Gray Henon

A buddy was telling me a while back about “Green necks”.  Probably the closest description of me, lol.

Cave people were self sufficient with sticks and stones, at least enough to perpetuate the species.  

Sure, they dealt with high infant mortality, birthing mortality, communicable diseases, starvation, harsh conditions, etc.

Our closest primate relatives still survive in the jungle with no other tech or tools other than sticks and rocks.

What they two had in common was a large, functioning, ecosystem.  Without it, there is no way.

It can be done, with tech almost anyone could understand.  Everyone just needs to accept the fact that there will be bad, very bad, times, on occasion.  Perhaps even frequently.

I was in my early twenties when I realized and said, “It would be easier to start over in a mud hut, than it would be to make what we have sustainable”.   I don’t feel any different today.

Thanks to some pretty nice tech, we can observe how some of most primitive people in the world still live.  It is spartan, on the edge at times, but amazing to witness.  Sustainability/ self sufficiency looks a whole lot more like tent camping than a suburb.  

With enough land (huge caveat), and willingness to accept increased hunger/mortality, I really believe a motivated group could achieve 90%+ self sufficiency.

Never really seen it discussed, but there are a few nice scaling efficiencies you get with animals and larger communities that actually reduce the need for equipment and tech.  

25+ish people can eat an entire animal (goat, pig, sheep, deer, etc) at once without the need for preservation.  Not only does this save on refrigeration and/or canning, but also plastic packaging.  Feasts also foster social relationships.

We have found it difficult to raise a butcher size hog solely on scraps/gleaned fruit drops, etc.  and have had to rely on intensively grown corn/soy to make up the ration.  4-6 families in a “pig club” can come much closer to feeding a hog out almost entirely on scraps, completely eliminating the need for cultivating a crop solely for animal feed.  Planting, harvesting, and maintaining soil fertility (compost, cover crops, etc) are all a tremendous amount of labor unless you are relying on complex mechanical equipment.

Charcoal has an incredible ability to absorb odor (and nitrogen).  For that reason alone, it is worth adding to a pig pen.  And there is no doubt that a prolific microbial community exists in a pig pen that can occupy the pores in the charcoal turning it in to biochar.  Some pigs I have had over the years would consume the raw charcoal, and others not so much.  I’d start slow and work up if they seem to be eating much of it.

I am quite impressed with the simplicity and capability of the self contained power units made by companies such as Bluetti, Jackery, etc.  If they prove to be long lived (10 years+), I think they could be a huge asset to the sustainable off grid community.  If they fail after 5 or so, I’d probably just consider them another point of consumption.

Edited to add:  Just saw this on the Jackery website, the rapid advancement in this area is truly amazing!

“Jackery power stations last 8 to 16 years or 3,000 to 6,000 charge cycles for newer LiFePO4 models, while older lithium-ion units last about 500 cycles or 2 to 3 years.”

Rented several old places in a cold climate while I was in college.

Caulk for little cracks
Spray foam for bigger ones
Shrink wrapping old windows can really help out a lot in a hurry as well.
Windows in unused rooms can be blocked off with insulative material.
Windows just needed for light can get bubble wrap on the glass.

Cook at home vs eating out.  The kitchen really dumps a lot of heat into the home.  2 for 1 benefit in the winter.  Not so good in the summer.  We adapt our cooking methods in the summer to reduce cooking times. For example, fajitas instead of pot roast.

Be careful with vapor barriers/improvised insulation, though.  A vapor barrier should be on the warm side in the winter.  Get it wrong and condensation starts forming immediately and mold shortly thereafter.

Do you think your property will have access to the ocean or other productive body of water?  If so, this would significantly simplify protein production. Fishing also has the benefit of bringing nutrients back onto the property to replace those lost through leaching, etc.

Your choice of a warm location solves a lot of challenges faced by us in colder climates.  Winter heat, winter animal feed, large amounts of preserving, frozen pipes, etc. all take a lot of time and energy to manage and often have us looking for higher tech solutions.  I’ve spent some time south of the border and things do seem quite a bit simpler.

Have you spent much time in Panama or a similar area?  If not, I think you will find simple, appropriate technology, for solving many issues with some local recon.  Look for projects conducted by NGO’s such as Heifer, Oxfam, etc.  They have a tremendous amount of experience with resilient methods and solutions.

As it is, I do my best to abstain from anything with a circuit board.  The aforementioned fence charger and the device I am typing on are the two I use the most.  My very limited power equipment (garden tractor, chainsaw, weedeater, push mower, water pump) are all gasoline powered.  I’ve flirted with the idea of an electric chainsaw, mainly for noise reduction, but I am not impressed with the battery lifespan (not operating time) reports I see.  2 strokes seem to be shorter lived, but a little bit of maintenance can keep a 4 stroke running for 20 years plus.  

My advise is to design your property with heavy constraints on tech, make it work without, then add a bit here and there, based on proven robust designs.

Experimentation is great, I’m glad there are people who love to experiment with tech, but robust resilience in design is usually something that comes late in the game, sometimes at the cost of complexity and resources.

Keep it simple.  The faster you can bring someone new up to speed on your system, the more sustainable it will be.

22,110

Done!

Great question.

Case and point; Electric fencing dramatically reduces the time and initial capital needed to restrain animals, but I am on my 5th charger in 18 years and several of those were repaired (not by me) along the way from lightening damage.  Still hard to say if I am ahead of just using woven wire.

Looking forward to additional responses.  I’ll try to add more as time permits.

21,905

Still more to go…