Spirit Archives - Page 4 of 26 - Living Off the Grid: Free Yourself

Showering felt so good today!

When one lives off-grid, you are generally your own fix it person, not always, but often. That is certainly true for us, we designed, built and maintain our off-grid system, all the utilities that would normally be in the purview of the utility companies or a commercial repair service company, we take care of ourselves.

One of the big things we take care of has to do with our water system. When we first moved out here, before our water system was really set up, I would walk to my neighbor’s house to collect 3 gallons of water per day, why 3 gallons you ask? Simple, it’s how many empty one gallon water containers I had. We learned during that time how to really REALLY conserve water. Before you think we moved out here to leech off of our neighbor, we were set up to get water from the community well, several miles from us, but since our neighbor very kindly offered the use of his tap, we gratefully accepted.

Since then, we have greatly expanded the water setup, we have several large water storage tanks, some are set up to collect water from the roof, that is something that will be improved upon in the very near future, to the point where we will get 100% of our water from the sky.

On the inside of the SkyCastle, we have a 12 volt water pump, the original one we had came out of an RV, we liked it well enough to continue with that line when it came time to buy a new one. The nice thing about the 12 volt system is even if the batteries that store our electricity are too low for the inverter to work, there is still enough power to run the pump.

In the beginning, we just used the pump, it was (and still is) inside the SkyCastle, just under the sink, every time we turned on the faucet, the pump came on making our home sound like a gas station air pump. We eventually installed a second hand pressure tank. The water pump would pressurize the pressure tank, which meant the water pump didn’t come on as often but ran for longer periods of time.

Eventually that pressure tank failed and we purchased a new one, a spiffy shiny blue tank that sits under the sink in the kitchen. The reason we have so much of our system inside the house is to keep things from freezing in winter.

Now that we had our water, sink and shower plumbed for use, we needed to be able to heat the water. Enter the Eccotemp L5 portable propane powered water heater, honestly it’s designed to be used OUTSIDE, not inside, but since our home isn’t what you would call tight, I don’t mind running the one in the kitchen, installed right over …

June 23, 2017 1 Comment

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Missing my dad on Father’s Day

Today is Father’s Day, a bittersweet day for me. My Dad was instrumental in my interest in living off-grid, as well as actually getting to live off-grid.

I grew up in a very tight knit family, we had a few close friends, but mostly we depended on ourselves, the family, to get through life. We would gather around the TV and watch Nature, Jacques Cousteau, NOVA, we also enjoyed watching Grizzly Adams. Those shows molded my love for nature. We walked an odd line though, one of loving nature and one of being conservative, we were definitely not tree huggers (not that there is anything wrong with that, said in my best Seinfeld voice).

I have wonderfully fond memories of sitting with the family and watching these shows, then heading straight out to emulate what I had watched, building tent forts, digging holes in the dirt to see what lived there, saving the baby sparrows that always fell out of the nest built over the porch… neither of my parents made much of a fuss when I brought home a grass snake, toad or horned lizard, and believe me, I brought home everything I could find.

We lived in the suburbs, though we all dreamed of moving to the country, plans were always being made that would end in us buying some acreage out in the middle of nowhere. I remember when my dad and I discovered the Monolithic Dome Homes located in Italy Texas. We took a day and visited the site, they are very friendly folk who don’t mind people wandering around. We spent years after that drawing out plans for the dome home we were going to build, I can still see it in my mind. Life would be perfect.

Unfortunately our family never fulfilled those dreams, at least not until I had my family and they were grown up. Most of my family is familiar with how I live now, my mother was the only one who never got to see my current home, she passed away 15 years ago. My dad did get to be part of it though. He came out for his first visit before there was anything built on the property. We set up tents on the lower part and spent several hot days enjoying the peace and quiet, meeting the neighbors and getting the lay of the land.

After that, he would come out and spend a month in the summer with us, his first extended stay was the impetus to build a separate bedroom, I loved my dad but we needed some separate space (LOL). He enjoyed helping us, both financially as well as keeping us stocked up in goodies. About a month before his impending visit, he would call and ask me what we needed. Dad would buy up toilet paper, paper towels, Kleenex, can goods, dry goods, he …

June 18, 2017 No Comments

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Modern vs retro tiny home

From ultra modern to a retro 50s look, you can have just about any look and style you wish in a tiny house.

