Living off grid or less on the grid. Doing more with less. Being prepared for further economic downturn. Nomadic lifestyles. Living small or smaller. Enjoying life without money or with less money. Reading books and e-books. Alternative energy. Some of the topics this blog will cover.
Ken Ilgunas lives in 15,000 dollar Ford Econoline Van at Duke University.
'Living on the cheap wasn't merely a way to save money and stave off debt; I wanted to live adventurously. I wanted to test my limits. I wanted to find the line between my wants and my needs. I wanted, as Thoreau put it, "to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life … to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms."' http://www.salon.com/news/pinched/2009/12/06/living_in_a_van?source=newsletter
Very good read. You'll have to close the popup add that opens before you can enjoy his well written story.
By Photographer Robert Cohen — Karen Wallensak of Catholic Charities appeals to park rangers and sanitation workers to allow a homeless man to recover his belongings from their truck after makeshift homeless living quarters in Interco Plaza were cleared Thursday morning. The small plaza is at the intersection of Tucker Boulevard and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive. http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/st-louis-crime-beat/2009/11/05/st-louis-park-rangers-get-tough-on-homeless/
With homeless shelters overflowing and cold weather setting in, many homeless are left to face the elements in tents and makeshift shelters. In the city of St. Louis, with temperatures dropping well below freezing this time of year, a homeless persons meager possessions can be the only thing enables them to survive to see another day. Thursday, city employees from the St. Louis Parks Division not only took these possessions, but immediately destroyed them.
Shortly before 10 a.m. Thursday, the rangers arrived at Interco Plaza, next to the building housing the St. Patrick’s and the Catholic Charities outreach centers. And, quickly the rangers took tents, blankets, pillows, bags filled with belongings and, even, prescription medications and threw them into an orange garbage truck.
The rangers would not say why they were throwing away the homeless people’s possessions. St. Louis Parks Division Commissioner Daniel W. Skillman, who oversees the rangers, did not return a reporter’s call asking for comment.
Clint Smith, 38 and homeless, rode up on his bicycle begging the rangers to give him his belongings back. Instead, the rangers turned on the device in the truck that crushed everything that Smith owned. He was only able to save an umbrella.
“Oh, man,” Smith said to the rangers. “That was my medicine. That was my stuff. Oh, man. What a waste.”
Included in his belongings were heart and lung medicines.
About a dozen homeless men and women had set up camp a few months ago in the little park at Martin Luther King Drive and Tucker Boulevard after homeless shelters began turning people away.
“Several were staying here because, on any given day, we have more people seeking shelter than there are beds,” said Karen Wallensak, who works for Catholic Charities’ Housing Resource Center in the building next door.
“These people have never caused a problem,” Wallensak said.
About 10 a.m., she said she looked out of her office window and saw what the rangers were doing, then ran outside to try to stop them. She tried to make the rangers give her and her co-workers the belongings to hold on to for the homeless. The rangers refused.
“We are in the shadow of the city’s two biggest homeless providers,” Wallensak said as she grabbed a few garbage bags the rangers had left behind. “They say this is public, not private property, but when people have nowhere to go, what are they supposed to do?”
The inhumanity of the treatment of people who are already down, by some who have a warm bed and a roof over their head never ceases to amaze me.
“I can’t replace what was taken,” Gates said. “It might not look like much to someone else, but these were priceless items to us. It protects us from the cold and the elements.”
The above quote is also from the St. Louis Today article referenced above.
The Zeitgeist Movement is the activist arm of The Venus Project , which constitutes the life long work of industrial designer and social engineer, Jacque Fresco. Jacque currently lives in Venus, Florida, working closely with his associate, Roxanne Meadows. Now, let it be understood that Mr. Fresco will be the first to tell you that his perspectives and developments are not entirely his own, but rather uniquely derived from the evolution of scientific inquiry which has persevered since the dawn of antiquity. Simply put, what The Venus Project represents and what The Zeitgeist Movement hence condones, could be summarized as: ‘The application of The Scientific Method for social concern.’ http://www.thevenusproject.com/images/stories/thezeitgeistmovement.pdf
The Zeitgeist Movement: Orientation Presentation (1hr. 37min.)
