ultimate goal: go off grid, live self sufficiently
May 7, 2020 5:39 PM Subscribe
my interest in this lifestyle started in 5th grade, with "my side of the mountain." now i really want to do it for real.
i'm ready to just go off grid, a la "my side of the mountain" or even "shooter." assuming i can find land to buy/use, and that i have a decent grip on basic survival skills, what would i need to put this into action with a minimum of outside help?
i'm ready to just go off grid, a la "my side of the mountain" or even "shooter." assuming i can find land to buy/use, and that i have a decent grip on basic survival skills, what would i need to put this into action with a minimum of outside help?
Depends a lot on the location and what your general plan is. For grown ups, in the US, if you're not just boondocking it, one of the things would be money. It's worth paying attention to things like which states have property taxes and which states have zoning regulations which would potentially impede what you're trying to do. Think about cell and/or internet service if that is going to be part of it. Or, if not, what an emergency plan would be.
So like as an example, I moved to rural VT and bought a cheap house with a gravity fed well and could have conceivably put solar on it ($$$) and had a pretty big garden and maybe even shot and killed deer and gone fishing nearby. But I needed a car to get there which meant a small amount of both expenses and being tied into the system. No car would have been okay but then if I got in a jam for whatever reason (I had a few small health issues while I was there, for example) I would have had to... I don't know what, hitchhike to the doctor or dentist?
So depending on how hale and hearty you are, it's worth thinking about contingency planning if you've got basically anywhere you could plan to go and live. How much do you want to sever ties with the world you came from,and how much do you just need a break for a while?
posted by jessamyn at 8:02 PM on May 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
So like as an example, I moved to rural VT and bought a cheap house with a gravity fed well and could have conceivably put solar on it ($$$) and had a pretty big garden and maybe even shot and killed deer and gone fishing nearby. But I needed a car to get there which meant a small amount of both expenses and being tied into the system. No car would have been okay but then if I got in a jam for whatever reason (I had a few small health issues while I was there, for example) I would have had to... I don't know what, hitchhike to the doctor or dentist?
So depending on how hale and hearty you are, it's worth thinking about contingency planning if you've got basically anywhere you could plan to go and live. How much do you want to sever ties with the world you came from,and how much do you just need a break for a while?
posted by jessamyn at 8:02 PM on May 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
Get land with a spring. A Foxfire book set. An axe, a generator, solar panels and battery bank etc, propane stove probably (it's a hassle to cook on a wood stove esp for one), maybe a come along, chainsaw for sure, work gloves, shovel, a few steel barrels, that thing you can strip logs with that you hold one side in each hand, hardware, tools, wonderbar, a bicycle, water tank, buckets to haul, a sled if it snows, rope rope rope, shotgun and a .22, ammo, mechanics suit, fuel, insulation rolls. You can't truly disconnect but you can get pretty close.
posted by letahl at 8:14 PM on May 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by letahl at 8:14 PM on May 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
I live most of the year in a small, fairly self-contained village of about 8 people. We do use grid power where we can't get micro-hydro. There's not enough sun to make solar workable (we're in a valley). We all have wood stoves to heat and cook, big gardens, forage for food and medicine, and hunt and fish for meat as well as raise chickens and sheep. Our main needs from the outside world are salt, grains, cooking fats, sweeteners, tobacco, and tea/coffee. There is a large vegetable farm our friend owns up the road, and most of us work there during the summer and we get lots of free produce. We have neighbors we visit to harvest from their orchards and wild berries.
Being totally self-sufficient all on your own is honestly almost impossible unless you are willing to really, really rough it. The things you need depend on your climate, but outside of a few outlier 'lives in the woods by himself in a cave' folks, this is not easy to achieve.
So you need a house. Insulated from heat and cold. This means building a good shelter with air flow and heating. Wood burning stoves are a good solution. If you're in a 4 season climate, you will need between 2 and 4 cords of wood, (60 hours or so of chopping if you know what you're doing) which have to cure for a year before you can use them, even from dead standing. So chainsaw, axes, wedges, and probably a truck. Which means gas. This means money on an ongoing basis.
You need water. A well or a spring, or a creek close enough to the source to not need filtering. This all means pipes or tubing and maybe a pump unless your sources is higher than your house. Also costs money, and needs to be replaced eventually.
You need food. Most gardens are geared to fruits and veg, and you'll need a lot of space to grow enough to live on without supplementing from stores. Depending on where you are, you might be able to harvest some berries and fruit if you have producing bushes/trees on your land. Or you can plant them and wait until they are mature enough to produce. You will need to freeze, dry or can what you pick or it's gonna go bad before you can eat it all. So you need canning stuff (big pot, grabber tongs, hella mason jars, and those lids have to be replaced every couple years). A root cellar (lots of digging! So much!) will keep your root veggies and apples fresh through the winter if it's deep enough. Wash your cabbages and carrots in bleach water every now and then. You'll add a month to their viability. You'll want a dehydrator for sure. you can build a passive solar one, but we use an electric one as fall fruit in an outdoor space is a bear fun time pantry. You need garden tools. They cost money and need to be replaced periodically.
