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Montana Music Man

Greg Grant, born in New York, has spent the last 21 years living in his self-built off-grid home in Montana. In this clip we interview Greg about his lifestyle and share some of the videos from his own web site.

Armed with previous experience as a carpenter and with the help of friends, but mostly self taught, he built his home which serves as both his recluse and studio.

Greg currently spends monthly no more than $150 in living costs, all thanks to his solar power set up, food growing and all round frugal lifestyle.

Greg Grant: https://www.greggrantmusic.com/

 

 

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Community

Home & Away star goes off the grid

lisa-gormley-anti-fracking-300x242Home and Away’s Lisa Gormley is in the middle of building an off-the-grid eco cabin in the Tasmanian rainforest. She is looking forward to spending more time with her family, including her parents who live on a 20ha farm.

The 30-year-old moved to Tasmania with her parents when she was 12, and recently said she wanted to spend time with her family and travel. Not one to shy away from new challenges, Gormley was one of hundreds of people who gathered in Tasmania’s Upper Florentine Valley in April to rally against the Federal Government’s attempt to reopen some World Heritage-listed forests to logging.

One of Australia’s most popular stars she revealed she would be open to returning to her soapie roots, years after shocking fans with her decision to leave.

Dan Ewing and Lisa Gormley, who played on-screen couple Heath and Bianca, recently reunited on the Home And Away set to film An Eye For An Eye – a spin-off. And the walk down memory lane left both pining for the good old days. “I’d definitely be open to a discussion about coming back, I have to say,” Ewing admits.

“If the (right) storyline was there, I would. I wouldn’t want to play the same old Heath for another three years, though – I’d want it to be fresh and him to have evolved.” At least part of his willingness to return to the role of resident heavily inked bad boy Heath comes down to Archie, his one-year-old son.

Ewing and his wife Marni have been mostly raising their bundle of joy in Los Angeles. It’s a great city, especially for an ambitious actor, but he says nowhere compares to home.

“Having a kid really changes your perspective,” he admits. “The quality of life here in Australia is unique – you can’t find it elsewhere in the world. There are so many opportunities – we’re so lucky.

“But, most of all, I think it’s a dad thing … I’m looking at life for my child. And Marni really misses her family. Skype and FaceTime are great but it can’t beat the joy of seeing your little boy run up to grandma for a big hug.” LA will always be there, too – and technology means an actor doesn’t have to physically live Stateside these days to chase the big time, he says.

Since leaving the show, Gormley has spent a few years travelling, teaching overseas and starring in various stage productions. And the nature-loving performer is in the middle of building an off-the-grid eco cabin in the Tasmanian rainforest.

Gormley is also open to returning to the show that launched her career – just not yet. “I would, but maybe not for another little while because I’ve still got things I want to try,” she says. “I’ve done a lot of things that were on my list – I’m slowly …

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Community

DIY as much as possible

truck…and truck update.

A few weeks ago, I had a chance encounter with an elk, an animal of much height, girth and weight. After looking up the average weight of a female elk (also referred to as an elk cow), this is the info I found:

Elk cows average 225 to 241 kg (496 to 531 lb), stand 1.3 m (4.3 ft) at the shoulder, and are 2.1 m (6.9 ft) from nose to tail. Bulls are some 40% larger than cows at maturity, weighing an average of 320 to 331 kg (705 to 730 lb), standing 1.5 m (4.9 ft) at the shoulder and averaging 2.45 m (8.0 ft) in length.

Our local deer out here average in at around 100-200 pounds, quite a difference, I have always been concerned about hitting a deer, never thought I’d hit an elk.

The damage to my truck was minimal considering, I was able to drive home. Now came the fun part, figuring out how much actual damage had been done and what needed to be fixed or replaced. This is where PB came into play, while he is no expert on Ford F150 trucks, but he has worked on his other vehicles, gaining the experience necessary to keep all of our vehicles on the road over the years.

I looked at my truck and figured I would end up at the Ford dealership, nearly 100 miles away, or at the very least at one of the local body shops, some 40 miles away. Looking at parts, labor, downtime and such, that all equals expensive!

But instead, PB took his broad vehicle knowledge and applied it to my truck, a few parts (from Amazon) later, and my truck nearly looks as good as new… well not perfect, but it’s looking much better than it did the day after my elk encounter.

