"Home Stead" Living

[Randy]

Anyone on here "Into" living off the land type living? You Know, non-electric, Solar, non-solar, Candles. oil lanterns, Raising most of your own food. Lets hear about it, talk about it. Randy

[beenthere]

That wouldn't be 'living' by my standards. That would be roughing it, or primitive camping. It was great while elk hunting in Colorado and Idaho for about 3 weeks at a time. But not any longer.  ;D

[Jeff]

Well, I gotta think that we wont be hearing to much from the non-electric delegation.

[Stump Jumper]

you got a good point there Jeff. :D

[Haytrader]

Not trying to be a smartelic but I camped out for a year while carrying a rifle.
Now, my idea of 'roughing it' is leaving the bedroom window open about an inch.

;)

[tnlogger]

it woun't be bad if ya had solor powered laptop and a connection  ;D cause we all need our daily ff fix :D

[pigman]

Randy, I think that most of the people that live like that are not members of the Fourm since they would have difficulty connecting to the internet without electricity. I suppose they could use solar cells for power. I have a few neighbors that live like you describe. They wear black hats and drive horse and buggies, but I don't think they are members of the fourm. I like visiting with them, but I also like to get home to my electricity and other creature comforts. 8)

[Lenny_M]

 Roughing it??? Thats living ;D
  When we started out. 3 room camp,no water ,no sewerr, no power. I lied about the water.  The Brook ran 24/7x365 days a year :D
We upgraded th camp a bit. Hand pump and small drywell 8)
NO RENT AND NEXT DOOR TO THE HOUSE WE BUILT. Everyone though we were nuts.  We had 3 kids when we moved into the house. 4th was on yhe way.
  My morgage 000000000000000 The people that thought we were nuts are still paying 1000-1200  monthly and probally will be to near retirement age :D :D
                                 Lenny

[Fla._Deadheader]

  What a bunch of Sissies.  : :D :D :D :D :D :D

 My wife LOVED living without "Grid" electric.

 We had TV (21" color, electric kitchen appliances, All the hot water we could want, telephone, lights, Propane refrigerator. Nice hot showers in the bathroom from spring fed water tank.  Nuttin to it.  ;D ;D ;D ;D

 Can't get too deep into this thread. Leaving for CR on Thursday. Gotta go check up on Fred, and make sure he don't get into trouble. : : :D :D

[Rockn H]

When we are at our river camp, it's primitive in the winter.  During the summer too until we crankup the generator for the a/c.  We have a 300 gallon water tower we fill every 4 days or so.  Propane refigerator and hot water heater with oil lamps for light sometimes.  We have 3 deep cycle batteries we use to run a 2500 watt inverter.  It powers flourescent lights and the TV and satelite dish and ceiling fans.  I have a 3hp motor and a delco alternator that I recharge the batteries with.  When the temp. gets hot we crank up the generator for the A/C and other electrics.   About as off grid as we get.  If time ever permits, I would love to play with some wind and hydro power and do away with the generator all together. ;D

[Buzz-sawyer]

Randy
Been livin close to nature since about 1984....we raise our garden and hunt for meat, we also use electricity....but are into  ALL KINDS of alternative energy. from wood gasification to biodiesel, to using the earth as a battery.
I do it because I enjoy a simpler life. And its fun.

[sprucebunny]

I lived on a 36 foot boat for three and a half years including one winter in Maine .It was the coldest winter in 50 years but we did get to plug in.
Other than that winter , we lived on 12 volt. And for 8 more summers, too .
Almost didn't connect my house to the grid and except for needing my Forestry Forum fix and a hot shower, I would be perfectly happy without electricity.
I plan on building a camp soon that will be off the grid. Gonna have to look into satilite internet ;D ;D

[Randy]

Well--------We got a Discussion started. I have been living OFF Grid for 5 years now and Looooooooooooovvvvveeee IT, but I do have a part-time Business that I work at, at night,(15 hr's per week) which is where my computer is. I bought my sawmill to cut lumber for my cabin that I am going to build down by my lake. I did buy the sawmill to cut my lumber to build my cabin. I bought it from a Sawyer that wanted to retire---------------so he sends me cutting jobs from his repeat customers that calls and didn't know he retired. Back to the Off-Grid. I do have several Large solar panels that keep my batteries charged. I do have TV, vcr, (Did have Dss Satelite, but to busy getting my Home-Stead set up to watch TV), running water, swimming pool, hot water and a fridge that run off of gas and I can run my AC(Window) on the hot nights. I pretty much have the things I need just like most people, but No Electric Bill each month, I do have a generator, but never use it. Gas cost me about $200 per year, but I heat my water and run my heat with gas, but that will be cut way back when I get the cabin built because I will install a outdoor wood furnace to heat the house and water(got slab's to burn ;D ). Its not a Money thing at All, I am not rich, but if I were to win the lottery I don't feel I would want to live anywhere else or any other way-----------I Live exactly where I want---------------I Love to camp-------And thats how I started this------------camping there, put down a well(hand pump) ETC Etc, Etc. Then I moved there 5 years ago full time, except for hanging around my shop. I sell and repair CB's and CB related equipment at my night job.  My Girlfriend LOVES it Too, but she doesn't live there full time yet------------Waiting on our house/Cabin. One of our things we like to do is hang the Cast Iron pot over a fire and cook a stew, soup, etc. She had rather be planting or messing with the animals than to go to Wal*marts(boy did I find a Rare Find :D )  We do raise chickens, rabbits, guniea's, ducks, worms, crickets(sometimes), got our pecan, peach, pear, apple tree's growing, blueberry bushes and other things growing like our garden, We love Canning, making bread Etc. Its a Dream and My Hobby to one DAY--- go to town, get some supplies(rice, flour, sugar, salt, Etc). Come home and live for Months before having to go back to grocery store. I know this life is Not for alot of people, but I LOVE working towards that DAY of being Close to living a self-reliant life.   Randy