You still need protein. Say you live in a place where you can fish and hunt (in season). You need to pay for licenses for these things. You can trap smaller game, but that's much more challenging. If you are hunting larger game you will need a deep freezer to store (electricity!) or be content with a massive salting / smoking process that will allow you to store meat long term.
You also need carbs. Grains need a lot of land space, and the right climate. Getting them to an edible state means you'll need to thresh, winnow, and grind your wheat/oats/spelt etc. Grinding means you need a stone mill. A hand crank meat grinder isnt going to cut it (literally) but you'll want one anyway for other stuff. Potatoes are a good source, and are easy to grow in the right climate. These need to be stored in a cool dry place away from rodents and insects to last all year.
You need fats. Wild crafted diets are low in fat, which is not always a good thing. Game meat is low in fat, and you can't make cooking oil from it. Deer tallow will make soap and icky candles. You need bees for good candle wax (and honey!) Raising chickens can get you both fat and eggs. But they need a place to roost that keeps them safe from predators.
You'll need fencing to protect your garden from deer and bears. Without an electric fence, your garden and chickens are going to get eaten or trampled. Dogs help with this, as do shotguns.
So you need micro hydro (only if you have an accessible, appropriate water source that has enough flow rate) or solar (if you live in a place that gets enough sun all year round.
You need medicine. Our mainstays are tinctures and teas. A very small sampling: nettle, mint, mullein, poppy, willow bark, chamomile, chaga, lions mane, spruce tips, elecampane, milky oat, pearly everlasting, ghost pipe, pine pollen, raspberry leaf, and red clover.
If you really want to go all out, you need clothing and cleaning cloth, so you'll need to tan leather or weave flax or cotton. We have alpacas we shear for fiber. They are cute and less trouble than llamas, but won't haul anything, so sometimes we have to borrow a donkey if we're pulling things up a steep path. You'll need soap, so save your tallow.
I could go on. But really, this is a massive, MASSIVE effort for a single person. Without access to money or the outside world it is going to be a slog. But wow, if you're into it, go try it! I don't recommend you buy some remote property and cut yourself off from the world to see if you can hack it. One bad winter where you run through your firewood? One bad frost or dry summer that kills your crops? There's a reason people tend to settle together.
So yeah, you need good land, good water, good equipment, many years to get established, some friendly neighbors, and some way to get money when you need it. Or a bunch of people already doing this that like you and want your help.
Go look up a victorian household guide on Project Gutenberg. So many good ideas! They have instructions for making everything from soap to paint.
Good luck!
posted by ananci at 8:55 PM on May 7, 2020 [96 favorites]
Being totally self-sufficient all on your own is honestly almost impossible unless you are willing to really, really rough it. The things you need depend on your climate, but outside of a few outlier 'lives in the woods by himself in a cave' folks, this is not easy to achieve.
So you need a house. Insulated from heat and cold. This means building a good shelter with air flow and heating. Wood burning stoves are a good solution. If you're in a 4 season climate, you will need between 2 and 4 cords of wood, (60 hours or so of chopping if you know what you're doing) which have to cure for a year before you can use them, even from dead standing. So chainsaw, axes, wedges, and probably a truck. Which means gas. This means money on an ongoing basis.
You need water. A well or a spring, or a creek close enough to the source to not need filtering. This all means pipes or tubing and maybe a pump unless your sources is higher than your house. Also costs money, and needs to be replaced eventually.
You need food. Most gardens are geared to fruits and veg, and you'll need a lot of space to grow enough to live on without supplementing from stores. Depending on where you are, you might be able to harvest some berries and fruit if you have producing bushes/trees on your land. Or you can plant them and wait until they are mature enough to produce. You will need to freeze, dry or can what you pick or it's gonna go bad before you can eat it all. So you need canning stuff (big pot, grabber tongs, hella mason jars, and those lids have to be replaced every couple years). A root cellar (lots of digging! So much!) will keep your root veggies and apples fresh through the winter if it's deep enough. Wash your cabbages and carrots in bleach water every now and then. You'll add a month to their viability. You'll want a dehydrator for sure. you can build a passive solar one, but we use an electric one as fall fruit in an outdoor space is a bear fun time pantry. You need garden tools. They cost money and need to be replaced periodically.
You still need protein. Say you live in a place where you can fish and hunt (in season). You need to pay for licenses for these things. You can trap smaller game, but that's much more challenging. If you are hunting larger game you will need a deep freezer to store (electricity!) or be content with a massive salting / smoking process that will allow you to store meat long term.
You also need carbs. Grains need a lot of land space, and the right climate. Getting them to an edible state means you'll need to thresh, winnow, and grind your wheat/oats/spelt etc. Grinding means you need a stone mill. A hand crank meat grinder isnt going to cut it (literally) but you'll want one anyway for other stuff. Potatoes are a good source, and are easy to grow in the right climate. These need to be stored in a cool dry place away from rodents and insects to last all year.
You need fats. Wild crafted diets are low in fat, which is not always a good thing. Game meat is low in fat, and you can't make cooking oil from it. Deer tallow will make soap and icky candles. You need bees for good candle wax (and honey!) Raising chickens can get you both fat and eggs. But they need a place to roost that keeps them safe from predators.
You'll need fencing to protect your garden from deer and bears. Without an electric fence, your garden and chickens are going to get eaten or trampled. Dogs help with this, as do shotguns.
