Cristobal Cristo

Mike,

In what climate are you located?
Will the building be insulated, and how much, walls and roof ?
Will you have an open space or separate rooms?

Mike,

Piped mass "went out of fashion" . It's better to build a low bell bench - easier to clean and gases will do the job in a less restricted and natural free movement way. If you share your planned layout on the home plan, we will help.

From my experience I would say that it's quite unlikely that someone would accept half of asking price, but the other scenario that may result in similar savings is possible.
Imagine two similar lots: one being sold by aggressive real estate agent with a large audience and extensive connections. The other is sold by the owner who only advertises on craigslist/facebook and with a paper poster attached to his fence. The agent's price may be easily twice of what the self selling owner asks. I saw several such cases in the past.

What is the definition  of "post-consumer honey"?

When I was purchasing land I offered 20% lower than original price, then was counter-offered with original minus 10% and I accepted it. I could do it, because I was paying cash for full amount. Most raw land sales are owner financed. It's more attractive for the seller to have full cash amount instantly - albeit little bit lower, than get original price money trickling for years with monthly installments from the buyer.

Andre,

For the bell you can improvise and use local materials.
For the firebox, I would recommend the best NEW firebricks you can buy. Old ones may be worn thermally and close to their end, or come from industrial furnaces and be saturated with heavy metals, or come with old fire mortar attached that may have asbestos and you will have to remove it first.

I you are concerned with their embodied energy:
-assuming 1 firebrick weighs 3.7 kg it has embodied energy of around 11 MJ
-firebox and riser for BBR 150 mm can be built with 60 bricks (or less or more, depending on the brick laying design)
-so 60 bricks have embodied energy of 660 MJ
-such a firebox will have 26 l capacity and in theory can take 8 kg of firewood which is around 100 MJ
So after only 7 burns you already match the embodied energy of your new firebricks. If they are quality and new they will last long and the longer they last, the more negligible will be their embodied energy.

The discussion revolves around fats, but sugars in vegetables make wonderful seasoning.
Around 20 years ago, I was unhappy with my Lodge skillet performance, as everything was sticking to it, despite being seasoned several times with fats. For the first time I fried some vegetables and everything stuck badly. When started scratching with metal spatula to remove the charred residue, the skillet became an order of magnitude less sticky and it was improving with more vegetable frying.
Fry various things and be aggressive with scraping.

"Full sun" recommendation for most trees and vegetables means it's a spot with full afternoon shade at my location. Even some cultivars of full sun classics like grapes and figs struggle in my conditions.
It looks that the full sun is the Midwestern or West/Central European sun.
I have noticed that morning shade/afternoon sun will have the same effect like full sun - I have transplanted my blackberries and roses from full sun to morning-and-noon shade location. They got more frequent irrigation. They got scorched the same as in full sun location. I may try to transplant them again to 90% shade spot.

I need to use this translation for vegetables:
full sun = afternoon shade
partial sun = complete shade
shade = not for me

Some trees would gain from having half day shade, but it' not an option for me.

I have researched it a bit. Usually it's recommended to use the same amount wood ash as water glass by volume. So assuming we have the aforementioned 100 kg of ash (from one cord used for yearly heating) it would be volume of 60 l (assuming specific gravity of 1.6), so we would need 60 l of water glass (40%), which is around 16 gallons. I saw 1 gallon on amazon for $20, so it would need at least $320 of water glass to make equivalent of 4 bags of cement (worth $80).
If we purchased water glass cheaper (amazon includes shipping), let's say at $10 per gallon, it would still amount to $160. So only if water glass could be sourced very cheaply ($4 per Gal), it would be cheaper than cement.  It's possible that if purchased in barrels (or tanker trucks) it would be quite cheap, after all it's a simple material made of most popular elements.
Of course wood ashes come in all flavors and they could react differently resulting in different final product.
It's an interesting topic. I need to experiment.

Emma,

For rough off grid life cast iron is the best. I have various Lodge pieces, and my favorite is 13.25" skillet. I use it on gas and on direct fire.
For soups I like my Guisson 5 l and 10 l enameled cast iron.
I also have a lot of Staub enameled cast iron, but I find it too delicate for rustic life, but once I finish my house I will start using them again.
For stainless, for over 20 years I have been using Matfer Burgeaut Excellence series - no gimmics, no rivets, no nooks for grime, no glass, smooth handles that can be perfectly washed. Professional cookware from France - my favorite.
Guison, Matfer and especially Staub do not belong to "not spending fortune" category, so the winner is Lodge, but for soups I recommend at least one enameled cast iron pot.