One man tries to kick oil, live locally and keep his goats out of the rose bushes
Doug Fine, adventure journalist; NPR contributor and author, shares his experiences living off grid in New Mexico. His new book, Farewell, My Subaru, is his account of one man trying to kick the the American oil lifestyle. Doug tells of his experiences raising goats and chickens, converting to a veggy oil vehicle and near death experiences at the Funky Butte Ranch.
My goodness. It’s so funny I can be this giddy about something like this. My new best friend is the local landfill. I’ve been a fan of dumpster diving for a long time. There are so many things people throw away that don’t need to be ‘filling land’. I wanted a old electric water heater, or at least the metal tube inside, for my SolUnit Rocket Stove so I visited the dump. I wanted permission to look around and permission was granted. “May I re-purpose a old electric heater?” “Go ahead.” said the landfill scale operator. “And the wood pallets?” “Have at it.”
Wow. Junk. Treasures. Resources. Free mulch for landscaping, lumber, pallet wood for building or burning ( most pallets, have 3 good 2x4s in ‘em). Brand new plywood with a few screws in them. I can’t believe what people throw away. Don’t even get me started on the metal pile…
I have been so sick of spending money at stores. Paying a premium for everything, plus tax. Forget it! I can be more resourceful than that. And it’s so much more rewarding. If I ever get bored or just want to be outside, I go pull nails and all of the sudden I have dimensional lumber to use. For free. Happy dumpster diving!
Kelly Hart has created a great slide show that displays earthbag construction and finished projects. He has also published a new web resource at earthbagbuilding.com. I’m a fan of earthbags. Benefits of earthbag construction include less water consumption, flexible earthen material ratio, courses and go up in moments ( no waiting for cob to dry). Bags can be plastered with earth or papercrete as Kelly has done. This type of construction is a form of rammed earth. The bags create a modular flexible form that stays in the wall. The polypropylene bags deteriorate in the sun, so covering them is very important. If you went to the moon, bring polypropylene bags and a shovel and you can build a shelter there… I suppose they would be called moonbags then.
It’s about that time of the year again. The weather is warming up and the mud is almost thawed. Fortunately in the high deserts of New Mexico there is plenty of good dirt around, especially in the mesa, where sometimes there’s too much mud! Plain old mesa dirt mixed with straw creates a delightful earthen plaster.