So you need micro hydro (only if you have an accessible, appropriate water source that has enough flow rate) or solar (if you live in a place that gets enough sun all year round.
You need medicine. Our mainstays are tinctures and teas. A very small sampling: nettle, mint, mullein, poppy, willow bark, chamomile, chaga, lions mane, spruce tips, elecampane, milky oat, pearly everlasting, ghost pipe, pine pollen, raspberry leaf, and red clover.
If you really want to go all out, you need clothing and cleaning cloth, so you'll need to tan leather or weave flax or cotton. We have alpacas we shear for fiber. They are cute and less trouble than llamas, but won't haul anything, so sometimes we have to borrow a donkey if we're pulling things up a steep path. You'll need soap, so save your tallow.
I could go on. But really, this is a massive, MASSIVE effort for a single person. Without access to money or the outside world it is going to be a slog. But wow, if you're into it, go try it! I don't recommend you buy some remote property and cut yourself off from the world to see if you can hack it. One bad winter where you run through your firewood? One bad frost or dry summer that kills your crops? There's a reason people tend to settle together.
So yeah, you need good land, good water, good equipment, many years to get established, some friendly neighbors, and some way to get money when you need it. Or a bunch of people already doing this that like you and want your help.
Go look up a victorian household guide on Project Gutenberg. So many good ideas! They have instructions for making everything from soap to paint.
Good luck!
posted by ananci at 8:55 PM on May 7, 2020 [96 favorites]
If you have money, you can just buy someone's off-grid cabin and land. Tiny hunting cabins on 40 acres of wilderness, or full-on prepper dens with solar and wind power. Landwatch.com is a good start; for example: this cabin
posted by The otter lady at 9:12 PM on May 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by The otter lady at 9:12 PM on May 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
I really dream about this lifestyle, but it's SO MUCH work and knowledge that we no longer just naturally acquire from living this lifestyle growing up!
There's lots of good resources on the internet for this, I think you'll want to start with looking into Homesteading (homestead.org is a good jumping off point, but there's tons.)
You'll need to look into food security on top of power and water and sanitation (and uh, internet?) and farming, even basic stuff, has a big learning curve and will take a couple years to get into swing, so as soon as you get your land and start planning, you will need to make some decisions about that. Amending the soil and building beds and seeing what kind of critters you have to deal with, etc.
Also, permaculture. You're going to want to establish perennial food sources. Most decent sized cities have some kind of permaculture club, join it and learn!
Quail - they're easy to keep, they provide both eggs and meat, and droppings which are a little less "hot" than chicken for compost. You can possibly hunt and fish but those are seasonal and you might want something you raise as a backup for protein. Rabbits are also popular as an easy one, but no eggs then. A goat?
Learn to cook! Learn to brew! Learn to woodwork and build and weld. invest in some good tools and hand tools depending on your power capabilities. Learn how to fix and maintain things. Learn to hunt and fish and trap. Learn to sew. Learn to tie knots. Learn to tan hides. Learn about foraging and medicinal herbs. Start chopping wood immediately, because if you have to heat through a winter with a wood stove, you will be stunned at how much wood you go through! and those chopping muscles are earned, it'll be a hard go the first while to get enough wood! Also, learn to make and re-seat axe handles. They break and loosen often.
You'll probably have a much better time if you can find a sort of community of like-minded people to join and live with/near - things like safe water infrastructure will take a lot of pressure off having to know so much. Like when I grew up, you couldn't drink our water for a couple weeks every year because of beaver fever and things like that, and we were on a community well that was tested. I would think it would be so hard to have your own well.
posted by euphoria066 at 9:18 PM on May 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
There's lots of good resources on the internet for this, I think you'll want to start with looking into Homesteading (homestead.org is a good jumping off point, but there's tons.)
You'll need to look into food security on top of power and water and sanitation (and uh, internet?) and farming, even basic stuff, has a big learning curve and will take a couple years to get into swing, so as soon as you get your land and start planning, you will need to make some decisions about that. Amending the soil and building beds and seeing what kind of critters you have to deal with, etc.
Also, permaculture. You're going to want to establish perennial food sources. Most decent sized cities have some kind of permaculture club, join it and learn!
Quail - they're easy to keep, they provide both eggs and meat, and droppings which are a little less "hot" than chicken for compost. You can possibly hunt and fish but those are seasonal and you might want something you raise as a backup for protein. Rabbits are also popular as an easy one, but no eggs then. A goat?
Learn to cook! Learn to brew! Learn to woodwork and build and weld. invest in some good tools and hand tools depending on your power capabilities. Learn how to fix and maintain things. Learn to hunt and fish and trap. Learn to sew. Learn to tie knots. Learn to tan hides. Learn about foraging and medicinal herbs. Start chopping wood immediately, because if you have to heat through a winter with a wood stove, you will be stunned at how much wood you go through! and those chopping muscles are earned, it'll be a hard go the first while to get enough wood! Also, learn to make and re-seat axe handles. They break and loosen often.
