Daddy Tanuki
Emperor Of Solar
we are poor little lambs, who have lost our way.... bah... bah...bah...
What is electricity useful for if you have land?
- Thread starter Gueyog8a7
- Start date
What is the purpose of owning land for you? Privacy? A source of fuel for heating? A food source?
If it's just to provide a buffer zone from other people so you don't have to wash so often or otherwise interact with them then you need no electricity for that.
If it's to provide fuel for heating then you can do that manually. But I suspect like most of us that will quickly become too time consuming, at which point labor saving devices like an electric chainsaw and wood splitter will be welcome additions. You'll also need to transport the wood and an electric UTV would be a way to do that.
If it's to raise your own food you can in theory do that manually too. But farming is incredibly labor intensive if done manually (and still very labor intensive if not done manually). The way farmers overcame that problem in the past was with free labor in the form of either offspring or enslaved ppl. The second alternative is no longer legal and the first is not available to you since you don't bathe or have sex.
Without free labor you will want labor saving tools and equipment to raise your own food. If it's livestock you will need fencing, watering systems, and means to harvest and or transport feed and supplies. So fence post drivers, electric fence chargers, water pumps and distribution systems, trenchers, and a tractor to move it, cut it, auger it, etc. Right now it's still not very practical to do a lot of this with electricity so I still have a diesel tractor for these purposes. But hopefully that will change soon.
If it's raising food plants you'll need pretty much the same set of things plus a way to prepare and amend your soil and a more extensive watering system. For both plants and animals, after harvesting and processing you'll need ways to preserve and store your produce, so freezers, canners, and cook stoves.
If it's just to provide a buffer zone from other people so you don't have to wash so often or otherwise interact with them then you need no electricity for that.
If it's to provide fuel for heating then you can do that manually. But I suspect like most of us that will quickly become too time consuming, at which point labor saving devices like an electric chainsaw and wood splitter will be welcome additions. You'll also need to transport the wood and an electric UTV would be a way to do that.
If it's to raise your own food you can in theory do that manually too. But farming is incredibly labor intensive if done manually (and still very labor intensive if not done manually). The way farmers overcame that problem in the past was with free labor in the form of either offspring or enslaved ppl. The second alternative is no longer legal and the first is not available to you since you don't bathe or have sex.
Without free labor you will want labor saving tools and equipment to raise your own food. If it's livestock you will need fencing, watering systems, and means to harvest and or transport feed and supplies. So fence post drivers, electric fence chargers, water pumps and distribution systems, trenchers, and a tractor to move it, cut it, auger it, etc. Right now it's still not very practical to do a lot of this with electricity so I still have a diesel tractor for these purposes. But hopefully that will change soon.
If it's raising food plants you'll need pretty much the same set of things plus a way to prepare and amend your soil and a more extensive watering system. For both plants and animals, after harvesting and processing you'll need ways to preserve and store your produce, so freezers, canners, and cook stoves.
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Brucey
Velcro Man
No/limited bathing = no chicky babes
Daddy Tanuki
Emperor Of Solar
there is always MoldiLocks from the seattle area chaz riots... or was she form LA? i forgot.
Brucey
Velcro Man
I guess if you have enough moola anything is possible, Howard Hughes with his piss jars...
This summer with hopefully mega excess of power thinking maybe freeze dry machine, seems to be good for about 24kWh per cycle.
houseofancients
Solar Wizard
you forgot to add heat and/or cooling.....
as mini splits/head pumps
wpns
Solar Joules are catch and release
Simplicity is good, but the older I get the more I value the creature comforts, clean hot and cold running water, lights, AC, laundry machines, dishwashers, my own House Elf "Alexa, set the office lights to 10%", fiber broadband (even if the last hop is a radio link), and yeah, the grid (such as it is) as a backup.
Daddy Tanuki
Emperor Of Solar
Honestly all jokes aside the idea is to find more things to do with the electricity so that you have to build more array's and battery banks... I want to make a solar powered electric chair for about 10-15% of the US population... Modern problems require modern "Green" solutions... wonder if I can get a grant for that?
Recovering EE
Solar Addict
Many in Texas may be lost soon.
Brucey
Velcro Man
Isn't it already in place there?
fatjay
Solar Wizard
Apparently, but vpn's are fairly effective in bypassing it. Also, there is other porn.
It genuinely confuses me how such a thing could pass, though. It's something I don't understand.
Daddy Tanuki
Emperor Of Solar
It’s asking too much to make the parents responsible for their crap for brain offspring (sarcasm)
wpns
Solar Joules are catch and release
The Freedom Through Authoritarianism Party is now in charge, don't try to understand, just go back to solar power stuff.