My first thought when I looked at this tiny house is it’s inside out, though it’s really not. The outside looks like you can attach many different things to it, very modular, not sure if in fact you could do that, I can see a planter box being held in a groove, one of many on the outside.

The inside of this tiny home has very clean lines, it has an uncluttered appearance, with most parts hidden behind walls & doors. I love the sideways Murphy bed, it gives me ideas as to what we can do with an extra full size mattress that is being stored behind the couch in the living room in the SkyCastle.

Watch and enjoy
https://youtu.be/UqxxFZ1JoVY

Then there is the 50s themed tiny home. With the shake shingles on the outside and the retro green color all the way through, this tiny house begs to have a housewife in pearls and a frilly apron baking cookies in the full size stove.

I LOVE the vintage refrigerator and the metal trim on the shelf & counter edges. The clever way the stairs are built into the tiny dining table. I do have to wonder how long the hydraulic pistons for the bed will last, how hard are they to replace and how hard are they to find? I’m guessing the builder has a line on those and as long as that builder is still in business, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Watch and enjoy
https://youtu.be/DX5LN5TV_ao

Which look do you prefer? The vintage retro look or the sleek, clean, ultra modern look?

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June 6, 2017 No Comments

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What is? What if?

I watched a man die at one of the stores where I work doing merchandising. He just fell over and died right there about 15 feet away from me. I didn’t go over, there were already several people gathered around, 2 people were performing CPR on him, the store had already called 911. I stood back and prayed silently as I continued to work.

I watched the paramedics work on him and take him away. I saw one of the paramedics in another store later in the day and asked about the man, she told me what I already suspected, he didn’t make it.

As you can imagine, that weighed heavily on my mind the rest of the day. I have now witnessed 4 people leave this earth, each had a somewhat different affect on me, this one made me think about just how fleeting and temporary life truly is. This helped put life into perspective, what is really important, what is really insignificant, what do I need to go ahead and do instead of putting it off for later. I wonder what that man might have done differently that day had he known it would be his last day to spend here on earth…

These words are not meant to bum you out, but rather are meant to get you to look at your life, let go of the insignificant things, realize what is important, live your life to the fullest each and every day… Hug someone you love.

All too often, we put off what we really want to do, we get caught up in the minutia of life and focus on the insignificant parts. We all have things we want to do, at least I can say that I do. But going to work, doing a job we hate just to make ends meet, taking a vacation once or twice a year and believing that will recharge us for the rest of the year. I’m not saying quit your job and become a bum, you should be reasonable, but you could be using that time while living day to day to work toward living the kind of life that is more satisfying.

What are your goals? You DO have them, right? What would you do differently today if you knew you were going to die tomorrow? Of course that is an extreme, but we ALL have an expiration date, we just don’t know when that is, it could be before you finish reading this sentence, it could be tonight, tomorrow, next week, next year, in 10 years… you get the idea, it’s going to happen, it’s just a matter of when, not if.

So what are you going to do with your life? Here is what I decided to change, I have been wanting a camera, a good one, I can make money with it, it will …

May 27, 2017 No Comments

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What are your super skills?

How do you get what you need and want if you have little or no money to buy? I assume you have some sort of skills, something you know how to do and can do it pretty well… there must be something you can do, maybe it’s a job you do or have done in the past (or present), maybe it’s a hobby you enjoy, maybe it’s a talent you have, whatever it is, you can offer that skill in trade for something you need or want.

This is called “Bartering”, it’s an age old method of trade rather than using money, it just cuts out the middleman, you simply trade your skills with someone who needs what you can do for something they have, whether it’s a skill they posses, or an item, or even cold hard cash.

For me, I am able to do things that not everyone knows how to do or wants to do. I used to be a licensed cosmetologist, which is a fancy way of saying I know how to cut hair. I actually don’t enjoy cutting hair, which is why I don’t do it professionally anymore, I did it for 10 years, I paid off the student loan I got to go to school to do hair, the only reason I stayed in it the last few years is I was offered a management position in a department store salon and thought it would be interesting. It was interesting, until I developed another interest, computers.