You'll probably have a much better time if you can find a sort of community of like-minded people to join and live with/near - things like safe water infrastructure will take a lot of pressure off having to know so much. Like when I grew up, you couldn't drink our water for a couple weeks every year because of beaver fever and things like that, and we were on a community well that was tested. I would think it would be so hard to have your own well.
posted by euphoria066 at 9:18 PM on May 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
Deep, locally-specific horticultural, hunting/trapping, and wild foods knowledge, which typically takes a long time to acquire, in large part via trial-and-error, and by learning from older people who have had had the time to do that. That's just to eat. Building and maintaining structures, power systems, irrigation, etc. are an equally complex challenge. A willingness, long term, to do without materially, deal with privation and physical discomfort, and, depending on where you're planning to buy land, possibly to live with a certain amount of danger due to remoteness/lack of access to care. The patience, creativity, and in some cases, willingness to bend or break the law that it takes to live outside the cash economy.
Start slow, read a lot, seek out people who are living in the manner you're hoping for, and see if they will talk to you. Spend a lot of time by yourself and make sure that's really something that you can sustain long-term. Buy land with an idea toward what you can build gradually over decades.
Lloyd Kahn who, with his wife Lesley, has been doing small scale homesteading for over 40 years has said repeatedly that total self-sufficiency is a good goal to aim at, but one you'll never reach. You can go a long way down the path by aiming at it, though.
Books by and about Anne LaBastille, Dick Proenneke, Helen and Scott Nearing and Heimo and Edna Korth may be helpful in thinking about this. I also recommend John Haines' The Stars, the Snow, the Fire: Twenty-Five Years in the Alaska Wilderness.
posted by ryanshepard at 9:52 PM on May 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
Start slow, read a lot, seek out people who are living in the manner you're hoping for, and see if they will talk to you. Spend a lot of time by yourself and make sure that's really something that you can sustain long-term. Buy land with an idea toward what you can build gradually over decades.
Lloyd Kahn who, with his wife Lesley, has been doing small scale homesteading for over 40 years has said repeatedly that total self-sufficiency is a good goal to aim at, but one you'll never reach. You can go a long way down the path by aiming at it, though.
Books by and about Anne LaBastille, Dick Proenneke, Helen and Scott Nearing and Heimo and Edna Korth may be helpful in thinking about this. I also recommend John Haines' The Stars, the Snow, the Fire: Twenty-Five Years in the Alaska Wilderness.
posted by ryanshepard at 9:52 PM on May 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
You need water. A well or a spring, or a creek close enough to the source to not need filtering. This all means pipes or tubing and maybe a pump unless your sources is higher than your house.
Alternatively, if you have no spring, creek or well, you can harvest rainwater from your roof and store in a tank. While it's not a common roofing material in the US, galvanised corrugated iron roofing is a very common and respected roofing material in Australia with great water catchment properties. The corrugations funnel the rainwater into roof guttering which drains into a nearby tank from where the water can be pumped back to the house or moved by a solar pump or windmill to a header tank for gravity feeding. You can even attach a diverter to discard the first washes of rain if your roof is dusty or otherwise dirty, and you can attach a filter on the other end before it enters the home, if you wish.
Five inches of rain on the roof of a small house will fill a 5000 gallon tank.
posted by Thella at 10:52 PM on May 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
Alternatively, if you have no spring, creek or well, you can harvest rainwater from your roof and store in a tank. While it's not a common roofing material in the US, galvanised corrugated iron roofing is a very common and respected roofing material in Australia with great water catchment properties. The corrugations funnel the rainwater into roof guttering which drains into a nearby tank from where the water can be pumped back to the house or moved by a solar pump or windmill to a header tank for gravity feeding. You can even attach a diverter to discard the first washes of rain if your roof is dusty or otherwise dirty, and you can attach a filter on the other end before it enters the home, if you wish.
Five inches of rain on the roof of a small house will fill a 5000 gallon tank.
posted by Thella at 10:52 PM on May 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
I lived off grid for about 20 years and have friends that still do. I absolutely loved it - mainly for the great beauty of where we lived - but I could not imagine living any kind of ongoing hardcore self sufficient life on my own. And I say that as someone who loves solitude and has very minimal physical requirements. I did it with 5 friends and even that was too few for a lot of things. I was also the last to leave so I did it on my own for a few years as well.
The fewer of us there were, the less we could do ourselves because there just wasn't enough time usually. Even with 5 there were many things we couldn't grow. Communities of 20 or more can start to get serious about providing most things for themselves, but you have to deal with all those other people and that presents its own challenges. And it's not possible to find a place with a climate that can grow, say, hard (bread making) wheat and bananas. Even if you've got the climate for grains & legumes, you will require tillable land and machinery, and lots of time.
And the bad years, which happen regularly, can be devastating. One spring we planted 1000 grape vines and the following summer brought the worst grasshopper apocalypse the district had seen for decades. We lost all the vines and many other crops. It was a little bit heartbreaking. You have to have a particular mindset to be able keep at it after a few of these kinds of experiences.
I do off-grid power systems for a living and, here in Australia, it's an increasingly common choice. Modern systems will run anything, but a big domestic system here might be $AU60,000 or more. I could get by with much less, but it would still be $25,000 or so for me if I used all new equipment. And I would never recommend otherwise unless you're prepared to learn about it and spend time looking after it. The off-grid solar industry in the US is far behind us here too, so even though that would be much less in USD, you could still easily pay more in your $$ if you need a lot of power.