Yeah but it's 2025 not 1900.Well washing machine I by no means see as essential and rather a pointless luxury. Just my opinion. All depends on what you feel you need. I want to strip things back but some things I found essential like laptop in order to access the world of information to learn. Most stuff is low power, phone and diesel cooker/heater.
There is nothing I feel I am depriving myself of right now by not having AC. As said, plan to use hand tools for labour work.
Washing machine would be the last thing I would feel I couldnt do without. I just hand scrub once a month or so the one or two pairs of clothes I have.Less clothes and washed less often = simplicity so no need for a machine.
Now a good case could be made for freezer for food preservation. That is all I could see of the things you listed as having valid practical value for myself.
Oh and the other thing I just thought of induction cooking would be very handy to make use of excess solar in warmer months.
People actually clean themselves and try to look respectable in society, to you know become a functioning part of it.
In this day and age you need nice clean clothes and amenities.
Scrubbing your two potato sacks with your unshaven face/leg in the muddy cesspool near the septic tank isn't going to accommodate this unfortunately.
Being off grid and independent doesn't mean dropping your hygiene standards back to the stone age.
I think it's time you bought some clothes, had a shave and a shower(possibly the longest one you can with all this excess power you have)
This is an opinion of course, like yours.
This would be the same person who is responsible for picking up after their dog dumps in my yard?
fatjay
Solar Wizard
Live for a year wtihout a washer, doing wash by hand, hanging to dry. Especially when you're working land. I come in from a day's work, and there isn't a day that goes by when I don't work, and my clothes need thoroughly cleaned. Plowing fields, planting, harvesting, tending chickens, cleaning the coop, running the saw mill, laying block or brick, pouring concrete, fixing machines.Well washing machine I by no means see as essential and rather a pointless luxury. Just my opinion. All depends on what you feel you need. I want to strip things back but some things I found essential like laptop in order to access the world of information to learn. Most stuff is low power, phone and diesel cooker/heater.
There is nothing I feel I am depriving myself of right now by not having AC. As said, plan to use hand tools for labour work.
Washing machine would be the last thing I would feel I couldnt do without. I just hand scrub once a month or so the one or two pairs of clothes I have.
Now a good case could be made for freezer for food preservation. That is all I could see of the things you listed as having valid practical value for myself.
Oh and the other thing I just thought of induction cooking would be very handy to make use of excess solar in warmer months.
You won't have the time or energy to wash hands after you do real work. Where do you think all your food and materials are going to come from? You have to make them and grow them yourself.
fatjay
Solar Wizard
Explains a lot. Wish I read this first.
Buffer zone as you say but in so doing want to be self-sufficient or aim for it - I know that is a long term project. I just began perusing the book Self-sufficiency by john seymour which has been recommended to me. It looks great, like the smallholder's version of the sas survival guide.
Well I have advised that with only a couple of acres I wouldn't have enough space to plant trees to be self-sufficient so seems it would be better used in other ways unless I just think of it as wildlife area/screening from the public, the latter which is still a very valid reason if I had enough space to grow food self-sufficiently.
I want to grow vegetable crops only. Don't mind labour intensive, I did it already volunteering so know the ropes - but like you say in that case there was lots of free labour in volunteers. 0.5 acres is able to be kept with one person I guess?
Rednecktek
Expert Newbie
Nope. Minimum of 2 acres per person per year if you minimize crop rotation. 3 acres per year with proper fallow time for the field to regain nutrients.
Umm the whole point is to break away from it.
I was already living out of my van for a year doing my washing by hand...I also already lived for a year without a washer when I was in an apartment that didn't have one. It was harder in the second case because I had more stuff then. Now it is a 5 minute job to wash the couple of pairs of clothes.
I found a guy called John Jeavons who is apparently a pioneer of 'biotensive' farming who claims it can be done on a fraction of it. Something like 9000 square ft I think he claims, which, having just checked, is 0.2 acres.
Biointensive agriculture - Wikipedia
Also this seems quote:
a person feeding themselves a vegetarian diet would need about an acre of land a year. If they were to eat meat by raising chickens, goats and cows this would be 3 acres and above’.
From the first link I clicked: https://www.selfsufficienthomestead...-much-land-do-you-need-to-be-self-sufficient/
Next paragraph says 1/4 of an acres or less is achievable.
I would be on a vegetarian, well actually vegan, diet - waiting for the big alpha male @Daddy Tanuki 's predictable comments.
Hmm not sure about this comment?:
Wtf? This guy makes some pretty wild and unsubstantiated generalizations.
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No.
The point is to do it GREEN.
You can still own more than two pairs of underwear and have a low impact on the earth.
You should look at powering a small desal/filtration plant.
Aquaponic systems.
Power a sewing machine, you should have sheep on your solar producing land. Then you can have the clothing you need and keep them and yourself hygienic.
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