Freeconomy Blog
Sun
11 May
Going off-grid after a great week for the community...
| 8 comments |
Spring is such a magical time of year. Not only do I see green everywhere as life begins its wondrous cycle again, I feel a new lease of life myself. I think we forget sometimes that we are as much part of ‘nature’ as a tree, and just as it awakes after the long cold winter, so do we. I know I certainly do anyway.
Given this new found energy, I decided the time was ripe to take my ‘Transition Experiment’ onto another platform. I feel like the next step for me is to start living off-grid. So I asked myself, what am I still doing that involves me being ‘on-grid’. Let’s see – I cook my food on an electric cooker, shower using an electric shower, use lights to see at night and most abhorrently of all, crap in my own water supply. Not very smart of me at all. So I’ve decided to start knocking them all on the head one-by-one over the summer.
To begin with I am going to learn how to build a rocket stove. This can be done completely for free – go to your local independent delicatessen and you’ll get the olive tin you need, and take off to your local skip for the piping required – believe me, in this waste culture of ours, both will be found in abundance. Once you’ve made it, it can be quite easily fuelled for free also, using either waste wood from local businesses or deadwood if you live a bit more rurally. So not only do you get another step away from this ridiculous centralized energy system of ours – where, by the way, a incredible 70% of all energy is lost before it even makes it to one of our homes – you get to become more self-sustainable and save yourself another bill into the bargain!
Once that is done I plan to convert our shed into an ‘alternative bathroom’! I’ll start with constructing a compost toilet, and then gutter the roof to pick up rain water in a re-used container, which I will then use to fill up a solar shower. This contraption, by the way, is pretty much just a black bag with a valve at the bottom. The black attracts and stores the suns rays and hence heats up the water inside. I’ve got two apprehensions about it all though – one is washing myself in rain-water that will probably have been lying for a few days (though I don’t think it should be a problem), the second being having to shower in the same room as a compost loo! I think a good airtight lid for it is essential, as vegan poo is definitely aromatic!
My last tie to our nonsensical energy infrastructure of ours is lighting. Not so much a problem this time of year, but a bugger come October. So in the meantime, I plan on learning how to make my own candles. Again, not only is it one less utility bill, but you really cannot get a more romantic setting that looking out at the moon through your window whilst reading a book by candle light on a cosy winters evening. That’s excuse enough for me!
If all this sounds a bit backward and grim, I really don’t intend it to be! I am really looking forward to learning all these skills. Not only is being more and more self-sufficient very liberating, it is also very empowering. And when sitting on a compost loo, you really do have a greater understanding of ecology and respect for the earth, and there is a deeper sense of connection and love for the soil that gives you life in doing so.
On the freeconomy front, this week has probably been the best week for the community, on a number of levels, since the project was born eight months ago. Not only has there been tonnes of activity and new membership, especially in India, but the foundations of a model which is being designed to bring the whole concept to Stage 2 have started being built here in Bristol in the UK.
The first bricks were laid when we called a meeting last week to see if anyone was interested in helping organise the first ‘Just-for-the-love-of-it Festival’, an event designed not only to give the entire community a free fun-and-education packed day out, but to also prove that such an event can be done without any finances, instead depending completely on members of the community sharing both their time and material possessions or free.
The day itself will run from morning until night, with around 20 drop-in skill-sharing workshops, music, open spaces, a freecycle shop, talks, entertainers, a clothes swap and fashion show, games area, children’s area, and most importantly, a free food stall! The food will be skip-dived, foraged and donated from local independent businesses and allotments, and will be cooked by volunteers. We won’t even accept donations. Mother Earth gives it to us for free, so what gives us the right to start charging?
Another great breakthrough happened this week when a wonderful local project called Café Midnimo offered us their space to run free skill-sharing evenings on every second Tuesday. Because I believe everything can be done without money if we believe in it enough, I’ve been holding out for the last month in the faith that something like this would pop-up. And it has! So now twice a month we will be running a free evening where one member from this community comes along and teaches everyone else how to do a certain skill. It’ll be a mix of skills that we are going to need post peak oil, fun stuff and some tools which can help us grow spiritually as well. I always wonder why spiritual skills don’t have any importance placed on them in the western world, given that they make up 50% of our entire being.
By the way, if anyone is from the Bristol or surrounding areas and wants to help in the organisation of these events, please feel free to get in contact (ph. 0044 775 886 1783). If you are from another part of the world and would like to run something similar, please feel free to contact me also, I am only too happy to help you with it if I can.
On the other two Tuesdays of every month Transition Easton, one of the Transition Neighbourhoods in the movements first city, will be holding a film night there, showing movies such as The Power of Community, a uplifting and empowering film which documents how Cuba dealt with their own oil crisis in 1990 after the collapse of the old Soviet Union.
When I first set the freeconomy community up, my friends asked me how would I pay for the hosting fees in the long run. I had no idea but just said that if this project was meant to be then I believed somebody somewhere who felt strongly enough about what we were trying to do would step in and offer the hosting for free. Well this week that happened too! A lovely couple whom I met at one of our meetings said that they have loads of spare hosting capacity and would love to be able to help us out. So the transition is complete, and I can knock that off my income requirements for the year!
