Got a few questions yesterday about my semi off-grid living lifestyle. My land is situated close to a rural road, have utilities so have to pay the minimum for water/electricity. My tiny home is situated on a lot of about 40m x 40m, my backyard is a tropical rainforest.
How I started: Purchased the poorest lot, 100% sand, no top soil, was a clearcut area that was previously used as a storage area for a Brazil nut harvesting station/outpost. I erected a wall around my lot to keep foreign species from contaminating the native flora.
How I recuperated the land: Year one: spread a shit ton of Castor beans seeds and Argemone Mexicana and Moringa (in tropical climate from seed to tree in 6 months). This helps to fatten the land and loosen the soil. Could grow cassava and sweet potato, so I did. Erected an enclosure on wheels and raised bunnies (for their shit and meat), fed them mostly moringa and vege/fruit scraps.
By year 2, weeds started growing fast and furious, I let them go wild, did not uproot jack shit, waited for natural succession to take hold. Got a screw press made and started processing the castor seeds to get castor oil and started producing cold pressed Brazil nut oil and Coconut oil, sold that production to restaurants and built up a clientèle.
With the money I made I purchased a giant fresnel lense and built a trompe and fresh water well. Used moringa seed paste to clean the city water for irrigation purposes.
Year 3, I had topsoil from the bunny shit and started to bring in the food crops I needed, high protein plants first to feed myself and the bunnies: Heirloom amaranth seeds, more moringa, ora-pro-nobis and obtained leaf kenaf from a quilombo (ex slave colony). I now had the top 4 high protein plants I needed.
Bring in fruit trees, nut trees and the craziest shit I could find:
Started transplanting fruit trees: - red banana - pineapple - Cashew - Pequi (a rare fruit tree that makes a cheese/dirty socks fruit and a tasty nut) - Blackberry Jam fruit - Mulberry -Miracle fruit -Coconut -Cocoa -Vanilla - Lime berry - Lemon - Lime - Huito - Brazilian cherry - Suriname cherry - Peanut butter fruit - Curry leaf tree - Agave - Peach palms - Soursop - sweet ubaia - Miracle fruit - mangoes (6 types) --- Starch plants: Carrot-potato / cassava Malabar chestnut -- Put tons of flowering plants and started a stingerless bee hive compound. - Put in medicinal plants --- Planted personal hygiene plants: - soap trees - Jua trees (makes toothpaste from bark) + fruit.
8 years later, I am pretty much self sustainable, I only need to buy rice and toilet paper, clothing.
I now cold press: Coconut oil Pequi nut oil Kenaf oil Castor oil Brazil nut oil ----------- Monkeys and Iguanas started coming in: I now collect iguana eggs, I don't eat the monkeys ----------- I hunt every week end for bush meat, wild boar is my favorite and snakes. ----------- Made a lava rock hottub that connects to a pine wood sauna I made, I use my fresnel lens to heat up the rocks until red and also have a BBQ/smoke house attached to that set up. This year I will have a pizza oven. ------- I harvest brazil nuts and a shit load of fruit from the jungle and go fishing whenever I can to supplement my diet. -------- I often trade with a neighbor to get chicken eggs. ------- After I had enough wood litter, I started spreading spores of a boletus mushroom that is found in South America.
Thomas Perez
Mushrooms invaded my lot. I now collect and eat as much mushroom as I can eat. My trees are mature and are producing at an incredible level. My overstock is processed and sold to restaurants.
I started producing fermented coconut sap, kinda like soy sauce and is quite nutritious. Thinking of producing a moat around my lot with fencing so I can start breeding caimans.
Advantages of equatorial climate> when it rains, it fucking rains, I have a rain water harvesting set up being built at the moment.
My trompe system (taken from permaculture videos) allows me to get compressed air, which I will eventually use to create a processing center for my various needs.
My wife is native, so we now have started eating leaf cutter ant asses during the rainy season and harvest the eggs of a species of ant
Adam Fisher
Bump
Hudson Cooper
Not political, but really inspirational. respekt
Joseph Garcia
Thanks...if I could do it, everybody can ;-)
Gabriel Campbell
much appreciated :)
Hunter Baker
/diy/ and /out/ are good places for this sort of talk but Sup Forums does have a long history of discussions relating to independent off grid living.
