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Living off the grid

Thank you sooo much for the references I will certainly look into obtaining both of those books so that I might have a concrete plan to go with, as to the slaughter thing my children have been exposed to the concept already as they have seen favored calves, chickens, geese, ducks all grow up and become dinner on my grandparents farm. my daughter that is obsessed with ducks has professed a number of times how she could not be a vegetarian ever as she loves meat tooo much. lol the little ones in my family that are Beths children have never been exposed to this process but they are quite young 6 and under and as long as we keep our pet focus on the actual pets (we have three dogs) we should be able to keep the distinction between food animals and pets ( I hope). Thank you again for the helpful advice and a direction to start in.
 
Hi everybody. I've not been on here in a while. I enjoy reading all Your post, but gardening and other spring chores has been taking up all My spare time.
As for My generator: I make My electricity, and have for many years. I don't like contracts with any agencies, that want to control everything We do.
So, I use a 12 volt alternator, powered by a 6.5 HP engine, one of the Honda clones from Harbor Freight, and a bank of 14, 6 volt golf cart battaries, wired in pairs, so as to stay 12 volts. I run part of My lights on 12 volts, or I can run lights and anything else on 110 AC volts. I have an inverter to produce AC current from the 12 volt DC battaries and the alternator. For a few years I only used common car battaries, the only problem I had with them was, I had to run the generator too much. The more battaries You have in Your battary bank, the better. As for the inverter: buy a good inverter that is big enough to do the job You need. There's all kinds and quality out there. Don't buy a square wave inverter at any price, it will ruin Your computers and electrical equipment. Buy a good Modified Sein Wave inverter, or a pure Sein wave inverter, for real sensative equipment.
The purpose to generate power in 12 volts DC, is the cost, compared to running a AC generator constantly. I can generate enough power for all my gadgets for about 3 qts. of gasoline per day, if I run My electrical equipment for 12 to 16 hours a day, shorter day, less gas. If I ran an AC generator that long, it would probably take 4 or 5 gallons of gasoline. It costs a little more to set up a system like I use but You can count it up for Yourself, 4.00 per day, or 20.00 per day. and the 4.00 is on the high side. I usually use about 5 gallons of gas a week. And I don't even know when somebody knocks down a pole or the wind storms takes out the power grid, My lights never even blink, and My computer don't stop. I'll be glad to show anyone how to do the same thing. I looked at all ways to have electricity without the grid, and this the best I can find for the money.

EJ.
 
For all You good folks who like back to the land living, look up a magazine on Your computer called "Country Side Magazine" and read the artivles in the back issues.
If You really want to get right, look up "Rural Herritage Magazine" and read the back articles.

EJ.
 
poly2_2011 said:
my daughter that is obsessed with ducks has professed a number of times how she could not be a vegetarian ever as she loves meat tooo much.
Click to expand...
I just say I am a vegetarian as I only eat vegetarian animals. Meat is just condensed plants. :D

The key is to never name what's going to be eaten. If it has a name it's a pet. We have a lamb called "ABC" (stud ewe lamb, named by a 3-year-old!)and a calf with no name (also raised by the children, as much as toddlers can raise a calf, but with a very different destination in mind...). Our chooks also have no names.

Of course, I also know a guy who once had a pet lamb named "Roast", so that's a different way of dealing with it!
 
Thanks Jack. I've managed to solve the issues I was having with my AC generator, and I've managed also to get a pile of near-new batteries from the uninteruptible power supply in an earthquake-written-off multi-storey bank building to replace the cheap and dying ones we had. So our system is coming together very nicely. The generator automatically starts every couple of days in cloudy weather, and charges the batteries enough to keep us going in about 3 hours, so it's pretty cheap to run also. I just need a few more solar panels to reduce our diesel usage even further.
 
My husband and his sisters raised a calf for 4H. To help them reconcile with the knowledge that he would end up in the slaughter house, they named him "Beef Jerky."

One of my husband's sisters and her husband currently farm. They had a whether (a castrated billy goat) they named "Dinner."

Ruth enjoys meat, but she does not like to think about where it comes from. So she has convinced herself that hamburger comes from the "hamburger factory," bacon comes from the "bacon factory," etc. She has not ever tried lamb, as she has not been able to convince herself of a "lamb factory." She knows lambs are baby sheep, and very cute and adorable. She can't eat cute little babies. :lol:

Our teenagers are doing dissection in Biology class. They recently had to dissect tiny baby pigs. That was hard on them. :(
 
Buy mutton instead of lamb. Then she doesn't have to eat cute little babies, but big grownups. :D And you get more for your money, and it has more flavour too, you just need to cook it for a bit longer.
 