Rocket stoves are highly efficient, easy to construct, and can be easily made from many materials. All the basic principles, and the design of the rocket stove are illustrated in the diagram above. A well built rocket stove produces very little smoke due to complete combustion of the fuel. This more complete combustion means that less fuel is needed to produce more heat.
The rocket stove was designed by Dr. Larry Winiarski of the Aprovecho Research Institute. Many rocket stoves are made from 5 gal steel cans with sections of 4 inch stove pipe used to create the combustion chamber and chimney. The remaining interior of the stove is usually filled with ash or vermiculite for insulation.
Here is a video of Dr. Winiarski making a rocket stove from 16 adobe bricks in Mexico.
Commercially produced rocket stoves are available in two versions, a one door for sticks or a two door for sticks or charcoal, from StoveTec. StoveTec is a division of Aprovecho Research Institute so these stoves conform to the designs principles laid out by the Institute. I prefer the two door stove. The increased functionality is well worth the few dollar extra in retail cost.
A video ,from StoveTec, of the two door stove in operation is included below.
The design principles incorporated into the rocket stove can be utilized in more complex cooking or heating designs. A good overview of the principles can be found in the booklet referenced below.
"This document was developed by Aprovecho Research Center under a grant from the Shell Foundation to provide technical support to household energy and health projects to ensure that their designs represent technical best practice. The principle authors of this booklet include: Dr. Mark Bryden, Dean Still, Peter Scott, Geoff Hoffa, Damon Ogle, Rob Balis, and Ken Goyer."
"On the 'top' is a photograph of Muir Glacier taken on August 13, 1941, by glaciologist William O. Field; on the 'bottom', a photograph taken from the same vantage on August 31, 2004, by geologist Bruce F. Molnia of the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
According to Molnia, between 1941 and 2004 the glacier retreated more than twelve kilometers (seven miles) and thinned by more than 800 meters (875 yards).
Ocean water has filled the valley, replacing the ice of Muir Glacier; the end of the glacier has retreated out of the field of view. The glacier’s absence reveals scars where glacier ice once scraped high up against the hillside. In 2004, trees and shrubs grow thickly in the foreground, where in 1941 there was only bare rock." http://nsidc.org/data/glacier_photo/special_high_res_muir.html
Climate change can best be understood as increased energy in the earth's overall atmosphere. While this means warming in the overall planet average many places may actually experience temperature drops due to the complex nature of global weather patterns. Climate change will disrupt rainfall amounts, ocean currents, air flow patterns and more. It can be hard to predict the change on a local geographic region due to the many factors involved.
Overall, storm frequency and intensity will increase. Plant growing zones will fluctuate. Insects and diseases spread by them will migrate. Environmental constraints on invasive species will be changed. All of these phenomena have all ready taken place to some degree and will increase as climate change increases.
Preserving and stocking food is an important precaution, even when one is not facing global change it is prudent to be prepared in this area. Food self production and independence could become an important factor in ones survival. Understanding and identification of changes in local flora and fauna will become a more valuable skill. Water caching and collection are important topics to understand. Storm shelters will become more important. Flooding and mudslides require a more careful selection and knowledge of local terrain. Changing one's lifestyle to require fewer things, and to produce more of the things one needs, is beneficial not only to one's personal survival but, as more people adopt this outlook, to the survival of the planet.
Most of these precautions, although mentioned briefly here, have been or will be covered in more detail in the posts of this blog. A good way to get ahead of the curve is to educate oneself on the effects and consequences of climate change. A web search will provide a plethora of information on the subject. A good place to start to find regional, as well as global, information is from the two links provided below.