Adrian Wilson
But you need to own land
Dylan Cook
Got any pics?
Adrian Cox
ya, participated in a long thread yesterday and tried to share some knowledge to some people. Thought I could start a thread about how I did it cause it seems to be a current debate
Ian Brown
This is the death of civilization
Thomas Clark
Did you build that stuff all on your own? If so how did you get the knowledge to do so? I started growing simple things (salad, tomatoes, basically a kitchen garden) and even that took a lot of learning
Carson Jackson
ya, you need the shittiest land possible. I am in an equatorial region, so shit grows 365 days a year.
Tyler Evans
will post what I have
pic related, my cousins moved in
Camden Bell
can I still eat mcdonalds if I live off the grid?
Julian Sanders
MOAR
Lincoln King
Do plants grow all year round in your part of Brazil?
Nathaniel Roberts
Why? I provide special food to special people, things most people have never eaten. I bring weird shit to weird people
Mason Gutierrez
No you fat fuck start eating proper food not processed sugar and salt
Brandon Jenkins
My wife and I have some native in our blood. I also took a class in permaculture and other techniques to get started. I did not have much money, so I needed to start with a sand lot
Connor Stewart
You won't want to
Aiden Perez
>I don't eat the monkeys kek
Very nice, keep that shit up until you need to buy nothing
Henry Perez
365 days a year, never stops. I live close to the equator
Jack Morales
You're a faggot cuck Don't listen to that nigger what you're doing is awesome
Brody Morgan
>/log/ This is nothing like the /log/ threads on Sup Forums
Bentley Kelly
What would you like to know?
Charles Edwards
Fuck that, toilet paper for life HAHAHAHAHA
William Edwards
Even if so, is that really a bad thing at this point?
Blake Perez
>I don't eat the monkeys >Brazil
uma delicia
Brody Hill
Thanks user. I am starting a program to expand that shit to my neighbors and want to eventually get expats to join in the effort and live off grid in hue land.
All are welcome :)
Adam Wright
I don't like monkey meat...I much prefer wild boar and water loving rodents like Prea and capivara
Zachary Lopez
Ok taking classes helps a lot i suppose. Also i think it's better to start with the shittiest option because youu have to learn everything from the beginning.
I hope i can aquire all the food growing knowledge over the years, cause sit is going down in a view years and its always good tom be prepared
William Lopez
My pride and joy ---> red banana
Makes excellent booze and vinegar Huito fruit makes body paint and when mature a booze similar to aged whiskey (wood taste included)
Tyler Butler
luckily
Angel Johnson
Booze? My inner Irishman is excited
Logan Green
Where can one do this in the United States besides Alaska? The cheapest land with all the potential, the right terrain, climate, and back drop, and most importantly absolutely no one to bother you or tell you what to do?
I don't think it even exists in the US.
Kayden Ramirez
Fuck you then. Lel, I'm joking. UK has a short growing season. Won't be able to plant anything until at least March. Permaculture is possible here but it takes a lot of work
Henry Torres
Exactly, start from nothing and learn the hard way. What I learned that is most important: Put down seeds everywhere and let nature tell you the best place to plant shit.
Don't need to use pesticides, you have an arsenal of natural stuff you can use. If you need some suppliers, I can give you contacts that will provide cheap and excellent natural pesticides
Juan Davis
Nice work, user.
Leo Cruz
ya HAHAHAHAHAH I make a lot of booze, a nigga needs to live.
People love red banana booze and huito booze. I am expanding my operation into making a lime berry + lemon/lime style limoncello.
Response has been good.
Jace Bennett
You can make booze out of almost anything.. i have made pretty good nut, plumb and pine schnaps.. schnaps is kind of a national drink here
Nicholas Cox
Now I'm talking something that meets all that criteria. There's lots of unincorporated, rural land, but everything I've found is still within earshot of various suburbs and would probably be encroached on by new modern development or other shit in the near future.
