Our journey off-grid required solutions from our elders
Many of the challenges we faced were already solved by my parents or grand parents. So we turned to the past to solve much of the problems we faced. I like seeing things in action and we are fortunate here to have several opportunities to see the living past. Fort Edmonton Park is a good site to visit, but my favorite for figuring out how to live off grid was the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village.
So I'm going to do a 'Walk With Me off-grid edition' but I'm going to cheat a little bit as this walk happened in 2014. But I'm sure it still counts and it is still very educational. :) To be clear, all of these pictures are what I took when we toured the interpretive center, they are not what we built here at home.
To start this walk, we are confronted of a reminder of the horrors of the past. Canada has a history of building interment camps to hold their enemies. I would suggest that the First Nations Reserves are interment camps as well, only they have yet to acknowledge their violence, coercion and ongoing war against people.
May we learn from the past so that we can declare peace and find true freedom from these horrible violent actions of the state.
Despite popular belief, earthships existed long before Michael Reynolds. Using poles, the settlers would cut pieces of sod and then stack them one on top of the other to make the roof. They then dug out the earth, mudded the ends and installed a stove. Boom! Instant shelter that can handle the harsh winters.
Inside the shelter. Not a lot of room, but easy to heat and will keep you warm through the winter.
If I ever got displaced, this is what I would build as it could be done in a few days. Not only that, but it would be hard to find too!
Thermal mass heater, invented LONG before it became popular. These buildings are survival buildings. They are not designed to live in for years, but to survive until a more permanent structure can be built. Much like the shop we built to live in while we built the earthship. We used a very similar technique.
The temporary structure is needed as food and animals are important to get established as they provide food and work around the yard. Only then should the permanent house be built.
We build with what we have right! Back then, straw from the fields worked well for keeping the house dry. It would decompose, but each year you grow more, so there is always building material to work with. The walls were made with straw and mud. The floors were made with horse manure. It all worked great.
They did not have combines back then and we don't have any here either. We tried to grow wheat a few years ago and could not figure out how to separate the wheat from the stalk without a tremendous amount of work and time. Again, the old timers come to the rescue.
These are thrashing sticks. You would lay the wheat on a tarp and beat it with these sticks. They look like giant nunchucks that you would see martial artists training with. But they were able to separate the wheat from the straw and that is an important tool. One day we will try this as I do want to grow our own wheat, barley and oats.
I also want to build a cob oven so that we can do our own baking. I think this would be a fun project to have a bunch of people come over to help build.
No tour of living with 100 year old technology would be complete without wind turbines and batteries to store the electricity. What??? Yes, you heard me!
The simple life, I love it!
If you have interpretive centers near where you are, I would highly recommend a visit to see how things were put together from years ago. It is well worth the day to look around and get ideas. There are lots of ideas with these facilities and I am grateful that people work to preserve a way of life that was connected to Mother Earth. A way of life that I think we all should be contemplating and returning to.
I hope you enjoyed that walk through memory lane and that it gives you some ideas on what you can do to live in harmony with Mother Earth. Lots of ideas and solutions.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with an elderly man I found myself sitting next to. "Organic Farming," he said with a dry laugh. "They act like it's so new. Why, before they came up with those awful
chemicals, everyone was an organic farmer!"
These are lots of the ideas my husband and I are turning to as we plan how to build our off-grid house. People knew things then!
I was an interpretive guide for a few years. I loved getting to share the past with those willing to listen! Thanks for sharing this post--I hope others still have the time to listen.
I agree. It seems like these ideas are vogue now, but in reality we all lived this way for generations. No reason why we cannot return to this way of life and take some of the new technology with us so that we can live in harmony.
Hello @wwf,
The biggest benefit of internet is that it shows you other corner of the world where you did not go even a single time in your entire life. Same went with through this blog of yours #wwf.
The techniques and ideas you shared with us are really really innovative for me and i mean it by core of my heart.
Wheat collector tool i-e Thrashing Sticks an absolutely amazing thing. Thermal mass heater is also approaching the famous proverb,
Necessity is the mother of invention
A lot of innovation and how to survive in tough situation you taught me through this blog.
All pictures are of great importance but my personal favorite is;
Finest piece of writing and worth reading.
Please! keep sharing such beautiful work with us.
Stay Blessed!
Thank you. Keep in mind that these pictures are not from our domain but rather were taken at the Ukrainian Village that I spoke about above. I am grateful that I'm introducing new concepts to you. Many off-grid people here are familiar with thermal mass heaters, etc as it is a necessity here. But it could be used else where as well. <3
Thank you @wwf for showing us the close picture of Ukrainian Village's Culture with your deep analysis. These things i have read in novels or books but did not see before. So, in this way you're giving us an opportunity to look upon such tools with live eye Bravo awesome job done :) :) <3
You are welcome. Peace to you @salmanbukhari54!