[Bro. Noble]

We used to raise all our food,  Had kerosene lamps and a battery radio.  We did have running water via a ram and a spring.  Had a Maytag with a gas engine.  That was a good life,  but the folks sure were happy when REA came through in 1947 :D :D  Telephones didn't get to our neighborhood till about 1970.  Had to drive about 15 miles to a pay phone :

I miss the neighborhood that exhisted then and am thankful for the memories of that way of life,  but NO WAY would I want to go back to it.

[Corley5]

My Great Grandmother Alice Collins-Vroman always said " The only thing good about the Good Old Days is they're gone"  ;) 
The old camp in the UP was wired up for twelve volts that we ran off the truck batteries.  Dad had two batteries in both vehicles for the lights and the trolling motor ;).  The well siphoned.  You could always tell when someone had been messing around with it because if the hose was picked up too far it quit running ;D.  We kept a bucket of water inside next to the door and got  fresh water several times a day.  The water was super hard.  Orange iron deposits built up in the well overflow and stained the water bucket the same;D  The backhouse was out back.  One winter when we were there it was 28 below inside it.  The Coleman lamp warmed it up to 15 below.  We cooked burgers and steak outside over a wood fire but did have a gas cook stove.  Heat was a woodstove of course.  It was always fun to get on the roof to take the can off or put it back on the chimney.  The TV ran off the cigarette lighter in the truck and sometimes we got two channels.  Lots of good memories from weeks during the summer and weekends the rest of the year spent at "Bear Cabin" but it was always nice to come home to conveniences ;) ;D  The new cabin has power, indoor plumbing etc but still only two TV channels sometimes.  It's a great place but it's not the same :(

[Paschale]

hey Buzz...how do you use the earth as a battery? :P

[Buzz-sawyer]

paschale
Basically using zinc and copper driven into the earth .using soil as the "electrolite" is in a lead acid battery....try to get a pic for ya

[sawguy21]

No power and dad's idea of running water was two kids with buckets :D That was fine at the summer cottage for a week or so but I don't want to live that way.

[pigman]

Well DanG Randy, I misunderstood your first post. I thought you ment living without the creature comforts, instead you ment living off the grid. I sure would like to live off the grid but I'm just too lazy to do all the things necessary for that.

[Randy]

Well Pigman I was just getting a conversation started----------Some people on here might like to ROUGH-IT :D. I like the challege of having some modern things, but on solar. Alot of my neighbors think I want to be a Hermit-------------Far from that-------------I love having people to come and visit. I just enjoy very much doing what I am doing. I am going to try a Pic or two. This is some of my solar panels on a Home-Made Tracker.
This is a pic of My Lake. Love my Little Place. Randy

[UNCLEBUCK]

I roughed it a few times at log school decades ago , I enjoyed it . I like looking through the Lehmans catalog now and then . I just about go off the road when I see the amish out working their fields because it just seems peaceful, I once had a dream to build a big sailboat and live on it but thats as far as I got .  The closest I can get now to off the grid is finishing my outdoor wood boiler but even then I will have a small electric bill . I think maybe Mennonites are a good balance of now and then .I would love to live in a shack overlooking lake superior on the u.p. of michigan but I am stuck here in farm country . Good pics Randy , youre a interesting man  :P

[Randy]

