Off-the-Grid Living on only 1/5th of an Acre
For you homeowners that think you don’t have enough land to live off the grid, think again…
Dervaes's BackYard - photo © pathtofreedom.com
They make their own biodiesel and electricity (through solar means) and their 1/10th of an acre garden produces over 6,000 pounds of fruit and vegetables annually! This is more than enough food for four adults. They also sell the surplus to nearby restaurants making about $20,000 a year on the food alone.
Here are a couple of videos featuring the Dervaes family and their home (for my email subscribers you’ll have to view it on the site since the video doesn’t embed in most email servers):
Resources
Be sure to check out the Dervaes website, Path to Freedom: Urban Homestead for details into how they accomplished this as well as tips in creating your own homestead.
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- Posted in Gardening, Self-Reliance, Urban Survival
Hey Erich,
I’d like some posts that give some strategies for just getting along with other people in emergencies. If somebody freaks out in your party, the doubt and indecision can paralyze the entire operation.
Last summer my hiking party got caught in a surprise rain storm… the situation quickly escalated into into an emergency with the previously climbable rock faces turning in to raging rivers on the way back down. I made it, but I think sheerly by the luck of having a good party member who took the lead.
My problem is that an emergency creates a power vacuum… anybody that goes for it can take control. How do I know I don’t have a crazy idiot taking control? What if I was with strangers whom I didn’t trust? After hurricane Katrina nobody knew how to coordinate without the grid. I want to avoid that happening to me.
An emergency creates the most primitive human political scene possible, and it seems to me like that would be essential to be able to predict these weird emergency politics that people resort to before things get out of hand.
Any practical advice for dealing with this kind of problem?
Steven,
That’s some great thoughts. I’m going to give this some thought and respond on it in an upcoming article. Thanks for the inspiration!