"The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change is the leading body for the assessment of climate change, established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences." http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.htm
"The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) coordinates and integrates federal research on changes in the global environment and their implications for society. The USGCRP began as a presidential initiative in 1989 and was mandated by Congress in the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-606), which called for "a comprehensive and integrated United States research program which will assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change." http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts/download-the-report
"In such a soil grew Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wilderness comes the Reformer eating locusts and wild honey." Walking by Henry David Thoreau
"Night falls, the stars wink, and after an hour, Suelo tramps up the cliff, mimicking a raven's call—his salutation—a guttural, high-pitched caw. He's lanky and tan; yesterday he rebuilt the entrance to his cave, hauling huge rocks to make a staircase. His hands are black with dirt, and his hair, which is going gray, looks like a bird's nest, full of dust and twigs from scrambling in the underbrush on the canyon floor. Grinning, he presents the booty from one of his weekly rituals, scavenging on the streets of Moab: a wool hat and gloves, a winter jacket, and a white nylon belt, still wrapped in plastic, along with Carhartt pants and sandals, which he's wearing. He's also scrounged cans of tuna and turkey Spam and a honeycomb candle. All in all, a nice haul from the waste product of America"
"Soon smoke billows into the night and the cave is warm. I think of how John the Baptist survived on honey and locusts in the desert. Suelo, who keeps a copy of the Bible for bedtime reading, is satisfied with a few grasshoppers fried in his skillet."
Suelo is a 21st century philosopher. He has lived without money since 2000. He is 48 yrs. old and usually can be found in the summer months living in a cave in Utah. Listen to the following BBC interview with Suelo.
There is a short documentary on Suelo at one of his friends sites. Just click on the link Documentary under "Moneyless In Moab (2006)" http://www.everythingahead.com/watch.html
Peace Pilgrim was an amazing woman willing to put her convictions to the test. Even those who don't agree with her philosophy have to admire her for her perseverance and fortitude. The hour long documentary and her book say more about the woman who chose a "path less taken" than I can, so without further ado.
"This hour-long documentary presents an overview of Peace Pilgrim's life and work. We hope you enjoy an benefit from its message.
“Little people of the world, let us never feel helpless again. Let us remember that if enough of us ask together even very big things like world disarmament and world peace will be granted. Let's ask together!”
Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Works in Her Own Words - Pg. 124
Map of U.S. public lands: Bureau of Land Management, Forest Servicd, Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Parks Service.
National Atlas of the United States has a nice online interactive atlas that can be used, among other searches, for viewing maps of federal, or as i prefer to call it public, lands in the U. S..
In the map key you will find that BLM land is represented in yellow. This map represents blocks of land that are 640 acres or more in size.
Viewing the map is the best means of visualizing the enormous amount of federal lands existing in the country.
BLM land exists in many of the western states. It is ok to camp or boondock on most BLM land. In theory there is a 14 day camping limit for one spot then one must move at least 25 miles to another spot. In practice, in the more secluded areas, there is no one counting.
Recreation.gov
"Recreation One-Stop is one of the E-Government initiatives in the President's Management Agenda to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and customer service of the recreation programs.
The Recreation One-Stop initiative is intended to enhance customer satisfaction with recreational experiences on public lands. It will improve access to recreation-related information generated by the Federal government, streamline the systems used to manage that information, and increase the sharing of recreation-related information among government and non-government organizations. The investment will include the procurement of a new contract to integrate the separate National Park Reservation Service and National Reservation Recreation Service with the Recreation.gov website. "
"The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was established in 1946 through the consolidation of the General Land Office (created in 1812) and the U.S. Grazing Service (formed in 1934). The functions of the BLM are also addressed in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA). (For more details, please see BLM and Its Predecessors ). To see a comprehensive list of legislation that BLM operates under, click here . And, to see videos describing the early history of BLM, click on "Fractured Land Patterns."
The BLM is responsible for carrying out a variety of programs for the management and conservation, of resources on 256 million surface acres, as well as 700 million acres of subsurface mineral estate, These public lands make up about 13 percent of the total land surface of the United States and more than 40 percent of all land managed by the Federal government. To see how BLM is organized, click here ."
"Created by National Wildlife Federation™, this website provides information on public lands issues of both national and state significance. Although issues regarding all public lands are featured, this site focuses on the western states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico where the public lands conservation tradition runs deep. " http://www.ourpubliclands.org/
"Public Lands Interpretive Association initiated the Public Lands Information Center project in response to demand for a single source of information about recreation and land use on all public lands in a state, regardless of managing agency. We realize that when you have a destination or an activity in mind, your concern is to find out where to go, when to go, what to do, and how much it will cost. But up until now, getting those answers often meant an endless goose chase of contacting government agencies and trying to pinpoint the correct agency, department, or office.