Zachary Rogers
This is all fine and well for tropical climates.
For more northerly / southerly climates I think the absolute #1 way to achieve at least partial self sufficiency is in the construction of a root cellar and the growing of common root vegetables.
Grow carrots, rutabagas, potatoes, beets, and others, and they can remain fresh in your root cellar for months and months.
The root cellar is one of the top reasons humanity succeeded so well in Northern climates. It keeps your root vegetables fresh and tasty all the way through winter.
Yes, you still need other stuff to thrive, but a root cellar is indispensable in northern climes and I think a lot of people gloss over that fact.
Nathaniel Rodriguez
HAHAHAHA
all farming takes work but is so worth the effort. You can grow a ton of shit in the UK but you need to start your seedlings indoors. If you have a heated greenhouse, you have expanded your growing season by a shitton.
There is a guy in the UK that got a palm tree to survive the winter...so there are ways
Ian Moore
Thanks
Dominic Gonzalez
Indeed, I make a lot of booze, one of my biggest sellers, especially huito fruit and red banana. Almost tastes like synthetic banana but in a good way
Jordan Phillips
The US has a lot of land where pretty much noone lives. Alaska isn't that good i would think because you can't grow shit so you have to hunt every other day and eat nothing but meat. Also you would need a lot of wood for heating your house.
I would buy land in a warm climate near a forest where it rains often since water is pretty much essential for growing stuff
Julian Hernandez
True, although more difficult, it is good to start growing indoors. I start many of my seeds indoors and transplant later. With a decent greenhouse with heating, you can grow many excellent crops, even tropical ones.
Matthew Powell
If you can obtain lava rocks and a fresnel lens...you can heat your home without wood, only sunlight
Carson Cook
Sadly at this time i can't plant anything right now because i only have my garden and about 2 acres of woods. So I'm probably years away from needing supplies, but thank you anyway!
Charles White
A+++ rank
You are a good poster. :^)
Jeremiah Jenkins
You are welcome, so unless an anaconda kills and eats me I will be around for a while. When need be, just summon the Brazilian farmer :)
Jacob Johnson
Thanks :) I wanted to share cause I know people need hope that living a semi-wild life is possible.
Honestly, if I could do it, anybody can!
Nathaniel Williams
Oh I'm aware. Alaska is just about the last place for traditional farming. Really it was pretty dumb question and more requires self-research. Even once you get the land the logistics has to be a bit of a nightmare starting out, more so for somebody without any experience or history. All I can do is read up on the work involved and people that have done this themselves.
Charles Morgan
I certainly will do that thanks! :) Wish you the best of luck user. have to go to sleep now
Cooper Thompson
my new fave thing
not just survival and farming... we must organize to start an agricultural network with people locally and nationally focusing on everything we need to survive. surely we all must individually remain viable but a man is not an island... we need to regonize that different regions of the world have different hardships and different bonuses. some areas for instance have easy access to quarry stone... or silica sand for glass making or grass for basket making or any number of useful yet not always available resources.
we must gain self survival but we must also work on supporting our neighbors in order to ensure our own survival
Josiah Turner
thanks and good night, may your dreams be filled with bountiful harvests
Ayden Bell
mushrooms are a wonderful sign of strong soil characteristics. they help the soil and the plants grow wonderfully. :)
Carter Perry
You can start with permaculture and traditional american agriculture techniques, they really helped me to start from a sand lot to a jungle
Dylan Gonzalez
i find it hard to believe a fucking canuck is so discoed from nature he would actually suggest such a retarded idea...
Camden Walker
i like the idea of biological property defense
it's not a booby trap, your honor. it's my garden.
Kevin Morris
True...and when I started getting geckos, iguanas, monkey and frogs, I knew my land was the tits
But now the shrooms have spread to my entire lot, I can't keep up!
James Russell
>I don't eat the monkeys Good, cuz that would be cannibalism.