I will not go into where I have received all of my training but some is military some is from sailing, living post Katrina and living on a ranch off grid in nevada.

As to firearms: YES AND AS MANY AS YOU CAN AFFORD. My father (CSO GE Capital) once talked to me about how his gold was his primary investment. I reminded him that 45 to 100 grains of lead will buy pounds of gold. 8-) With that in mind. If you are someone who is more into end times (survivalist mentality) I have a few recommendations. The AR-15 platform is durable and practical and common. They have the platform available to shoot 22lr rounds. This makes practice and platform familiarity inexpensive. With a scope that will do nice for a varmit gun and for home defense at range, with a less lethal round. Then for true home defense/ small animal gun go with a 556/223 round AR-15. The round is versatile with different grains and is effective at wounding intruders. (there are reasons to wound as opposed to kill) In addition, this round is common to NATO/UN/US troops if someone ever needed to resupply. A 30-06 is a wonderful hunting round and great at some distance. I would stick with this as an optional intermediate. If you really want to reach out and touch someone, the safety harbor .50cal rifles are pretty tough to beat using a AR lower. Gives options should one of the three have issues.

For home defense: 9mm handgun, take your pick. There are lots of high quality guns. The 9mm is the most common/ inexpensive (for size) round available. An absolute essential is a 12 gauge. These are again multi-use platforms. There is one more not commonly thought of that will allow you to keep a single shot pistol around even if govt takes guns. A SOLAS 25mm flare gun. These have available inserts to fire a 12 gauge round. Plus the extended flares will stop anyone... period. There is no way to extinguish a flare molten metal hurts.

I can add other options, one of my art projects involves double acting ball valves, inert gas and propane. fun stuff.

AS TO THE GREEN ISSUES: We all know that burning wood is carbon footprint neutral. Coal is not. However burning coal at home is better (with a good unit) than having a power plant do it for you. Here is part of the why. In each stage of energy conversion it requires energy to convert it. We burn coal to create heat to convert the heat energy to electricity, to transfer that at high voltage to a substation to reduce the voltage to a transformer to step down voltage again to heat a coil to heat the house. Skip the steps.

If I was in a place that had trees, well I wood use wood for heat. I am in the desert. Right now vent free propane fireplace as I fit with a solar system.

ENERGY:

There are tons of genset options. I have a few. After Katrina I purchased a Honda EU2000s. I recommend having two. My home runs efficiently off of one, burning 1 gal for every 8-12 hours of run time. Run two in parallel to drive a well pump. I had to (code requirements) have a 8kw (8000watts) genset. It burns 1 gallon of propane an hour. I try not to use this at all. I also have a 4kw gas genset in my Motorhome and high amp alternators and inverters in my vehicles. This is what sailing taught redundancy on everything. Backups for your backups. On site I have two 350 gallon propane tanks and 500 gallons of gasoline and 500 gallons of diesel.

SOLAR AND WIND: do your research first. Solar is very effective in the west not as much in the east. (water molecules lessen solar intensity) Wind is spotty unless you live in the tradewinds.

BATTERIES: Golf cart batteries if buying new. period

MORE TO COME>>>>
 
If we're talking about guns.... it wouldn't hurt to have a "gun dog" (or two or four) as your family pet as well. You know, a dog that can hunt and help to put meat on the table, not to mention feeding itself, so you don't have to worry about "dog food." 8-)
 
I agree with the pooch pistols. Inside the house we have 3. One a female jack russel mix. She has been with Laura and I for 13 years. She, an-GEL-a (angela) is early warning. She hears everything and lets us know. The other two are home defense. I have had a few people decide they didnt want to hassle me because of them. Sailor Jerry is a 3 y/o english mastiff. He was a rescue at one. He took to Laura straight away. He was abused and is skittish except when it comes to defending his house and especially HIS mom. Was a marital issue at first. :D Montecristo is a 1 y/o english mastiff. He is Breeding stock as he is a perfect specimen and loves his daddy. He is 6' tall when he stands on his hind legs. 200lbs and still growing.
 
It's great that your "fur-kids" are all good burglar alarms and body guards, but do they hunt too? That could very well come in handy, you know. And actually, JRTs are bred to hunt small game and vermin, such as rats, rabbits, and foxes. 8-)

As for me... I've got an English Setter who will not only help us find pheasants and quail, but keep our lawn free of gophers. And my Springer Spaniel is an awesome tracker of pretty much anything, large or small, and can do water retrieves as well. If you ever find yourself stranded in the wilderness, it's good to have a dog or two that will put some meat on the fire. 8-)

Oh-- and yeah, my "girls" will scare off the burglars, too. I've got some stories about that. :lol:
 
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