Mix all that with the fact that we have also been offered more help in developing this online tool, and that there is some more positive publicity for the community in the pipeline, it has been a very good week indeed!
Oh, I’ve just remembered I have forgotten one important thing in relation to my ‘Transition Experiment’ – this thing I am typing on right now! Does anyone know any way I can power this modern type-writing contraption off-grid? If not I have a dilemma which symbolizes the bigger dilemma in my life right now – to live life exactly the way I envision it, or to work with tools I don’t fully believe in to help others make the transition together?
Anyway best get off this thing and get outdoors - hope this great weather continues!
But remember, the sun is always shining, sometimes you just got to see beyond the clouds…
Viva la commune de freeconomy! X
[TO LEAVE A COMMENT, SIGN IN AS NORMAL IF YOU ARE A MEMBER (if not you can REGISTER HERE for free), CLICK ON ‘BLOG’ ON THE NAVIGATIONAL BAR AT THE TOP, THEN CLICK ON ‘READ THIS ENTRY IN FULL’ AND THEN ON ‘COMMENT’, WHICH IS JUST ABOVE THIS MESSAGE!
I PROMISE WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF MAKING IT EASIER!]
Comment on this Post:
Littlelynn1 comments ...
Wow! Living "off-grid" sounds like a hell of a lot of work. Shame the average person with a family to support can't do half the things a single guy with no committments can do. It's interesting to hear about, but from a practical aspect keep the useful weblinks coming because the majority of the people reading your blog won't be able to spend even a fraction of time trying to implement your green ideas.
Also I am a little worried. Your dilemma about using a computer while trying to live an off-grid life is hopefully not a lead up to you abandoning this website! Not after the walk to India and the walk around the UK.
Keep up the good work with spreading the enviro-message, and please keep it accessable to everyone.
Saoirse comments ...
- Reply to LittleLynn1-
I definitely hear where you are coming from, but the average person spends 4hrs a day (which is 28hrs per week / 2 month of the year) watching TV. You can do a lot in two months! We also spend 40+hrs a week earning the money to pay for the bills and expenses that arise from being 'on-grid'!
Don't worry or a second about me 'abandoning' this community, I simply asked if anyone knew of a way to power this contraption I type on 'off-grid'.
Oh, and what makes you think I have no commitments! I wish! Glad you find the links useful though, feel free to add your own through the comments.
Jane comments ...
I think it would be good to see more of the results of what you are doing on this site. I love your beliefs and what you are doing, but a lot of what is appearing here is 'I am going to do this and that' with links to other sites and then no updates on progress. The reason this is important is that it will show people how it can be done if they are finding their way just like you and could serve as inspiration.
You recently said you have got an allotment. How's it going? What has gone well, or badly? How about your eating local food from now on? If you wrote something about how easy or difficult it has been and how you are managing it would be useful. The same with the bin free thing. An update on whether you have been succesful in being entirely bin free or whether you have found some things that you can't avoid would be useful, both for others and you. Who knows, maybe someone reading this will be able to come up with a solution for something you have found difficult.
Also, some photos would be good occasionally. If you haven't a camera, get someone else to take pics. They will bring the blog to life.
Can I recommend this site? Two Bristol based brothers offer lots of handy tips and a forum for going self sufficient (ish)
www.selfsufficientish.com
You may have seen it already but it would be great to have on your links page.
millie comments ...
I have followed this blog since the walk started. A friend linked me and I signed up immediately. Yet for all that I would want to do ..living off-grid..living of the land.
This presents some pple with not having land or funds and mostly people who need electricity to stay alive. I am referring to my father and a friend of mine. Both need to attend dialysis every other day , because their kidneys do not work. An artificial kidney would be great..but again I cannot see how this would have become a reality without electricity, plastics etc.
Yes the amount of poisons in the products today is enormous, we r out of fuel for our bilions of cars. And worst of all.. we take more than we need and throw away what we consider out of date or broken. We need to look at the next generation and those after. But to totally change and live off-grid..not possible for many .
I came across a great site, that shows a simple story, thought it might be a good link to leave evryone with.
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
lily comments ...
Burning wood for fuel is insane. If we all did that we'd be back in pea-soupers and carbon emissions would skyrocket. If you buy your electricity from a utility company, even the worst of them, that generate the electricity using coal, they are obliged by law to burn that coal in a way that reduces the carbon emissions. Of course, you could buy it from a green company; then your fees would go to building more wind power arrays, etc. But even buying from npower is less harmful to the atmosphere that what you propose.
HorneSadie comments ...
Every one understands that humen's life seems to be very expensive, nevertheless we need money for different things and not every man gets enough money. Thence to get quick loans and small business loan should be good way out.
Henderson30Marjorie comments ...
If you want to buy a house, you would have to get the business loans. Furthermore, my sister usually uses a collateral loan, which seems to be really fast.