Bottom line here is if you are wanting to get yourself out of debt, into a better financial situation, then you need to figure out as many DIY things you can do as possible, the more YOU can do, the less you have to pay someone else to do it. In my case, we are talking thousands of dollars, 2-4 thousand depending on how far I wanted to take this truck back to perfect. Instead, I have spent less than $200 on parts, the labor costs were a few dinners cooked for PB. There is one more part I plan on buying, a grille guard, now that will be expensive, no getting around that if I want something that will actually do the job of protecting my truck, it’s going to be well worth the money to protect my truck vs having to get another truck if this happens again, and with my job, I do a lot of driving in the early morning and late evening, prime critter time.…

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People

Living in a Fire Truck

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Forester Simon Danant started living in his 1980s Bedford truck last summer. Its a former Army fire engine.

He moves it around Cambridgeshire, living behind hedges or down green lanes for a week or two at a time.

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Community

When prepping just isn’t enough

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There’s a sense of urgency in the prepping community lately that is at an all time high.  Between the global elite warmongers, the impending financial collapse as the government makes plans to attach pension funds, the new viruses, Monsanto’s GMO seeds running amok and threatening the world’s food supply, and  Big Food’s toxic food-like substances in the grocery stores with no regard for actual nutrition, it is clear that we are going downhill fast. The soothing ”everything-is-just-fine” propaganda is so blatant that even the most die-hard zombie is beginning to see that something is amiss and that a massive change is soon to take place.

Many of us have stocked our homes to the rafters with beans, rice, bullets, and band-aids.  Each trip to the store adds more to our stockpiles as we try to get what we need before time runs out.  Newbie preppers are feeling even more frantic, wondering how to prepare when each week it takes more money to put less in the grocery cart. (If you’re new to preparedness, here’s a little primer with some great links.)

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Mobile

Stops Along the Way: Part 2

Five o’clock quickly arrived at my desk on my first night as a full-time RVer.  I left my office and walked into the dark parking lot knowing I would be home in less than 30 seconds.  No one from work knew it.  Since I land acting and print gigs on occasion, they believe my camper is to go on jobs out of town.  Half-truths go a long way.  I also made it a point for them to know that owning an RV has always been a dream of mine.  I considered letting my co-workers know of my new lifestyle, but I’ve grown less trusting with age.  My managers may feel less compelled to give me higher raises since I have fewer expenses.  My supervisor may look at me with scorn if I come in late on a snowy day. Co-workers may think I’m just plain kooky… and they would be right!  Yes, none of these things would be fair, but life isn’t fair and neither are people’s judgments and actions.  If the folks at work ever did find out (and some may already suspect), I guess it wouldn’t be a big deal.  However, why put myself out there if I don’t have to?

As I approached close to my camper, I visually took it all in.  “This is my home!”.  Realizing this felt odd, good… and a little scary.  I got in the van and drove to my RV friendly parking spot.  Like a dog, I instinctively circled the lot twice before parking.  There were two big rig trucks settled in for the night, so I parked next to them under a light post.

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Community

Freezer to fridge conversion

Living off-grid, I get questions from time to time, mainly about how we live, some even think we must live in a cave and eat dirt and wear skins…  I said I live off-grid, but we don’t live that primitively! :) I do enjoy some of the modern conveniences of life, including having a place to keep perishable foods, aka a refrigerator.

When we first moved off-grid, in Dec ’07, we brought with us a small, dorm sized fridge, but honestly we didn’t use it much, only plugging it up on the occasions when I brought home a gallon of milk or a pound of ground beef, once the perishable food was gone, we unplugged the fridge. What I quickly found out was the standard type of fridge used up a LOT of power and they tend to be very inefficient.

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An overview of the last 4 years living off-grid

This December will be 4 years for us living 100% off-grid, I can tell you it’s been quite the adventure, my only regret is that we didn’t do this earlier. Let me recap what we have been doing these 4 years…

 

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Community

Homesteading-book review

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.

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Community

Dirt-cheap survival retreat-book review

There are people who have seemingly unlimited funds to purchase whatever goodies they want. This book is not written for them, though they could glean some great ideas. It’s really written for the rest of us, those who have limited incomes but still want to go off-grid and live comfortably.

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Community

Dehydrate your own 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!

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Community

Off-Grid updates

My off-grid life is more enjoyable and more fulfilling than just about any part of my old life – living in the city, working 2 jobs just to make ends meet (barely), work, eat, sleep, pay bills, repeat. Honestly I am more busy now, but it’s things I want to do, not things I am forced to do by government, society and life as I used to live it. I get to choose what fun activities and community activities I wish to do and is that ever fun! How does this work?

Simple,

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