Question about self-sufficiency

Discussion in 'Designing, building, making and powering your life' started by Spidermonkey, Oct 5, 2011.

  1. floot

    floot Junior Member

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    Spidermonkey, welcome!

    Many years ago I purchased 75 acres, to be honest I wanted 5 or so acres but there were none to be had and this place had the location I wanted which is close to town. I have found we have continually downsized our ambitions. We didnt want to be farmers and grow mangoes or bananas etc.. Now what we have is about 3/4 acre zone 1, a 2 acre mixed zone, about 12 acres of mostly cleared and grazed and a 60 acre back paddock.

    We have been relatively vegie and herb succient at times and now are primarily meat sufficient but we are still a long way from self-sufficiency and independence. For our first 10 years we were mostly just 'broke' and pretty much had to save up to buy a star picket, let alone a fence.

    Gardenlen will probably support me on this. Len had 30 acres and finished up with a 'big back paddock' too. Now len permacultures a suburban backyard and I bet he isnt 'finished' either. My point is that size doesnt really matter it what you do with what you have.

    Surely a mathemician amongst us should be able to come up with an equation.
    Age/ financial situation x [health x relationship status] divided by no. of children x [experience / desire] = 7.3 subtropical acres with an existing house and shed within 40kms of work.

    We have had participants on this forum who permied courtyards and postage stamp sized back yards and learned and gained heaps. We have also had/have fully fledged big size farmers all on the permie journey. I would say it was in inherent human tendency to buy too much land. Remember your neighbours will rightfully expect you to control your animals, fences, watercourses, weeds, pets and firebreaks.

    Country living is fabulous but remember to get as much info as possible on that bit you have picked out and that includes talking to neighbours, councils, libraries, internet searches. Remember, if you have to, that commuting is a drudge that takes valuable daylight hours away from you.

    Cheers,
     
  2. Brewer

    Brewer Junior Member

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    This is the lifestyle I lead, and while it has its challenges I can vouch for it wholeheartedly. Our land is mostly forest, and sustainably managing that provides a modest income stream for the community and a couple of its members, as well as an ample and secure supply of heating and cooking energy (burning firewood that is grown sustainably is about as green as you can get).

    There's also much greater diversity in produce than one family could achieve and a wider pool of skills and experience to draw on. It's like an extended family, there is always some petty bickering but at the end of the day we're all there for each other and we all have a stake in the community's success.

    That's not to say you can't succeed by yourself, but man it sounds like an awful lot of hard, lonely work!
     
  3. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    burning wood is green and clean and sustainable?

    sorry i must have missed something

    len
     
  4. Brewer

    Brewer Junior Member

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    Of course it is. We're merely releasing a tiny fraction of the carbon that was captured on our own land during our own lifetime, most of which would be released anyway by the decomposition process. No release of fossil or otherwise locked carbon. The thousands of trees we husband capture far more carbon than is released by the few we burn.

    How do you cook and heat your home?
     
  5. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    this estate has no power, phone vehicles that use fuel?? how do you get water to your houses for washing and drinking? no need to drive to a supermarket? or the like. a chain saw to cut wood.

    probably preaching to the indoctrinated converted maybe.

    len
     
  6. Brewer

    Brewer Junior Member

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    Hi Len, if you have a point you'll need to clarify it for me. If you know of a 'greener' way for us to cook and heat our homes I'd love to hear it.
     
  7. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    i did ask if where you are has power, telephone and sues cars and chain saws, seems a simple enough ask.

    if you do have the above including gas and you cut up trees as well then you are doubling up.

    len
     
  8. Brewer

    Brewer Junior Member

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    Len, please make your point. Doubling up what? I believe that sustainably grown firewood is a pretty green way to cook and heat a home. That's all I stated in my first post. It's a biofuel after all. You seem to have an issue with it (or a better solution) but you have failed to state what it is.

    Yes we do use vehicles and chainsaws to harvest it, but our forest would easily sink all of the carbon from those sources too. Even if it didn't, the amount of fossil emissions in gathering a year's supply of cut wood from two hundred metres away would be tiny compared to most other methods of cooking and heating. I fail to see what phone lines, power or water have to do with the validity of firewood as our fuel choice.

    Again, I'm all ears for your solution. If you don't have one, perhaps we should drop the subject.
     
  9. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    here is where i drop out you are wanting to go around in circles if you sue power, fuel etc and then burn wood that is a double jeopardy to the environment, and to think that a near by forest is only there to suck up your as much carbon as everybody else is something else, that's the same as the gov' saying if we sell the carbon rites of our trees to overseas polluters that will cut the pollution our trees are already removing our co2.

    this warm fuzzy feeling that chopping down trees in some magical sustainable way and not adding to pollution worries does not make someones actions right. all feel good.

    we had 70 acres 30 acres of which was habitat, we made no such claims.

    len
     
  10. Brewer

    Brewer Junior Member

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    Len, you are pontificating on my lifestyle without knowing ANY of the facts! You might want to examine your own 'indoctrination'.