İt's looks very peaceful. I like village houses.
This is village house of my relatives. (Adıyaman Turkey)
Sweet. Stone walls. I bet those are hundreds if not thousands of years old. Am I right?
Unfortunately not. it's a 60 years old summerhouse. There is 1800 meters above sea level, not suitable for stay in winter. A few people in the summer are temporarily stay to graze animals. No electricity, no road in winter. (In the winter there is snow about 2 meters long. I think its an ordinary thing for Canada, but too much for conditions in Turkey).
As a teenager I sometimes find there boring. However somtimes people must stay away from civilization. I read Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism and Plato Republic books. Fantastic place to read philosophy :D
Thank you for clarification. I'm sure they would last hundreds of years though. There are ways to modify them so that people could stay in them all winter. However, it looks like there is not many trees there for wood or heat. So it would be challenging but doable!
Unfortunatly yes there is no forest here. Civilization was born in Mesopotamia. For this reason, people started the massacre of nature here. First the Assyrians then the Hittites, then the Persians, then the Greeks, then the Mongols, and now the Turks. We destroy all the forests of Anatolia... The land where agriculture was born will probably be desert after 50 years. The Islamic government does not even care. The forests are becoming agricultural fields, and agricultural fields are becoming construction land.
Anyway I'm off the subject. I like your posts. Thank you mr @wwf
Sounds like it is time to start planting trees. If not for your generation but for the 7th generation for sure! <3 It saddens me as that is where this land is headed if we don't stop the deforestation that is taking place here.
I planted 6 seedlings (Most are now longer than me :) ). I will increase this number.
I go to the fire with a glass of water. Not enough but at least I try
<3 <3 <3 Bravo <3 <3 <3
My mind travels to earth houses. My land has a high water table. Lots of large rocks (boulders?) and sandy clay soil. Bakes as hard as a rock in dry season. All the earth houses I have seen build into a hill. And to truck in dirt would cost a small fortune. Any ideas?
The sandy clay that bakes as hard as rock is the building material I would use. Cob homes last for hundreds upon hundreds of years. You could make brick out of them and then build with the bricks, or mix with straw and build forms to fill the mud straw mixture (cob). There are several ideas. The boulders would be hard to work with, but you could build up against one of them too. All depends on the environment. In the extreme cold like here, it may not work, but if you are in a warm environment, that might look really cool.
Thanks for the suggestions. I may try to build a cob oven first to try out my technique before I start on something larger.
Cob oven would be a wonderful way to try it out! I look forward to seeing the pictures!
I love studying the older methods of solving problems. People act like we've gotten smarter, when all we've done is build upon the technology of each generation. There have always been brilliant people who created the technology of the day to make work more efficient and easier. So many people would be completely lost in a disaster scenario (as would I if I didn't enjoy studying and researching "primitive" tools and methods, because most of us are not brilliant enough to solve these problems on our own. And during a time of crisis is not the time to waste hours with your thinking cap on trying to unwind a problem and find a solution. Learning these techniques and how to build tools, traps, shelters, etc... is not only fun, but I think it is soothing to the soul to be able to do things without a Home Depot or Lowe's or whatever. Plus, if the stuff ever does go up in smoke... we can be prepared.
I agree. There is nothing wrong with the old technology either. We have been trained to embrace new tech, but it is not necessarily better. I love old tech. It is simple, it works, I can fix it and it works!
thank you for sharing this information! taking some time to remember, and honor, the ideas that came before us is important. it's a reminder that sometimes simpler is better.
that oven does look like a fun project, too!
I find it simpler, easier to maintain and because we built it, we can fix the problems that come up. By purchasing technology from others, we struggle to maintain that stuff. Simpler is better in my view.
that's definitely true - you've built it, you're familiar with it, you know what to expect and how best to fix any issues that arise.
I do like visiting heritage centres like this.
There is a good one in south Wales where you can learn so much from the 'old ways' :
That old battery looks very interesting. I wonder what level of technology was needed to make one of those...
Love!
Absolutely love places like this! I truly wish I had paid more attention to my grandmothers/great grandmother's life stories about when she was little. So grateful for her influence.
I want to do a cob oven too!! So many things to try in a lifetime!
Thank you for sharing!
You're absolutely right! The indigenous people living in the area for thousands of years had already figured it out how to live in harmony with Mother Earth. We can learn so much from them to be good stewards of Terra Mater!
It's so important we document this knowledge, so we don't reinvent the wheel, but rather keep improving on brilliantly simple concepts.
Indeed! <3