Zachary Crawford

bingo! wet leg got the answers. jargon is key to google searches. before i knew the word permaculture, it was very hard to find info when all i had to look for was a vague idea i had.

thanks guys. this should get me going in the right direction.

I want to know what it would take to create an outlet to fill portable propane tanks off of an existing propane system. I have propane in my house and I would like to have an outlet to plug into to fill portable tanks rather than paying to swap them out at the store. I'm thinking I would need a compressor. Anyone know gas?

for me, circumstances that are bridling my progress are helping my odds of success. i'm stationed in germany, and everything that comes with that places limits on how far off grid i can be. so for the next few years i can ease into things. when i get back home, i will again be limited by the resources available at my home. so thats one three year phase here in germany, and then another at my house until the third phase, which i plan on being when i find the land i want to buy.

here in germany i can grow food in raised beds in my backyard. i can finish building my still and begin learning to distill. i can build a modest sized compost silo. i can build a small rocket heater. i can build a 55 gallon drum methane digester. all things that really wont let me disconnect from anything, but will set me up with the needed knowledge for when life lets me move on to bigger steps.

when i get back home i will be able to do everything that i can start here in germany, but more seriously because its my home and my lot. with a larger yard i can produce more food with dozens of raised beds over my old garden spot. three years from now my fruit trees i planted last summer should be producing apples and peaches. i can direct the rainwater from my roof into the 275 gallon water tank my neighbor gave me. i can apply what i learn here with tinkering with rocket stoves to pull my wood heater and replace it with a rocket-mass hearth.

one step that i think is one of the most serious ones in terms of feasibility and what it will accomplish is to build a true methane digester. pursuing home ethanol brought me in contact with methane and the simplicity of it, even if it is only for the heat and compost it provides, has me focused on it as a priority that will greatly facilitate further transition. additionally, when i am able to capture the methane produced, that free source of energy will pay dividends towards all further progress. as i mentioned, i am also interested in distilling my own ethanol. my plans for this center around acquiring waste products such and beer and baked goods from local businesses rather than growing a dedicated feed stock. so while i will still be in a conventional home with neighbors, because it is mine, i will be able to implement my ideas more completely and freely than i can here in government quarters.

finally i plan to get my own land and come together with like minded friends and family to create a magnificent community of self sufficient peoples and so on and so forth, and while that seems like such a pipe dream at this point because of how far i am from it, every journey starts with a single step. my first steps will be little hobbies like urban gardening and canning and dehydrating. i think the key to success is successive steps that build into one another so the transition is gradual. ask me again in three years though.

i want a south facing paned window broken into slices to denote the hour as the sun passes across the sky.

http://www.harvesth2o.com/statues_regulations.shtml#ga

check to see the laws where you live

heard or read about something that interested me. after the advent of artificial lightning most societies lost an old custom. apparently people had held different sleeping patterns based on natural daylight and went to sleep much earlier. in the middle of the night it was normal to wake, at about one or two, and spend a little while reading or smoking a pipe before going back to sleep. when i learned that i thought about how long that trait must have been around. for all of the history of man before electricity, most of human history, there was a certain sleep schedule and then relatively recently we went away from it. what stuck with me was that something that people had done for so long went away and was mostly forgotten. thinking of where i am going in life, that sounds like something that i could enjoy. i wonder what other customs we held in more agrarian times that could be brought back in a homesteading life.

realizing that such customs were organic and developed naturally to fit with a certain lifestyle, it could be argued that such things are necessary to someone seeking to return to that existence.

another georgian here. currently living in europe but my home is in thomaston. will be looking to get connected with something like a csa locally when we return. also thinking about buying land and moving further north into the north georgia mountains.

when i first got the itch to do something different in life i didnt know what to call it or where to look. i found a few places where things like this were going on while i tried to put my finger on what i was looking for. places where very wealthy people bought vacation homes in the countryside that were maintained as farms by "the help" so they could play farmer over the holidays. do i have to make it more clear how i feel about this?