UMA
Alexander Long
Self research is pretty much the way, you are right. I think if you stay at it the first year you will advance your project, but the firt year is pretty much hell i think. Probably a lot of mistakes, no real progress in growing, etc. Probably really hard to pull off, but people have done it and still regularly do
Jack Gomez
Indeed, plants offer natural protection that keep assholes away and is the perfect excuse if somebody happens to want to invade and gets caught in my outer rim of bull-nettle...
A drunk dude once fell in the bull-nettle and spent a night sleeping in them. The next morning he looked like the state puff marshmallow man
Jaxson Hall
quite a lot of interesting and dangerous plants out there
Jeremiah Powell
HAHAHAHA indeed....but seeing a mother with 2 little furballs attached to her back makes me not want to eat them. Not so for the iguanas, they are fair game. They have delicious eggs and a decent meat.
Joseph Gutierrez
What you're doing is very extreme, and commendable. I'm very impressed.
I always try to encourage people to take baby steps however.
For instance I always recommend people grow gooseberries (Hinonmaki Red is a good cultivar). They're effortless to grow, will start producing fruit on their second year, you can grow more of them easily from cuttings, and growing them will teach you about pruning and other stuff.
Gooseberries are more for northern climes, but you get what I mean. Most people think about growing their own food and realize it's quite a lot of work. If you buy a fruit tree it could be 5 years before it produces. Gooseberries are very easy to manage, easy to grow, easy to propagate, and they provide absolutely anyone with even a few square feet of space (they can be grown in pots) the ability to grow some of their own fruit and experience what it's all about.
Self sufficiency is fantastic but I'd settle for everyone growing at least a tiny bit of their own produce.
Eli Johnson
Pesticides was always my barrier to gardening. What natural pesticides etc? Just because its natural doesnt mean it wont harm you.
Chase Peterson
You speak the truth. I started with Moringa trees, Castor plants and other easy to grow plants and shrubs. They end up bringing in the wild life that helps to contain rampant plagues. After 8 years, I just plant and forget about it until I notice the monkeys trying to eat fruit
Jaxson Wilson
You should export the huito booze as it would be very exotic amd premium. What does red banana taste like?
This is an amazing resource for deep learning on survival and civilization topics.
it includes helpful books that are in the open domain from the 1800s and shit. wanna learn how to make a boiler and steam engine? BAM its in there... really really cool shits guys check this out
Alexander Cooper
Been looking at rural real estate for awhile now. Some of the off grid homes are on decent sized acreages (40 to 160 acres) with ponds, lakefronts, creeks, or rivers. Amazing stuff.
Jason Reyes
keep up the good work br friend do you have some animals too (chickens, rabbits, pigs)?
Robert Lopez
My go to plant is the soap tree. I only use this soap to clean my clothing, body,, dishes and as a pesticide. It is very high in saponin, it foams up like a mother fucker and does not hurt my plants/crops. It also smells like heaven.
I am working on making a camp suds type product that people can use at home/garden and to replace Tide pods...we need to keep the kiddies alive AHAHAHAH
scientific name: Sapindus saponaria
Jeremiah Sanders
Bump.
Jacob Cook
Like you are drinking a sweet artificial banana booze. The flavor profile is so fucking spot on that it almost tastes impossible to be natural.
Very pronounced, very sweet...and just when it is about to become too sweet, it mellows out and leaves you with a floral bouquet in the mouth. So I started mixing huito and red banana booze....Jesus lord....
Like a full flavored aged whiskey with just the right amount of woody start ...but with a floral finish
Lucas Hughes
Really smart. The first thing people need to get their heads around is "purchased the poorest lot". So many think money is an insurmountable barrier. Your story proves otherwise.
Mason Russell
I have goats and keep some rabbits cause their shit is gold and I like the meat. This year I want to grass feed the goats and make some goat cheese, press that cheese with some brazil nut and cashew nut flour (after I pressed it for its oil)
Anthony Clark
seem he has bunnies since year 2 but no chicken and pigs to be fair, everyone in the rural areas have chickens (no competitive advantages) and he seems to have numerous wild boar populations to hunt.
Oh, living the dream..
Jack Reyes
EXACTLY
If you don't start poor, you don't learn! Weeds are a friend when you are trying to rebuild your land.
