advice for woman on beginning self-sufficient living

[farmerwannabe]

What advice can you give a 50 year old woman who wants to live a more self-reliant life style...  I will remain in GA, don't mind physical labor, garden, can hunt and fish....  need about 3-10 acres CHEAP.   Want to build my own house, cabin, hut, or tipi doesn't really matter.

Are there books or magazines that you can suggest?   Would like to live without electricity with no fancy-dancey solar panels.  would like to draw my water from a well or hand pump but don't know how to do these things.

any and all advice appreciated.  sharon

[Badnews Bob]

Check out Mother earth news and look into a book called Square foot gardining by Mel Bartholomew, Those are some tough plans you have I wish you the best of luck. Endeavor to presavier.      I miss spell check.

[teamnelson]

Mother earth is a good starting point, for sure. 3 acres is plenty to sustain you and a few others actually.

For water I'd recommend you look into rain barrels and slow sand filtration - in GA you'd find all you need on the very cheap and keep you and your garden in water even without a well all year round. Drilling a well can be expensive unless your land comes with it already capped.

I'd also recommend raising chickens - there's a mobile pen you can build cheap. You move it around your garden so the chickens are fertilizing a patch, then you move it, etc. Rabbits are good for that too, but you get eggs with chickens. Either way you'll have meat and something to trade with a neighbor.

And for a house, check out straw bale construction. Some places do it like the Amish - bunch of folks show up, throw it up and mud it down just for fun. You just pay for the materials. Add a cheap metal roof on it and a wood burning stove, build a solar hot water heater. I've been in one in the middle of summer in Arizona and w/o AC it was about 72 inside - deep concrete foundation draws the cold up, thick walls keeps the temperature constant. Put rugs down in winter and use your stove.

I am jealous - I hope to do some day what you are planning now! God's blessings to you.

[moxgrove]

Countryside and Backwoods Home are also good magazines. It looks like you really want to rough it. Good luck. You might also look into a yurt.

[moxgrove]

Those straw bale homes sure are appealing. I have always wondered how they would do with humidity though. Rastra , a type of formed concrete has also really appealed to me .  A lot spendier though. Also there are Earthbag homes which I think are way neat.
www.rastra.com

[teamnelson]

There's also the old-tires-packed-with-dirt homes. Stack a wall of old tires in an arc facing south and pack them full of dirt (pounded in with a sledge). Slope a dirt berm up the back for a heat sink. Slope a glass wall on the face, and put a flat roof on it. Seen them made entirely for free - just labor. Start off ugly as spit, but eventually you can cover up all the tires inside and out with mud from your site. Grow grass and trees on the berm off the back. Saw one in a book that put a hallway through berm so you had a little door on the north side - looked like a Hobbit House.

[Badnews Bob]

A cord wood built house would prolly work well in Jawja and if you can find a piece of land with a small year round stream it would really help. Backwoodsman magazine has some really good stories and articles on living simply. Living near a small lake or river puts fish in the larder as well.

[torpedoman]

your local library should have the foxfire books there is a lot of knowledge in them. small log cabin is easily doable just do it the old way and keep it small.

[45-70.gov]

what  part of georgia??
i am about  10 miles from ga  in  florida  now
we have  an  artisian  well  on one of my propeties
it cost 5 thousand  but  it flows  on  its own  natural presure
will  flood  the yard  in less  than an hour....will lift the water  18 feet

i  like the tire and  dirt walls

also  it  is sandy  soil  here
build forms  and mix portland cement with a sandy soil and a tiller
shovel  it  into the forms  and  wet

you  may  also  need a good  looking  handy man
that  is as  nuts  as  you for trying  this
some  one  like me        lol

[mannyrock]

     I lived on a 43 acre farm for 15 years.  I learned alot.

      Definitely get the books (in paperback) Foxfire 1 and Foxfire 2.   Most large libraries have these, and if not, I am sure you can find them for cheap on line.  They contain tons of very useful information on self-sufficient living.  The rest of the books in the series (Foxfire 3 thru 7?), don't have much of value in them.

      Rabbits and chickens are all you need to raise and will supply all of your meat.  But, if you buy your 3 acre lot in a subdivided tract, then the restrictive covenants that will apply to your lot will almost certainly ban chickens, and almost every other useful farm animal. So, you have to make sure that you do not buy land in a subdivision. 

   Forget cows and pigs. Just plain forget them.  Besides the rabbits and chickens, all you need is two or three good milk goats.  They are extremely easy to care for, very hardy and friendly animals, and will provide you with all of the milk and cheese that you need.  And, believe it or not, goat meat is pretty mild and tastes really good.   DO NOT GET A BILLY GOAT!  THEY STINK TO HIGH HEAVEN (glands behind their horns), ARE MEAN, AND OFTEN DANGEROUS!  THEY WILL CLIMB OUT OF ANYTHING, AND EAT UP ANYTHING!

      You are going to have to pay someone to drill a well.  Then, you simply buy a hand-pump, and have it installed.  (But, have you ever tried to prime a pump, to get it started, by pouring a bucket of water down into the spout, when it is about 25 degrees outside, or raining or snowing??  It's brutal!) 

     You would be much better of by having an electric pump installed in the well (which is the norm), and having the wires from the pump come out of the top of the steel well casing, and simply plug it into a small gasoline powered generator once a day. You could then run the generator for 15 minutes or so, and pump the water into a clean plastic holding tank, to provide you with a one or two days of water. 

     A rough cabin, or a good plywood shed, is about 100 times more comfortable than a tepee.  Forget the tepee.  You need a place where you can get warm and stay warm, and have a wood stove, and above all have or make lots of hot water.  Having hot water is the difference between staying clean and happy, and being filthy and miserable! 

  Just some initial thoughts.

Regards, Mannyrock

[farmerwannabe]

Thanks guys....good info!   Will post my progress!

[Badnews Bob]

Get some kind of stationary bike and have it rigged to charge a deep cycle battery or two, With a proper inverter you can run some small LED lights, a radio (news and such), and a computer for small periods of time, then you can stay in contact with us on how your project is going.  Enjoy life.

[Skunk]

Get some kind of stationary bike and have it rigged to charge a deep cycle battery or two...

Along with the other great info on this thread, the stationary bike sounds like an excellent idea. You could charge batteries and get some exercise at the same time.

[SDS-GEN]

A solar jack or wind mill will pull water out of your well for you, you just need some sort of tank to hold it in.

[mannyrock]

  Well Heck Guys,

      If she buys the land, let's all just get in our cars and go down there for a month or two and built it for her!    I've got nothing else better to do.  And, it would probably take less time than making her read all of these e-mails and books.  :-)  We could all pitch tents, and make it like a big military camp while we work.  We could roast pigs on a spit, wrestle, and do all of that other manly stuff!

Manny

[45-70.gov]

first thing i would get  would be an  insulated cargo  container

or maybe a few

[Yankee1]

Hi
  Check out this index of subjects from "Backwoods Living" magazine.
Then bookmark it and you can read the articles that interest you when you have time.
                                     Yankee1

http://www.backwoodshome.com/article_index.html

[Travis Morgan]

Backwoodsman magazine and the firefox books. Start dating a 19 year old construction worker.