If your primary aim is maximum self sufficiency, you will probably need to look at being part of a community. If being out on your own is most important then you will need to accept compromises on the self sufficiency front. You will need to prioritise and compromise, but that's life. It doesn't have to be a bad thing.
It can be truly wonderful being out in the bush on your own little bit of paradise - I hope to get back to it one day - but it is physically and mentally demanding in particular ways and all the more so without help and a significant amount of money to set yourself up.
posted by mewsic at 3:45 AM on May 8, 2020 [12 favorites]
The fewer of us there were, the less we could do ourselves because there just wasn't enough time usually. Even with 5 there were many things we couldn't grow. Communities of 20 or more can start to get serious about providing most things for themselves, but you have to deal with all those other people and that presents its own challenges. And it's not possible to find a place with a climate that can grow, say, hard (bread making) wheat and bananas. Even if you've got the climate for grains & legumes, you will require tillable land and machinery, and lots of time.
And the bad years, which happen regularly, can be devastating. One spring we planted 1000 grape vines and the following summer brought the worst grasshopper apocalypse the district had seen for decades. We lost all the vines and many other crops. It was a little bit heartbreaking. You have to have a particular mindset to be able keep at it after a few of these kinds of experiences.
I do off-grid power systems for a living and, here in Australia, it's an increasingly common choice. Modern systems will run anything, but a big domestic system here might be $AU60,000 or more. I could get by with much less, but it would still be $25,000 or so for me if I used all new equipment. And I would never recommend otherwise unless you're prepared to learn about it and spend time looking after it. The off-grid solar industry in the US is far behind us here too, so even though that would be much less in USD, you could still easily pay more in your $$ if you need a lot of power.
If your primary aim is maximum self sufficiency, you will probably need to look at being part of a community. If being out on your own is most important then you will need to accept compromises on the self sufficiency front. You will need to prioritise and compromise, but that's life. It doesn't have to be a bad thing.
It can be truly wonderful being out in the bush on your own little bit of paradise - I hope to get back to it one day - but it is physically and mentally demanding in particular ways and all the more so without help and a significant amount of money to set yourself up.
posted by mewsic at 3:45 AM on May 8, 2020 [12 favorites]
Agreeing with what everyone is saying about community. I know for a fact that this farm I'm on right now can sustain a family because it has, and it has done so well for hundreds of years. But there have always been at least 6 people living here and working hard, at the height of it's succes 10 adults were working here + some unspecified children, and they were providing services (saw- and grain-milling) to a huge area. My grandparents could run the farm because my grandmother had a very special talent for breeding horses, and they consistently had at least 2-3 people to help + me and a friend during all holidays every day, and they had to give up when they grew old. But they weren't self-sustaining ever, and my granddad always had a day job. Now when I'm here alone, there is no way I could manage all the stuff, even if I was twenty years younger. We neighbors help each other out, but that isn't enough, at all.
I'm reading a lot about forest gardening online, because the basic theory seems sound to me: hunter gatherers work less and are in some ways healthier than farmers, so if one can mimic their style of life on ones homestead, it may be more sustainable, both in a global and a personal sense. But there are very good few examples from my climate area, and none from this type of land (sand) and everything I have tried till now has failed.
And you need the knowledge! In the second year I was here I made a big mistake. It was a bounty year, and there were literally tons of fruit. But I only canned a few kilos. Big mistake. There hasn't been the same amount of produce since. I should have canned everything I could, both for my own use and for sale, to generate some cash. Foraging for special delicacies like mushrooms or berries or oysters can bring in a lot of joy and money, but it will take all day to find significant amounts, and that day you should maybe rather have been removing invasive plants or tending your garden just to not starve.
For a while, I thought the solution would be to have a high-end eco b&b, so I could hire help, and it still might be, but not right now with no tourism. A neighbor had a rehabilitation center for ex-juvenile convicts and it worked as long as she was working age, but after retirement, she has had to sell her beautiful family farm. It's not terrible, but I'm just saying you have to factor in your own aging, too.
posted by mumimor at 5:05 AM on May 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
I'm reading a lot about forest gardening online, because the basic theory seems sound to me: hunter gatherers work less and are in some ways healthier than farmers, so if one can mimic their style of life on ones homestead, it may be more sustainable, both in a global and a personal sense. But there are very good few examples from my climate area, and none from this type of land (sand) and everything I have tried till now has failed.
And you need the knowledge! In the second year I was here I made a big mistake. It was a bounty year, and there were literally tons of fruit. But I only canned a few kilos. Big mistake. There hasn't been the same amount of produce since. I should have canned everything I could, both for my own use and for sale, to generate some cash. Foraging for special delicacies like mushrooms or berries or oysters can bring in a lot of joy and money, but it will take all day to find significant amounts, and that day you should maybe rather have been removing invasive plants or tending your garden just to not starve.
For a while, I thought the solution would be to have a high-end eco b&b, so I could hire help, and it still might be, but not right now with no tourism. A neighbor had a rehabilitation center for ex-juvenile convicts and it worked as long as she was working age, but after retirement, she has had to sell her beautiful family farm. It's not terrible, but I'm just saying you have to factor in your own aging, too.
posted by mumimor at 5:05 AM on May 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
I agree with those above who mention community. Here's a site you might want to explore.