I started with soil so tough, people laughed at my dream. Asked me how I would grow anything but sweet potato and cassava.
Hudson Scott
No pigs, no chicken...you need leaf litter, annual plants and tons of bunny shit
Bunny shit is gold
Chickens and pigs will fuck up the land, unless you want to recoup a land and have access to castor plants and argemone mexicana
A.M will even recuperate alkaline soils and remove heavy metals from the soil. The yellow latex can also be smoked, but it is very high in opoid like compounds, so it feels like you smoked heroin AHHAHAA (I never smoked heroine but felt so fucking stoned)
Anthony Hall
The first few years are hard for almost everyone and everywhere. I guess most people quit this shit because they don't have a clue what it takes and try to accomplish too much too soon.
Some amazing work here.
Isaiah Howard
it's nice source of protein but i wouldn't be capable of killing an animal, i'm too mellow/autistic. if i had some sheep i'd get their milk to make cheese and probably i'd assemble/buy a weaver or something to give some use to the wool kek
Charles Garcia
Dude you would make so much money with those products at "farmer's markets" that american yuppies shop at. How is your income there? I guess the booze is untaxed and only sold/traded to locals like moonshine is here in the US?
Brody Wood
Thanks Fin bro :)
And you are right...I started with shit land and had to fuck up multiple times but I wanted to recuperate the worst shit ever
I would love to make my success into a business. Get Expats to come down and help me create Eden
Brandon Kelly
How did you find your way to Sup Forums? How do you get internet?
Wyatt Cox
Sure, it is always good to know what you will do and make sure you use everything you produce....fucking everything.
Killing is not for everybody, that is why I also grow the top 4 protein based plants, just in case I don't hunt and get a prize or if my wife can't snap a few necks
Kenaf Moringa Ora-pro-Nobis Amaranth
All my animals (bunnies/goats) are fed with these 4 plants and they are buff like australian
kangaroos
Oliver Ortiz
I am working with expats over here to get shit going...you have no idea the shit we have and are looking to distribute world wide.
Isaac Thomas
Hmm, so that's why our land fertility is dropping? Too much chicken and pigshit? Well I'll be damned. If you have time, please make an introductory infographic for us, God willing some NEETs will follow in your footsteps.
Sheep will actually need much much more land just to graze, there's a reason why herders need to move periodically.
Jeremiah Long
I am similar but I could kill fish. Fuck fish.
Cooper Hughes
I live on a road that used to have many Brazil nut processing plants/storage areas. They have electricity and they brought in cable a few years ago. I am currently sitting in my office, with the forest surrounding me.
I picked this place cause I knew someday I would need to expand my operations...and the land was a give away. I found pol cause I first tried rettardit (2 days) and wanted to hang myself...some dude suggested (as an insult) POL and I have been here ever since. Been lurking for a LONGGGGG time.
Jayden Gray
Yes, correct, and I will. People seem to be interested so I will start making some informative graphs based on my humble beginnings on soil so hard only cassava and sweet potato would grow.
Colton Sullivan
nice, a new thread These are on a same level as /sig/.
Mandatory!
Elijah Hernandez
As long as you don't give them a name....
When I see a new monkey troupe, I name them so my brazilian instinct doesn't kick in and I try to eat them AHAHAHA (kidding)
Jaxson Edwards
Hey folks I made a permanent board for this discussion, since threads like these seem to get deleted..... It's pretty new and needs traffic. >8ch dot net /offgrid/
William James
do you have some job or you just live from the land? if it's the latter i envy you so much (in a good way, of course)
Zachary Jackson
Thank you very much. I created this post to inform people and make them understand that even the poorest person can accomplish the same.
Imagine what /pol could accomplish if we all gave out important info rather than hate threads
Caleb Parker
Gods work OP will definitely come back to this thread when i see it. its not politics, but it is a good way to expand upon our interests and learn to practice what we preach. build it up, like /selfimprovement general but a sustainability focus. there is a lot we can learn from each other. thanks again brazilfag, glad to have you with us.