The Public Lands Information Center was developed to cut the red tape for you. We offer all you need to know about visitor facilities, surrounding areas, appropriate maps and guides, and the rules and regulations for each area. If you need more information than you get from the site descriptions, check our bookstore, our link pages, or email our staff. If you need to contact the managing agency for additional permits or licenses, we can put you in touch with the right person, and save you time and headaches."
One of the easiest ways to reduce your cost of living is to start producing the things you consider necessities yourself. Even in urban settings there are things that can be done to reduce ones reliance on the system. From growing your own vegetables and spices, soap making, beer brewing, sewing, to making your own fuel for your transportation, many things you pay cash for can be made at home.
Here is an example, from ABC's Nightline, being set by a suburban family, the Dervaes, in Pasadena CA.
Check out the Dervaes website on urban homesteading. It has lots of tips and ideas for those on the road to self sufficiency.
Urban homesteading is not new, it was, in the early part of the twentieth century, the norm rather than the exception. As a youngster in the early 70's I sat at a table where everything on the table came from the yard that was in the city limits on less than a quarter acre of land. There was a shed with a stall for the milk cow and rabbit hutches and a chicken coup on the northwest corner of the lot. The southwest corner of the lot contained the house and a small front yard with a couple fruit trees. The eastern side of the lot was all garden with all the vegetables and spices that were familiar to a Midwestern boy, and a few that weren't.
First, through ordinances designed to "improve" community life, legislation forced removal of the milk cow, later the chickens had to go. By the 80's the city had remade the community into a place that required a greater reliance on processed foods, most times transported hundreds if not thousands of miles. Many cities have successfully propagandized it's citizenry to the point that should one get a couple chickens, or want a milk cow, there are immediately complaint calls from concerned neighbors to the proper authorities.
During the great depression many families helped feed themselves and made few extra dollars by selling eggs, milk, and fresh vegetables from these urban farms. The current economic crises doesn't offer many that option due to rigid zoning laws and their enforcement. It is, however, a good time to try to counter these ridiculous infringements on personal freedom and the rights of self sustenance. Economic hardship, combined with the growing public awareness of environmental impacts and the green movement make this a good time to reverse some of this community legislation.
There are urban farms spring up like mad all across the country some are facing these bureaucratic obstacles head on. Check out:
According to the National Coalition for the Homeless there are 1.35 million children homeless during the year, and about 200 thousand homeless children on any given day. The NCH also puts the number of homeless vets at about 200 thousand and states that over 400 thousand vets will experience homelessness throughout the year. As a result of the increase in homelessness tent cities are spring up, some overnight, in cities across the country.
"While encampments and street living have always been a part of the landscape in big cities like Los Angeles and New York, these new tent cities have taken root — or grown from smaller enclaves of the homeless as more people lose jobs and housing — in such disparate places as Nashville, Olympia, Wash., and St. Petersburg, Fla.
In Seattle, homeless residents in the city’s 100-person encampment call it Nickelsville, an unflattering reference to the mayor, Greg Nickels. A tent city in Sacramento prompted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to announce a plan Wednesday to shift the entire 125-person encampment to a nearby fairground. That came after a recent visit by “The Oprah Winfrey Show” set off such a news media stampede that some fed-up homeless people complained of overexposure and said they just wanted to be left alone." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/us/26tents.html
This blog has presented, and will continue to present, "homeless" people who choose to be so as conscious alternative lifestyle decision. The majority, of course, do not fall into this category. They have been thrown into the situation "by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune". Most forecasters predict that we are not yet at the bottom of the falling economy and it is likely to get much worse before it gets better.
Many cities try to address the problem by criminalizing homelessness. Mainly through the use of park curfew laws, loitering laws, public sleeping laws. etc. This adds increased stress on people, many who have always been law abiding citizens, and helps move them further into desperation. Some of the causes of homelessness, according to the NCH, are the ever increasing percentage of the population that are at or below poverty levels, lowering wages, increasing unemployment, and shortage of affordable housing among others. http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/why.html
The video below shows a small slice of the problem and how many municipalities try to deal with the problem.
What can be done to help? Volunteer at a shelter. Volunteer at a "soup kitchen". When voting and electing officials make sure you know where they stand on homelessness issues. Educate yourself and help educate others on the increasing numbers, issues, and plight of the homeless. Go to the link below and check out more in depth ways to help.
