Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Faircompanies has been focusing on small homesteads.

Idaho modern oldtimer builds underground & solar $50 houses

Lloyd Kahn on his NorCal self-reliant half-acre homestead

Urban self-reliance: homestead in Oakland's small rented lot

Building €1,000 small home in 100 hours from open source design

This is something to listen to:

The Thomas Jefferson Hour Podcast. I'm recommending episode 1116 "To Live Deliberately". They discuss "Walden" and applying principles from it in our own lives.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the ... 83908?mt=2

C40 wrote:This is something to listen to:

The Thomas Jefferson Hour Podcast. I'm recommending episode 1116 "To Live Deliberately". They discuss "Walden" and applying principles from it in our own lives.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the ... 83908?mt=2

If you don't have iTunes you can listen to it at http://www.makochemedia.com/files/Show% ... rately.mp3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdLAM-wChxY

Dan Price feature.

PS: Subscribe to Kirsten Dirksen's channel.

Here's a series on youtube called An American Homestead. It's about an extended family learning how to homestead in the Ozarks.

Here's an adorable accessory dwelling in Portland. I'm not sure why they think it can generate $1M/year, but it's a nice opportunity for additional income if you live someplace desirable. I'd probably live in that little unit and rent out the house to a permanent tenant.

Accessory dwellings in Portland are currently being hit with a hefty property tax increase. Of course most people have forgotten that was the deal when they were allowed to start the accessory dwellings, that the property tax increase was deferred to encourage such developments...

The Victory Garden link is wonderful. They just assume you have a horse for plowing your backyard

jennypenny wrote:Here's an adorable accessory dwelling in Portland. I'm not sure why they think it can generate $1M/year, but it's a nice opportunity for additional income if you live someplace desirable. I'd probably live in that little unit and rent out the house to a permanent tenant.

That doesn't look small to me. I can't believe they describe it as a "tiny house". It's a normal sized property in Europe LOL

To Make A Farm movie -- To Make A Farm asks: what might the future of local food and farming look like? This beautifully photographed documentary explores the lives of five young people who have decided to become small-scale farmers.

It's good. They're gutsy to take on that kind of farming. I like what he says @35 minutes about using your heart, head and hands at the same time.

It's on Amazon Prime.

If they didn't talk about finances, they can't be good.

The film reminded me of the couple that ran our CSA. They said they were taught (by Penn State Ag) that a small farm just like those shown in the film were the best chance of making it work. I'm not sure how true that is, or if the Ag schools are just trying to keep people in farming. Maybe those farms are the best way to break even while calling yourself a 'farmer'.

I still liked their enthusiasm. I also liked that it wasn't inspired by or overloaded with cynicism towards modern culture or big Ag or cities in general. It seemed like, for the most part, they just really wanted to farm. It was refreshing.

The movie pretty much convinced me that my days of raising something for the table are behind me. You'd think the opposite was true -- that the older you got, the more resigned you became to the way life works. Maybe you develop more sympathy for the animals the closer you get to your own stockyard day.

Based on my reading, the best way to make a living as a small farmer is to provide niche crops to the city markets. In a way, it's the same model that brings people a moderate make-a-living level of success on Etsy or Amazon or dealing discards at a flea market. I joke that it is my plan to raise snails, quails and rare amaryllis on my mini-urban-plot, but it is true that you simply can't compete growing corn and potatoes, just like I can't compete selling used copies of best-sellers on Amazon as a book dealer. OTOH, if it is your goal for your garden to provide enough calories to feed your family, then you should grow potatoes and corn. My 5 year goal is to provide enough volume/weight of food to feed two people (6 lbs. a day), but not necessarily enough calories or variety, and also a couple of small income producing crops. So, something like 2000 lbs. of food and $2000 annual income from 3/10 to 1/2 acre. Keeping it fun level of farming.

Another Dirksen video: Converted van as full-time home for nomadic Canadian couple

It's as much about minimalism as it is about van dwelling. I really like the message @21:00.

Culture Unplugged

Witnessing global consciousness, with documentaries & films from storytellers around the world. A free service offered to global citizens aspiring for enlightened future...

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Governance & Politics
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Human Exploration:
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http://www.cultureunplugged.com/documen ... /index.php

Bonus footage from "Without Bound" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Yl63VI ... F4h_cf09aO


I also like Tubbs's interview with the Wanderlust guy https://youtu.be/3Tk0ujZ7xA4

#Vanlife with No Filter

A couple documents their life in a van without the rose tinted glasses. A lot of their problems that they talk about seem like they stem from poor prior planning and preparation.

They also seem to have had a misconception of what van life entails. They seem to be wanting to live a normal life, but in a van. There seem to be plenty of people who actually are living in National Forests, BLM land, National Parks etc. It's a matter of priorities, IMO. But I do get what they are trying to get across. The van life community likely has a Facebook effect where everyone just displays the positive aspects.

Overall, I like the message. I'm being overly nit-picky.

There are a few other aspects of this video that relate to recent threads here.
1. They have lots of stuff! Quite the cluttered van, and this is after downsizing from their belongings in their apartment.
2. The guy has a beard and a semi- man bun. I'm guessing the correlation of guys who live in their van and have a hip/styled beard is fairly high.

Nomadic Furniture (famous DIY book from the 1970s) revisited.

https://vimeo.com/74444897

I'm halfway through the third episode of Black Mirror and am loving it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror_(TV_series)

It was created by Charlie Brooker who is well known for for the BBC program Screenwipe.

Most of the episodes are on youtube. Episode 3 might be a good place to start since episode 1 might be somewhat off-putting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw3GIR70HAY

HT to disparatum for mentioning it in the AI thread.

black mirror is fucked up. poor pig. one episode is basically entirely about consumerism/rat race, though, that was a good one.

Hah! I told you to skip episode 1. But now that you watched it and talked about it here, how many more people are going to watch it, an episode about our transfixing fascination with the spectacularly grotesque? Season 1 Episode 3 was incredible IMO.