Thanks Uncle Buck. My Dream started when I was a young buck-----------went camping on a local river------------got to exploring by boat and found a App 5 ac Island, it was so beautiful to me, completely surrounded by water and very hard to get to, for years I didn't know it was there even though I rode by it in the boat within 100yds a thousand times------------Well I went to this Island several times------------wanted to live on it-----------thought of camping on it for a month, but Time wouldn't let me do it---------and no one shared my interest, staying there for a few weeks right in the middle of the river swamps, kinda bothered me, incase I got hurt-----------I would be all alone-----------Cell pones were scarce then, but wouldn't have worked there anyhow. A few years later, on the backside of my property the beavers started daming up the "Run" of the swamp that crossed my property in a low area. It went from a ditch 8 to 10ft wide to--------I have app 15 acreas under water on my property, with a few acreas open like you see in the pic. It became more of a reality for me to camp back there for weeks at the time. I made me a small garden and got started-------------I have been camping, kept adding this and that, clearing it up some. I my eyes(beauty is in the eyes of the beholder) I have a beautiful place, That I soon hope I will have my cabin and be Living in. Sure I had rather be living up in the mountains with a creek running by, etc, etc, but I would Hate to leave my Kids and Family. All My family lives in this area. I will be Happy at My Place when I finish it.

Randy

[sprucebunny]

Randy
Do you live near the Waccammaw River ? The 2 winters we didn't live in Maine , we took the sailboat down the Intercoastal Waterway to Florida and my  favorite part was Conway, SC.
We went right off the chart and up the Waccammaw to the bridge just south of Conway. I dreamed for years of buying land along the river but when I went to look for some , it was too expensive. Also I don't like snakes 
We didn't have too many conviences on the boat....no tv, had to run the engine for hot water.Ice ( or frozen turkeys ) for refrigeration.  Always on an anchor or mooring...hate marinas.
I don't want to be a hermit either but I prefer to live away from the noise of roads and barking dogs and enjoy being as self-sufficient as possible. I like to rough it , too. But don't take my ATV away ;D ;D

[Gunny]

Just noticed this thread and feel so at-home reading of the various exploits.  I began doing this exact thing--and continue to do it in a modified degree--back in the early '70s in Norwich Township, Newaygo County, MI.  Back then, though, we just called it living simply.  This "off-the-grid" term must be something coined by the Manhattanites who took control of Mother Earth News years ago.

I was running a federal anti-poverty program and was dismayed when our then-Pres hijacked the fed monies which had been earmarked for rural housing projects and used it all to bomb Cambodia and Laos, instead.  So, I went looking at options.  Within a couple of months, my wife and I were building--to lots of media coverage and zillions of tourist-gawkers--our first geodesic dome on a lovely piece of land that we'd stumbled onto.  We cleared a few mature sassafras trees from the grove and hand-built (using all non-electric hand tools) a 26' diameter "Dyna-Dome".  We moved into it in the same month the Mother Earth crew ran the cover story on theirs (same size) that they'd built for "only" $28K.  We'd built ours, documented for the purposes of future grant proposals, etc., for $1,841.00. 

We heated with an old two-burner "kitchen stove" a fellow from the area had put out to the road for trash pick-up.  We lit the place at night with a single Alladin kerosene lamp.  We had a pitcher pump just outside the front door and our triangular outhouse was tucked discreetly back into the sassafras grove about 100 feet from our backdoor.  We "free-ranged" ducks and rabbits, bringing home loads of fresh fish from the region's lakes and streams and always had the larder filled with fresh venison.  All veggies were either grown on our place or bartered for with neighbors.  Our fresh milk came from the tanks of our dairy-farming-neighbor, the Township Building Inspector who respectfully never "inspected" anything.  Our monthly expenses ran under $100.00--for an extravagant month--and I've never been happier than during those days of honest living.

Odd that you reside near "Conway" S.C. , Randy, since my last name is "Conway"!  Karma?  I've been publishing homesteading/self-sufficiency pamphlets through our homestead's indie press (WoodSong Press) for years now and have been fortunate enough to have had several articles published through such diverse outlets as "BackHome Magazine", "Home Education Magazine", the American Forest Foundation's "Tree Farmer Magazine" and more.  I applaud your efforts and ingenuity.  My wife and four youngest children continue to foster the traditions of our ancestors and agree that a "simpler" life can be lived with dignity. 

I'm currently pursuing a terminal degree which has accepted the draft of my memoirs of these fabulous experiences as my major project/dissertation.  Frankly, I'm delighted that only a small percentage of us opt into this lifestyle.  It sure would get crowded in a hurry if there was a sudden rush to the country! Can you imagine how scarce the wild berries, fish, and game would become?  We might best remain in the shadows and only whisper of our great fortunes.

Best to you in all your efforts.  Connected in spirit...

"Gunny" Jim Conway
Rural Route 3
Lakeview, MI

[tnlogger]

 Randy i misunderstood you like pigman  ;) good looking place you have there.

wnen i was just a little one we lived off the grid my dad took care of the barrons in blue hill maine from
1955 untill 1959. I dont remember how many acres of blueberrys. we lived in a tar paper shack with a well and not much else.

You have brought back memorys of a youth that hard times but also great joy that I had completly forgot about.  Thanks for the bumb on the head to bring them to the surface again Gene