But that skill is something that not everyone knows how to do, honestly I kept it a secret for quite a few years after moving to our off-grid home. Little by little though, the news got out, I still keep it on the downlow, but people still ask me to cut their hair and I usually agree. I don’t do the ultra modern cuts, mostly just men’s haircuts and traditional haircuts for women, and no chemical processes, no color, no perms… just haircuts.

One of my neighbors (and good friends) get haircuts about once a month, they have chickens, lots of chickens, which means they have eggs, lots of eggs, so I get eggs from them and they get haircuts from me. We do other things for each other as well, he sharpened my work knife for me a few days ago, yes that is something I could do, but I asked him to do it for me while I was cutting his wife’s hair.

A few days ago, while cutting another friend’s hair, yet another neighbor and friend stopped by, I ended up giving him a haircut in return for some metal sheets to use for the roof on a carport that PB is building for me. That wasn’t planned, it just happened. In this process, I am very careful about sanitation, I keep a spray bottle …

May 20, 2017 No Comments

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Truck garden

Growing up I had heard of truck farms, usually small family farms, when the produce is ready, the farmer takes the produce to a farmer’s market in a truck, thus the name “truck farm”… but this is a different concept, this is actually a garden that is contained in a box truck!

This truck came to Nick Runkle and Justin Cutter in a roundabout way, large windows had been placed in the box part of the truck when it had been a mobile art gallery in its former life. The windows made it a perfect greenhouse, which is exactly what it became. Getting their funding from a Kickstarter program, they reinvented the truck to make it a fully functioning greenhouse on wheels.

As part of the renovation, the truck was converted to run on waste vegetable oil, making it even more sustainable. Where is it legal and upon getting permission, they are able to pull up behind a restaurant, they pop a hose into a barrel of waste cooking/frying oil, they hand crank the oil into a tank where it is filtered 2 times before being used as fuel. The truck comes complete with rain water catchment and its own composting box, so nothing goes to waste.

Not only are tasty veg grown inside of this truck, it is used as a teaching tool, going around to schools, spending the day teaching the kids all about sustainable gardening, from kindergarten to universities, they travel all over the USA, spreading their knowledge and wisdom.

https://youtu.be/h-g74F-U9yU

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May 13, 2017 No Comments

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Bug season!

Duck season! Wabbit season! Does that bring back memories of the old Bugs Bunny and Daffy (along with Elmer Fudd)? I grew up watching that, now I am adding my own responses to it in Elmer’s voice, today I add “Hehehehe, it’s bug season!”

Spring has sprung, except for the last two days of our last(?) cold snap, we have been having warm, even hot days and more importantly, warm nights, which brings out the bugs. Tonight as I sit in my fuzzy PJs and thick robe for probably the last time until next fall, I don’t worry about insects as it’s too cold for them. But rest assured, the bugs are coming.

We had a relatively mild winter, PB really didn’t even have to cut wood, we survived off of what we had leftover from the previous winter, as a result, I suspect the bugs will be prolific this year. Some of the bugs are interesting and fun, others are merely annoying, still others are a pain in more than one way.

I have gotten quite used to the bugs, though I still don’t like them coming inside the SkyCastle unless they are well behaved. Most aren’t, but right now we have a largish spider, a funnel web of some sort that has taken up residence in and around our solar stuff on the inside. She (all spiders are “she” until proven otherwise) has stayed put pretty well, but I noticed her web is getting pretty dusty and filled with moth carcasses, it’s going to have to go, probably sometime tomorrow or the next day we will encourage her to vacate, hopefully without having to dispatch her, I’d much rather have her out on the front porch growing fat on the myriad of moths and other light loving insects that are attracted to our glass door.

With bug season upon us, it’s time to re-evaluate the tightness of the SkyCastle. That means checking windows and doors to make sure they close securely, checking for new and widening cracks in the floors, walls and ceiling, anyplace that has an opening wide enough to push a credit card through is wide enough for spiders, scorpions and centipedes to enter.