We will return to this topic from time to time on this blog to not only look at the problem in more detail, but look at some of the more innovative and successful solutions that have been employed.
eden or ahbe as he was known to his friends, played the piano at the Eutropheon in the early 1940s. The Eurtopheon was small health food store and raw food restaurant on Laurel Canyon Blvd. The owners of the Eutropheon were John and Vera Richter. The Richters were followers and promoters of a German philosophy, Wandervogel, who's adherants wore long hair and beards. They also ate only raw fruits and vegetables. The followers of the Richter's became known as nature boys.
Eden said that he had crossed the country from New York to California 8 times on foot. Eden married Anna Jacobsen. They had a son. The family slept out under the stars, spending many nights in Griffith Park.
Sometime in 1947 eden handed the music and lyrics for a song he had written, Nature Boy, to Nat Coles manager. Nat performed the song live and the reception prompted him to record the song. Eden had to be located to close the deal. Eden was finally located living under the first L in the Hollywood sign in the Hollywood hills.
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return"
eden ahbez Nature Boy
eden on racism
"Some white people Hate black people, and some white people Love black people, Some black people Hate white people, and some black people Love white people. So you see it's not an issue of black and white, it's an issue of Lovers and Haters."` eden ahbez http://www.shadowboxstudio.com/edenahbez.htm
Anna, eden's wife died in 1963. Eden spent much of his later years living alone in a van. Here is a very interesting phone message he left his friend with a picture montage.
Every year when the leaves loose their grip in the northern deciduous forests, and the cold wind starts sucking the green from the meadows and grasslands of the northern latitudes, a place in the southern California desert, just across the border from Arizona, begins to receive travelers. Slab City is an abandoned military base just outside of Niland, California by the Salton Sea. The military razed the buildings but left the roads and the slabs that once supported the structures.
About November the population swells from a sparse few full-timersto a few thousand residents. The year round residents number less than and hundred and are considered hardcore, as it can and does reach 120 F in the summer, . There is no electric service at the slabs, save solar panels and generators. No water service except tanks and jugs, many of these filled at a gas station or grocery store in Niland.
The place is littered with burnt out campers and bus shells from previous residents. Many people describe it as an apocalyptic scene. Despite this first impression it makes on city dwellers whose sensibilities have been entrained to the frequency and order of manicured lawns, the inhabitants of this community have a depth of connection that likely exceeds most of those more refined neighborhoods. Much time is spent conversing around campfires under the stars.
The Range is an open air stage, with lights and sound system, a hodge podge of bus seats, car seats, old couches and benches for the audience, where the locals entertain each other. The slabs also has a church, and several clubs.
A recourse on Slab City would not be complete with mentioning Salvation Mountain and one of the slabs more endearing residents Leonard Knight. Salvation Mountain is Leonard's testament and tribute to his love for Jesus and his fellow humans. There are quite a few YouTube videos on Leonard and his mountain. Here is one.
It is possible to live a happy healthy life without a mortgage or rent payments. Many today are, not just resorting to, but embracing alternative living arrangements that offers freedom from traditional shelter costs. Theses include but are not limited to tiny houses, cabins, RVs, Communal living arrangements, tepees, yurts, and tents.
Some of these involve a nomadic lifestyle that may not be for everyone, but certain individuals find a sense of freedom that they wouldn't give up for a million dollar mansion. We'll be looking at some of these people, their lifestyles, and their shelters.
We'll also look at lifestyles, and individuals living them, that might be categorized as homesteading or off grid living. There are people living in small cabins built without loans or mortgages and living well off the bounties of nature. Shelters made from natural materials from the surrounding terrain, caves, or scavenged materials and combinations of these methods will be included.
In today's commercial world many people forget that the earth is what supplies our needs. We will look at food. Cheaper ways of feeding ourselves a better diet. Methods of stockpiling foods. Foods that can be stored for long periods without spoilage, and the techniques used to preserve it.
The blog will discuss ways to incorporate some of these changes into your current living situation, or offer advice for those making radical changes by choice or necessity.
Lets begin by looking at an essay that offers great advice on enjoying a simpler life.
Photo by Ken Ilgunas
