a plumber, yet another is an EMT so can take care of medical issues, our small community is far ahead of many other towns because of the diverse knowledge and we all know each other.

As I asked in the title, is it too late? If you are reading this and you are still upright & breathing, it’s not too late, figure out what you are good at, what you enjoy doing, and learn more about it, get some practical experience, figure out what sorts of things that might be handy to know and do it.




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Half track, full genius

The last couple of weeks, PB has been watching lots of track wheel vehicle videos on YouTube, I just thought he was on another rabbit trail, he travels those quite often, and sometimes something really interesting comes of it.

Let me backtrack just a bit, about 3 years ago, we were gifted an old (but still working) Craftsman lawn tractor, a very small tractor with 4 wheels, it has been sitting in our shed waiting to become useful.

PB wants to turn it into a half-track to make it easier to get up and down the hill and do as little damage to the land as possible. Here is a mock up of what he plans to do. More to come :)
half track

 

Here is a video showing what someone else did
https://youtu.be/jQs25GH-hTw




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High end tiny house

Most of the tiny homes I have seen are built on a tight budget, this one was built with more high end features in mind, it looks fantastic, coming in at around $77,000, it certainly doesn’t disappoint.

I love the stairs in this one, and the loft, it just looks very comfortable and well built. Jeff Hobbs has taken his skills a cabinet maker and boat builder to make this tiny home a masterpiece of beauty and efficiency.

https://youtu.be/CELFsKLkKbI




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Off-Grid crock pot

I love the idea of cooking low and slow, but being off-grid means I don’t have the electricity to spare to run an electric crock pot, nor do I want to cook on my propane stove for hours and hours even on a low flame, I do use a pressure cooker to make things such as soup, stew and the such.

Today I ran across this video showing how you can use tea lights (small candles) to create an off-grid crock pot or slow cooker. I was intrigued and watched, I can see how it can be a really good thing, I can also see where some improvements can be made to make it safer, I would use metal to line where the candles touch the base, that way there would be little chance of the wood there getting hot enough to combust and if the candle wax were to escape, it would be less likely to catch anything on fire. I would perhaps want to line the entire thing with metal to keep things safer.

He said the meal took about 2 hours to cook, different tea lights last different amounts of time, from 2 hours up to 4 hours, you would have to check it as time went by to know if you would need to add fresh tea lights.

Watch and let me know what you think?
https://youtu.be/3aVKYFT14Ro




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