    You may be able to power your entire home with a single solar panel in your underpants, but the rest of us need to make choices that fall within the laws of physics.

    Have a nice day.
     
  11. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    G'day Len

    Firewood is a renewable energy source, unlike gas or electricity, which are usually generated by burning fossil fuels. A 2003 CSIRO study examined CO2 emissions from wood heating. One part of the study looked at firewood sourced from sustainably managed plantations, (established on cleared agricultural land), and burnt using a 62 per cent efficient wood heater. The study found that there was actually a positive net sequestration of carbon per unit of energy produced from burning firewood harvested from a coppiced plantation. In terms of CO2 emissions, firewood was found to be generally more favourable for domestic heating than other sources of domestic heating such as gas and electricity.

    DPI (2009) Growing Plantation Firewood

    Cheerio, Markos
     
  12. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    ecodharmamark,

    I can't help but think here in the Pacific NW, that between coppice, and cob construction & / or straw bale, a person could easily be VERY self-sufficient in terms of firewood. Heck, some of the cob homes across town at Cob Cottage I think heat up, and retain it simply by a single candle burning.

    Given that, and rocket mass heater technology incorporated would easily even trump this study for bonuses in sequestration of carbon.

    Would you agree with that theory?
     
  13. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    so if everybody went to burning trees there would more pressure on the habitat, already over the top with pine forests replacing habitat, burning trees is all in teh romance of teh dreams of people who will protect their unsustainable dream to the enth degree.

    anyhow heard that the EPA will be stopping all that sort of burning, maybe concessions for those who have no other source available, for 20 years now the system is setting up for 2 stroke motors to be non existent, one reason why small engine makers are leaning to 4 stroke engines.

    the real sustainable efficiencies come from building an efficient house very few are truly so. our last house as with this one will need only 1 light to illuminate the whole house, we never use heating at times pedestal fans, our houses ventilate properly and take benefit from the winter sun, not so much this one as we could not opt' for a scillion roof, but we have orientated it north on a northerly aspect block, don't see much of those criteria in where people choose to build and how. in winter instead of added heating (unsustainable0 we put appropriate clothing on mostly only needed in the early morning.

    ah the dream of a cosy cabin and that romantic spiral of smoke arising from the chimney, it's all pollution and the EPA see it as such.

    we should be setting teh example to pay more respect to habitat all over, no excuses.

    we have a pile of trees on our block destined for burning (no purpose really)we are going to use a smelly noisy chain saw to cut as much of it up as we can and incorporate more hugelkultur into our new gardens the height of the width of a sheet of corrugated. along the way we will create some firewood for a friend(yes he know how we feel about that, but like very many others he did not take in aspect concepts when he bought) and in this case if he doesn't burn it and derive use then it all goes up in smoke anyway.

    we reckon we have the aspect and orientation as right as we can afford to, the house will have better passive air than what we currently rent (one of those modern wooden things on stilts), little slab cabin next door has cooler patio facing much the same way not north. so when others suggest we put no effort in we but laugh at them, we don't go for feel good yuppies being seen to be different, we go for practical and what works. but this always gets rejected by those professing to do it right.

    we'd like to see all the pine forest replaced with original habitat, lots of others should as well, instead of creating more pine plantations, one of the latest ones up this way they duely knocked natural habitat down and in due course paid planters 1 cent a plant to plant out and guess what it ha failed the natural bush has all but smothered their feeble plants. pity about the loss of habitat and waste hey. when it comes to habitat we need to look at the big picture, not jsut little bits of near by stuff.

    want to get real time to put ones money where ones mouth is.

    len

    len
     
  14. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    G'day Pakanohida

    Seems like a rational theory to me.

    Cheerio, Markos.
     
  15. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    G'day Len

    I don't think the OP concerning this subject (G'day Brewer, a belated welcome to the PRI Forum) was advocating for the wholesale destruction of habitat in order to merely heat one's home. Indeed, in the OP's first post to this forum, it is clear that this person wishes to heat one's living space, cook one's food, and heat one's water in the most sustainable manner available to him/herself. In this sense, I believe that the OP is certainly putting 'one's money where one's mouth is'.

    Concerning the same topic in a more general sense: Holmgren (you may have come across him in your studies?) designed Fryer's Forest Ecovillage around the sustainable harvest of firewood (among a suite of other permaculture ethics and principles). This model allows for a net gain in habitat, for both human and non-human alike. Great stuff, hey? Perhaps this is the model that inspires Brewer? Let's hope he/she is not put off by our seemingly unfriendly welcome, and decides to return in order to inform us further of her/his plans.

    Cheerio, Markos
     

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