As an aside, I spent a lot of time reading the 1840 US census for various rural areas for dissertation research. One thing I noticed was that almost no one lived alone. It was almost impossible to do so. Building your own house, digging your own well, growing all of your food, spinning the yarn to weave the cloth for your clothes, etc., all require a varied bunch of skills that no one person had. Not to mention no one person had the time for all of the labor involved.
posted by mareli at 7:31 AM on May 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
As an aside, I spent a lot of time reading the 1840 US census for various rural areas for dissertation research. One thing I noticed was that almost no one lived alone. It was almost impossible to do so. Building your own house, digging your own well, growing all of your food, spinning the yarn to weave the cloth for your clothes, etc., all require a varied bunch of skills that no one person had. Not to mention no one person had the time for all of the labor involved.
posted by mareli at 7:31 AM on May 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
You can turn an excrement and food scrap disposal problem into enough natural gas to cook with (but probably not much more) by building a biodigester. If you're going to be burning your biogas indoors and/or want to minimize corrosion in the burner, scrub the hydrogen sulphide out of it between the digester and the storage bag with steel wool.
You can get the carbon dioxide out as well with a water scrubber, but that's probably overkill for a plant sized to drive a kitchen stove; you can get a good strong gas flame even with quite substantial amounts of carbon dioxide in the fuel gas by adjusting the burner's jet aperture and air premix arrangements.
posted by flabdablet at 8:15 AM on May 8, 2020
You can get the carbon dioxide out as well with a water scrubber, but that's probably overkill for a plant sized to drive a kitchen stove; you can get a good strong gas flame even with quite substantial amounts of carbon dioxide in the fuel gas by adjusting the burner's jet aperture and air premix arrangements.
posted by flabdablet at 8:15 AM on May 8, 2020
If you're not up for rolling your own, you can pay this outfit a little over a grand for a prebuilt system that comes with a pump-to-flush toilet, a benchtop burner and technical support.
posted by flabdablet at 8:24 AM on May 8, 2020
posted by flabdablet at 8:24 AM on May 8, 2020
Also just want to reinforce the idea that if you're contemplating off-grid as a sustainable lifestyle rather than a mere vacation from ugh people, "a minimum of outside help" is best envisioned as involving at least tens of people rather than none, and community dynamics will need attention paid to them if the lifestyle has any hope of longevity.
There are endless numbers of ways for a tiny toxic minority to fuck these efforts up, and if everybody is all rose tinted glasses going in, they'll fuck them up all the faster. So the community needs to be robust enough, and built on foundations of enough mutual respect, that emerging toxicity is expected, accepted and tolerated until its epicentres either shape up and/or prove their worth and/or get bored and leave of their own accord. Cliques and side-taking are the harbingers of community death.
Diversity is key. Diversity of skills, diversity of backgrounds, diversity of opinions, diversity of attitudes. It's at least as important for the community to be as diverse as possible as it is for the ecosystem the community creates to be so. Single points of potential catastrophic failure are bad engineering in any domain, doubly so in smallish off-grid ecosystems. There should be at least three ways to get anything important done, preferably designed and maintained by different people.
Have a look at The Biggest Little Farm and think about how much more quickly the Chesters would have overcome the assorted troubles that beset them in the second half if they'd internalized their wise mentor's overwhelming devotion to diversity enough to get advice from somebody other than him before he died. No way would the snails issue have gone un-ducked for as long as it did.
posted by flabdablet at 8:55 AM on May 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
There are endless numbers of ways for a tiny toxic minority to fuck these efforts up, and if everybody is all rose tinted glasses going in, they'll fuck them up all the faster. So the community needs to be robust enough, and built on foundations of enough mutual respect, that emerging toxicity is expected, accepted and tolerated until its epicentres either shape up and/or prove their worth and/or get bored and leave of their own accord. Cliques and side-taking are the harbingers of community death.
Diversity is key. Diversity of skills, diversity of backgrounds, diversity of opinions, diversity of attitudes. It's at least as important for the community to be as diverse as possible as it is for the ecosystem the community creates to be so. Single points of potential catastrophic failure are bad engineering in any domain, doubly so in smallish off-grid ecosystems. There should be at least three ways to get anything important done, preferably designed and maintained by different people.
Have a look at The Biggest Little Farm and think about how much more quickly the Chesters would have overcome the assorted troubles that beset them in the second half if they'd internalized their wise mentor's overwhelming devotion to diversity enough to get advice from somebody other than him before he died. No way would the snails issue have gone un-ducked for as long as it did.
posted by flabdablet at 8:55 AM on May 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
If you want to get a glimpse of how much work you're talking about, take a look at NatGeo's Life Below Zero. It's not, you know, hard-hitting realism, but the laboriousness of spending multiple days cutting down a few trees or a day preparing your potato beds to overwinter should be obvious to the intelligent viewer.
posted by praemunire at 8:58 AM on May 8, 2020
posted by praemunire at 8:58 AM on May 8, 2020
Um, also, relevant to the community discussions above: take care to present an affable face to your new neighbors. Smaller rural communities very frequently have problems with "loner" type newcomers who move in from elsewhere and fuck up the local dynamics. If you aren't friendly from the get-go you may find yourself permanently shunned, which is a pretty significant problem when living an isolated lifestyle.
