No, not me. It was actually a home invasion gone wrong, with local drama, and got called justifiable.

Laundry: I go into town.

Water is the big problem. I'm still just buying retail gallons and five gallon jugs. But keeping it from freezing isn't hard, it just stays in the cabin during the winter. When it's above freezing, I use an outdoor pump sink I built.

The stars can be very vivid, and during the summer there were some great views of meteor showers.

The good thing about a tiny house is there's not much to invade, and no room for everyone to sit anyway.

That must be expensive. No likelihood of getting city water? Even if they had it to the lot line you could set up a spigot pretty cheap.

It would freeze and burst.

Fun thread. Good on you for willing to take risks many wouldn't to do something you enjoy.

OP, from my understand NY is a medical marijuana state. Have you ever considered growing on your land legally for extra income? Sounds like you enjoy some whacky tabaccy yourself.

Also stop being lazy and get to building more cool stuff for my own personal enjoyment of this thread.

Bump. I'm in the middle of listening to Walden now. It's awesome and made me wonder how you're doing; hopefully well.

Microbet,

I have always thought that would be a good book to read.

El Sapo,

The sky is so much prettier in the country/bush/desert than in the city. There is no comparison. Skies and oceans also

Cool thread man. I'm out in the middle of the middle of nowhere but still not as rustic as you.



My well isn't very tasty, $.37 a gallon city water refils at walmart. I think they do bigger jugs as well.

Do you have to deal with mice? You said the cat is not a great hunter, so I'm figuring you may have had some run-ins with invaders.

El Sapo, here's how to make a DIY shower for fifty bucks in parts. This chick lives in a van, so your place is a Taj Mahal in comparison.



Here's a wind turbine you can build for $30 in materials (their claim). There are also more sophisticated kits linked in the article. With your small battery, you don't really need any of the high efficiency types. Even the low efficiency examples should be plenty to fill your battery. Compared to solar cells you have to spend a lot of money to generate as much power as this cheap wind turbine. Hell, you could probably get enough juice to charge your battery by just using aluminum mixing bowls for vanes.

http://www.treehugger.com/wind-techn...urbine-30.html

Needs longer segments of her showering.

https://www.rei.com/rei-garage/produ...H_pRoCi4vw_wcB

Solar camp shower $17

http://www.winterial.com/winterial-p...18ERoCfdbw_wcB

Pressurized solar camp shower with foot pump for $50


Not that making your own stuff isn't cool

Shockingly, it seems like the end of winter is in sight. Hard to believe I've been living here almost two years now.

I can definitely say this winter was easier, and most people seem to think it was colder. I really don't know, but I'll finish with a hefty batch of wood left over for next year. That shouldn't be quite as exciting as it is, but it is.

I did some work on the stove design, adding more thermal mass, and I closed up two big gaps in the cabin which probably made the biggest difference.

I've definitely had some cabin fever, been trying to clean and pare down, make plans for adding a loft in the spring. The ground will be kind of nasty for a while, muddy, but it doesn't seem as wet as last year. Maybe we've had less snow -- though Syracuse got 100+ inches -- so I dunno. The other idea is that the ground has adapted, somewhat, to all the trees and vegetation I've pulled out.

Just like last year, I'm thinking about me and the cat hitting the road next winter. I still want to spend an extended period of time on the west coast at some point. ... but for now, I'm looking forward to spring, summer and fall in the Finger Lakes.

This is still a weird sensation for me, looking forward to certain seasons for different reasons. I think that's the huge difference between living in a city and in a rural area. Cities just kind of insulate you.

Which is a decent lead-up to this: In a few weeks I'm going to launch a Kickstarter for a literary comic. In part about going off the grid (written as Yuri Realman). Ultimately I'd like to publish other people's work also, a mix of poetry and short fiction and photography, basically using alter-ego Y.R. to tell off-grid stories and discuss getting back into nature.



It's slowly coming together. I'd like to actually fund 4 issues of 2,500 copies, but I guess we'll see how the response is.

Given that it's winter, I've been working on more indoor projects. I've been taking slices of applewood and encasing them in metal, basically tin/solder ... I'm thinking like coin spinners, pendants, card protectors, worry beads .... Still just trying to make things using the land.

I've been thinking about using them as rewards in the upcoming Kickstarter, if I can get anything I think is sufficiently interesting and durable. I like them ... I've been playing with them in bars, and it usually catches someone's interest:



To see what the Kickstarter process is like, I actually put up this project which expires in a couple of days:

Max Steel in "Involved."

"Involved" was actually a short story written for a 2+2 short story contest a while back. What I've learned: While Kickstarters may not fund themselves, there are people who fund random projects (I only know who $7 of the contributed funds thus far come from), and you get TON of marketing junk mail, all of which I ignored.

Otherwise, it's just been winter. I just finished reading an early novel by Murakami (Hear the Wind Sing) that was typically sad. Have come to love the simplicity of listening to the radio.

I've decided I want to hunt, kill and eat some kind of small game but all I see on my land are deer and grouse. Weirdly, no rabbits, which would be ideal. A deer is just too big.

Yes, though not in the last six weeks. I think there are some living under the house, and he did bring in a dead mouse the other day, but it was his first in months.

For a while I found mouse **** on the porch when I'd leave food out. That's basically my fault, so I almost felt bad about the trap. Haven't seen anything in a bit.

But yeah, mice are an issue.

I always struggled with Walden. Parts of it are crazy inspiring and other parts are just plain boring. Listening to it is a good idea, hadn't thought of that.

Have you thought about more fancy wood work stuff? Something like this

I'm not Bill Murray, that **** takes time to learn.

The inspiring parts are great.

I've never been that into long poetic descriptions of scenery, but am enjoying this. And listening to it could make a big difference. It's available free, legally, on librivox.

I think it was the accounting of bean-farming costs, that was too much for me.

Nick Bulka or Gord Mackenzie?

Gord.

He's a touch over-dramatic, but pretty good.

grunch

op, you might enjoy https://www.amazon.com/Road-Washes-O.../dp/1584657049

I spent a week in New Orleans for a friend's birthday. It was very uncomfortable being back in a city, and particular in someone else's space.

So it sucked that I got stuck a couple of days when that snowstorm smacked the Northeast a couple of weeks back. I finally made it back to Ithaca in the middle of the night. And then got stuck in a damn ditch, four miles from home. The road I live on is pretty awful at the moment.

But damnit, it's a jeep! Some farmer and his grandson pulled my ass out.



And then I came home to find the tent that houses the generator had blown off in the storm (despite being weighed down with bricks), and the generator had a couple feet of snow on it. It started fine, once I dug it out. ... I am ready for Spring.



But I've spent some of the winter working on a literary comic about a writer going off the grid, and I finally launched the Kickstarter for it. If nothing else, you can see what I look like in real life.

Just ordered it, thanks. Seems perfect.

You look really different with glasses on/off.

Ha, yeah. I also got my hair cut like two days after making that video, only then to realize I was getting all hobo-esque.