I will also be going outside in the evening, just after dark and hunting scorpions. I haven’t had to do it much the last few years so I’ve become lax, it’s time to get out there in the warmer evenings and actively hunt the scorpions. Normally I’m a live and let live kind of gal, but a few years back, we had a rash of scorpions inside the SkyCastle, one got me good on the finger, we were killing one and two each night INSIDE the house, that’s when I declared war on them, or at least the ones within a 10-15 foot diameter around the outside of the SkyCastle.

I use …

April 30, 2017 No Comments

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Another brick in the wall

It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update on the SkyCastle. This is going on our 9th summer out here, we started out with raw land, just under 6 acres on the side of a mountain in far west Texas (yes, Texas has mountains).

We went from a box on stilts with 2 out of the 4 walls being builder’s plastic and wire. Now things are quite a bit more advanced now, growing almost organically over the last few years.

So now, the newest thing PB is building is a wall. We were gifted a large load of papercrete blocks (https://off-grid.net/what-are-we-going-to-do/) almost a year ago, we debated as to what to do with them… my idea being a keyhole garden, PB wasn’t as on board for that as I was. We had even started to regret getting them.

PB had been wanting to put up a wall around the sitting area in front of the SkyCastle, to protect us from the wind, to delineate the sitting area, he wanted to put it up closer to the sitting area, I thought we should make it bigger, following the walkway/path that we take around the front. Last week when I came home from work, PB had placed a line of papercrete bricks around the outer perimeter of our sitting area, where I wanted it to go, it looked pretty good there.

For now he just has the blocks laid out and some wire around the whole thing, he will ultimately use concrete to encase the blocks and make it more permanent. We will also have to clean up quite a bit of brush and tree limbs that litter the ground out there, it’s really a snake haven. Last week a small rock rattler almost got Zoe, our terrier mix dog, fortunately she was faster than the snake and it didn’t get her, but it was close, that was right out there where we sit.

Here are some pictures of how things look for now, I’ll post more updates as they happen.

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April 29, 2017 No Comments

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Build your tiny home like a boat

It’s a funny thing, I had always thought people who built tiny homes, especially the portable ones did build their homes like a boat, water tight, flexible, but I suppose I was wrong about that assumption.

There are different approaches to building, it’s like the old saying, everything looks like a nail if you are a hammer… so if you are a carpenter, you will build as a carpenter does, which is not the same way you would build for a marine environment.

Building a home that is also your vehicle, you need something that will flex without cracking or breaking, no nails were used, it is all mortised, glued and screwed. This tiny home built on a truck is a one of a kind, it’s filled with unique beautiful and useful items, I really love their stove! It does seem tight and cramped, maybe it’s the table that sticks out in the middle, I think I’d shrink that down or make it where it folds out of the way, just my personal observation, obviously they live with it just fine.

He mentions gypsies, this does have a gypsy feel and look to it. Watch and enjoy, let me know what you think below :)

https://youtu.be/iAusQYscQZ8

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April 24, 2017 No Comments

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Frugal noodle

frugal

Let’s use our frugal noodle to come up with some frugal ideas. For me personally, I’ve grown up frugally, I didn’t know or even understand it when I was younger, I just knew we didn’t throw things away until they were used up, worn out and even then it was probably saved for parts. We didn’t call a repairman when things broke, my dad fixed it, we didn’t go out to eat, my mother cooked, and she cooked from scratch. For us, it was just a way of life, we didn’t have the money to pay someone else to do the things we could do for ourselves. I suspect that even if we had been wealthier, my family would have still been the same way, frugal.

Being frugal is about saving money, but it’s also a mindset, here are some of the ways to be frugal, I suspect it will remind you of your grandparents :)

1. Save jars. Frugal people never throw away good glass (or even plastic) jars or containers, especially if they have a good lid and a wide mouth. When we moved off-grid, I remember bringing out a few boxes of empty jars.

2. Buttons, did you grow up with a button jar? I did. Every button was saved, even if it was just one button, they are infinitely useful. If you have a shirt that is going into the trash, be sure to cut off all the buttons and save them.

3. Fabric, even small fabric scraps are handy, from patching things to quilts, fabric scraps are very handy to have around. I even save the legs of jeans I cut off for shorts.