...a friend of mine lives in rural Wisconsin, and everybody knows who the "problem guys" are. Those guys don't exactly come first in line when they need some small-engine repair or the like. Similarly, there's a couple down the road who were pretty unfriendly when they first moved in. Guess who didn't have anyone stop by during the flooding to see if they were OK, and who had to buy their own logging equipment because nobody was gonna lend them some? My friend, meanwhile, gets to borrow gear from the farm across the road without any difficulty at all. In return, she makes some nice pies from time to time (I'm serious). To continue the point, if a guy is tracking an injured deer she lets him through her land. Dude in the next valley didn't make similar accommodations, and made a number of fairly significant enemies in the process.
posted by aramaic at 9:09 AM on May 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
...a friend of mine lives in rural Wisconsin, and everybody knows who the "problem guys" are. Those guys don't exactly come first in line when they need some small-engine repair or the like. Similarly, there's a couple down the road who were pretty unfriendly when they first moved in. Guess who didn't have anyone stop by during the flooding to see if they were OK, and who had to buy their own logging equipment because nobody was gonna lend them some? My friend, meanwhile, gets to borrow gear from the farm across the road without any difficulty at all. In return, she makes some nice pies from time to time (I'm serious). To continue the point, if a guy is tracking an injured deer she lets him through her land. Dude in the next valley didn't make similar accommodations, and made a number of fairly significant enemies in the process.
posted by aramaic at 9:09 AM on May 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
oh yes, don't imagine you go to the countryside to get away from people. A big reason many people move to the city is to escape people. We may live far from each other, but the social control is intense, compared to living in a big city. I don't mind, but it is something you need to factor in. Pies are absolutely essential.
posted by mumimor at 10:05 AM on May 8, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by mumimor at 10:05 AM on May 8, 2020 [9 favorites]
Pies are absolutely essential.
This is a universal truth.
posted by flabdablet at 10:33 AM on May 8, 2020 [10 favorites]
This is a universal truth.
posted by flabdablet at 10:33 AM on May 8, 2020 [10 favorites]
Here's the main problem with going off-grid, as I see it. Most of the people who do it still drive. That's not off-grid. Keep that in mind when considering locations.
posted by aniola at 10:46 AM on May 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by aniola at 10:46 AM on May 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
So chainsaw, axes, wedges, and probably a truck. Which means gas. This means money on an ongoing basis.
Just curious, could a person in this situation get by with a pair of mules instead of a truck?
posted by Morpeth at 10:50 AM on May 8, 2020
Just curious, could a person in this situation get by with a pair of mules instead of a truck?
posted by Morpeth at 10:50 AM on May 8, 2020
You may find this Youtube video series interesting. My self reliance.
posted by zerobyproxy at 12:52 PM on May 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by zerobyproxy at 12:52 PM on May 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
Just curious, could a person in this situation get by with a pair of mules instead of a truck?
If you're asking 'can a mule haul firewood' then yes. If you're asking if you can get away with not using money because you have a pair of draft animals, or if owning a pair of mules is cheaper than a truck, then no.
Keeping and working with draft animals costs money. You need money for the vet and farrier. Even unshod mules need hoof care. Also you would need to buy feed unless you have the land, climate, and equipment to grow and harvest hay and grain for them, plus building good shelter and fences, plus buying and maintaining the harnesses and equipment the mules need to work.
posted by ananci at 7:29 AM on May 9, 2020 [3 favorites]
If you're asking 'can a mule haul firewood' then yes. If you're asking if you can get away with not using money because you have a pair of draft animals, or if owning a pair of mules is cheaper than a truck, then no.
Keeping and working with draft animals costs money. You need money for the vet and farrier. Even unshod mules need hoof care. Also you would need to buy feed unless you have the land, climate, and equipment to grow and harvest hay and grain for them, plus building good shelter and fences, plus buying and maintaining the harnesses and equipment the mules need to work.
posted by ananci at 7:29 AM on May 9, 2020 [3 favorites]
I wonder if it might be useful for you to consider your interface with the outside world in terms of how long you go between interactions.
For instance, a normal on-grid house requires a second to second interaction for electricity, gas, water, and sewerage supply but is "off grid" for food between grocery runs.
With a solar/wind/hydropower and battery setup you are off-grid except for spare parts.
With wood fueled heat and hot water you are off-grid between wood supply drops. If you have sufficient woodlot to sustainably gather as much wood as you burn you are permanently off-grid.
With a well and septic tank setup (properly separated...) you are off-grid at least between system pump-outs and spare parts.
Obviously food can be bought at regular intervals, you'll probably feel more off-grid the longer that interval is and the more you produce. Note that due to the nature of climate, you will never be able to duplicate anything like a modern diet from a single farmstead.
For food, in ascending order of difficulty to produce all of your own:
1) Herbs
2) Vegetables
3) Fruit
3a) Booze
4) Eggs and chicken
5) Staple carbs. In most cases, it will be easiest to grow a large amount of potatoes. Depending on your climate you will probably be growing maize, wheat/barley/rye or rice.
6) Milk and meat
7) Cooking fats (If you keep pigs you can have lard)
I can mostly get up to 80% of 1 and 2 as well as soft fruit in our small suburban garden.
You may be able to forage for some fruits, mushrooms, etc. and to hunt and fish. I think if you do this, you will swiftly see why farming was so attractive to our ancestors though.
You need to get good at preserving food by salting, pickling, smoking, drying, canning, brewing, cheesemaking etc.
I don't think that a small group can really go "off-grid" completely (unless you're willing to give up medical care I don't think even a large group can) but you can definitely choose to be heavily self sufficient and to limit interactions with the outside world to once every few months.
What I would do if I wanted to do this:
Buy land, ideally with a cabin already on it. You want land with good soil and plenty of space.
Ensure that my power and other utilities were not dependent on the outside world.
Start by growing and preserving your own herbs and vegetables. It will help to have greenhouse space in most temperate climates. I grow a lot of tomatoes (8 different varieties this year) as well as pickling cucumbers, courgettes, carrots, lettuce, peppers, and soft fruit.
Plant suitable fruit trees.
Get into bee keeping.
Get chickens, maybe ducks and quails, they all have slightly different niches.
For one person or a small group I doubt that you could keep a dairy herd, but you could buy milk locally and produce cheese. It keeps a very long time and you can compactly store millions of calories in a compact space.
Brewing your own alcohol is easy enough but unless you like it you might prefer to just buy it in bulk once a year.
posted by atrazine at 3:00 PM on May 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
For instance, a normal on-grid house requires a second to second interaction for electricity, gas, water, and sewerage supply but is "off grid" for food between grocery runs.
With a solar/wind/hydropower and battery setup you are off-grid except for spare parts.
With wood fueled heat and hot water you are off-grid between wood supply drops. If you have sufficient woodlot to sustainably gather as much wood as you burn you are permanently off-grid.
With a well and septic tank setup (properly separated...) you are off-grid at least between system pump-outs and spare parts.
Obviously food can be bought at regular intervals, you'll probably feel more off-grid the longer that interval is and the more you produce. Note that due to the nature of climate, you will never be able to duplicate anything like a modern diet from a single farmstead.
For food, in ascending order of difficulty to produce all of your own:
1) Herbs
2) Vegetables
3) Fruit
3a) Booze
4) Eggs and chicken
5) Staple carbs. In most cases, it will be easiest to grow a large amount of potatoes. Depending on your climate you will probably be growing maize, wheat/barley/rye or rice.
6) Milk and meat
7) Cooking fats (If you keep pigs you can have lard)
I can mostly get up to 80% of 1 and 2 as well as soft fruit in our small suburban garden.
You may be able to forage for some fruits, mushrooms, etc. and to hunt and fish. I think if you do this, you will swiftly see why farming was so attractive to our ancestors though.
You need to get good at preserving food by salting, pickling, smoking, drying, canning, brewing, cheesemaking etc.
I don't think that a small group can really go "off-grid" completely (unless you're willing to give up medical care I don't think even a large group can) but you can definitely choose to be heavily self sufficient and to limit interactions with the outside world to once every few months.
What I would do if I wanted to do this:
Buy land, ideally with a cabin already on it. You want land with good soil and plenty of space.
Ensure that my power and other utilities were not dependent on the outside world.
Start by growing and preserving your own herbs and vegetables. It will help to have greenhouse space in most temperate climates. I grow a lot of tomatoes (8 different varieties this year) as well as pickling cucumbers, courgettes, carrots, lettuce, peppers, and soft fruit.
Plant suitable fruit trees.
Get into bee keeping.
Get chickens, maybe ducks and quails, they all have slightly different niches.
For one person or a small group I doubt that you could keep a dairy herd, but you could buy milk locally and produce cheese. It keeps a very long time and you can compactly store millions of calories in a compact space.
Brewing your own alcohol is easy enough but unless you like it you might prefer to just buy it in bulk once a year.
posted by atrazine at 3:00 PM on May 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
Subscribe to Mother Earth News; it's exactly for people who share your goal/dream. Get some useful skill sets, like engine repair, electrician, vet assistant, master carpenter. There are communities you can visit to get a taste of this life. It's a great goal; every person I've known, and the people posting here who have done any version of this had experiences that changed them mostly for the good. Read Into the Wild, because you have to understand that doing stuff like this solo can kill you. Leaving consumer-driven modern life behind has a lot to recommend it. If you want to live in an environmentally low impact manner, city living and Climate Advocacy is a smart choice, too. Thanks for the question which elicited such great responses.
posted by theora55 at 1:02 PM on May 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by theora55 at 1:02 PM on May 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
shelter (maybe also heat, depending on your climate - so propane, or a wood stove)
sanitation (compost toilet? septic field?)
clean water (rain barrel + filters? haul your water?)
electricity (solar probably)
food sources - garden, animals?
some way to cook food
& the tools and supplies that maintaining those things entails.
when you say "a minimum of outside help" do you mean help from other people at all, or just from the water grid/power grid/grocery store?
posted by zdravo at 7:34 PM on May 7, 2020