4. Newspaper, it has so many uses after it’s been read, from wrapping gifts, crafts, cleaning glass, filler in boxes for moving or shipping…

5. Bread ties, this so reminds me of my dad, we had this junk drawer (don’t laugh, you have one too), it was full of straightened bread ties, they are great for tying other things together.

6. Rubber bands, this was one of the other things in the junk drawer, all sorts of rubber bands, they are so useful, and if nothing else, you can make a rubber band ball to keep you amused. Of course, rubber bands have a limited life, especially out here where we live, it’s so dry that the rubber becomes brittle, so they have to be used quickly…

7. Hardware, drawer pulls, hinges, screws, nails, anything that you could take off of anything that would be tossed in the trash, again this was stored and found in that junk drawer, or perhaps in a small glass jar.

8. String, I have fond memories of this piece of wood with a long length of string wrapped around it, it belonged to my dad, he would dole out a length of string to use …

April 21, 2017 No Comments

Planting by the moon, hype or help?

I was born in 1965 so I grew up less than one generation removed from those in my family who really farmed and those who went through the Great Depression. We saved everything, we didn’t throw anything into the trash until it was used up, worn out, reused and even then, it would be more likely put aside for parts…

I remember hearing my dad talking about “planting by the moon” as I grew up, one summer he decided it was all nonsense and would just plant whenever, with no regard to what the moon cycle was doing. Well, that year our garden wasn’t as good as it usually was, after that, we went back to planting by the moon.

What does that mean? Well, to simplify it, anything that is harvested from underground (root vegetables, carrots, onions, potatoes) need to be planted by the “dark of the moon”, when the moon is past full going toward the new moon. Anything that is harvested above ground, (corn, tomatoes and the such) should be planted by the “light of the moon”, meaning after the new moon going toward the full moon. If you get an “Old Farmer’s Almanac” it will get even more detailed as to the specific dates when you should plant based on the moon phases.

There is science behind this, it’s not hocus pocus, the moon affects water on earth, just look at what it does to the tides. Here is a video explaining how all of this works.

https://youtu.be/kYtnZPuP4zk

What about you? Do you plant by the moon? Do you believe in it or do you think it’s nonsense? Let me know below!

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April 20, 2017 No Comments

Community

Is it healthier to live off-grid?

Are there health benefits to living off-grid? I’d say yes, for me there definitely are. First, I find living in a more simple manner is much less stressful, of course I’ve been a more laid back type of person to begin with, something that I believe has helped keep me in a healthier state of mind.

Having fewer and smaller bills tends to keep the stress levels down as well. Since I have fewer and smaller bills, I am able to work fewer hours outside of my home, giving me more time to spend at home, another stress buster.

What about more physical health benefits? In my case, living on a mountain side without a way to drive up the hill to my house means I am hoofing it, walking, hiking up and down, usually carrying something uphill, things like groceries and packages. I know that has kept my more fit. It’s something I don’t even notice anymore, until I’m walking up with a guest and they are complaining about how hard the walk up is while I’m in front of them breathing pretty normally.

Now to the less tangible, something that perhaps can’t be measured but is something I feel is just as important. In this modern world, we are surrounded by electronic pollution, that is caused by electronic appliances, faulty wiring, radio waves, bluetooth, wifi, I could go on… living off-grid, having fewer appliances around and not having them powered on all the time, having fewer radio waves because of the very rural area, cell phones don’t work out here, neighbors are few and far between so there is much less wifi going through the air. There are some who don’t believe this can cause health problems, there are others who do believe it causes health problems, that is up to you to decide, but true or not, I have much less of it around me. I can actually turn everything off, wifi, radios, every electronic item and have the barest minimum of electromagnetic pollution, it’s really nice to know I can cut everything off at the flip of a switch.

So yes, I do believe there are health benefits to living off-grid, there definitely is for me, what about you? What is your opinion of this? Please let me know below.

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April 12, 2017 3 Comments

Spirit

Showering felt so good today!

Missing my dad on Father’s Day

Modern vs retro tiny home

What is? What if?

What are your super skills?

Truck garden

Bug season!

Another brick in the wall

Build your tiny home like a boat

Frugal noodle

Planting by the moon, hype or help?

Is it healthier to live off-grid?

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