A Tale Of A Nosey Neighbor

As you know we are working on a huge self sustainability project and building a backyard farm complete with chickens, rabbits and fish for meat as well as a large greenhouse for a coming aquaponics growing environment. This old house is inside the city limits of an old railroad town in central eastern indiana and used to belong to our grandmother before us. Unfortunately for us, we have the same nosey neighbor lady that grandma did for all those years. This lady has been complaining about our activities for more than twenty years, and now is no different. 

A few days ago we were visited by the local sheriff with a report that we had buried something, (maybe electric lines ) over our property line and on our neighbors side. Of course we had done no such thing but this was their initial plan to have our project shut down. We greeted the sheriff courteously and answered his questions with no hesitation. You see, back in the 1990's our uncle,( who is no longer around) built an addition to their garage which placed it 2 feet over onto our property. I was personally here and remember distinctly the uproar it caused with my grandmother and although at the time nothing was done about it the fact has always been that they are on our property with their garage. 

This lady is so ridiculous she has been trying to convince my mother that they own that property and never built over the line. This came up of course in our conversation with the sheriff along with our plans for the chicken coops. He concluded that we had in fact buried nothing there and that we are well inside of our property line. The sheriff stated he was satisfied with our answers, that he saw no problem and left quietly, allowing us to continue our work.

 Again this morning our nosey neighbor reared her big nose and gave mom a bunch of grief this morning stating that she would have a survey and that we would be forced to stop our operations and continued building. Why must people be so nosey, and push their way into things that are really none of their business? We are Americans and supposed to have the right to pursue our happiness so long as we don't infringe upon others and this is something we have not done.

 To solve this problem we contacted the Building and Planning Commission to see what permits or fees we would be liable for and if our plans fit into county or city zoning, raising the question, "Would we be allowed to continue our project and build our BackYard Farm?" I am pleased to report that for a $5 fee to the Area Planning Commision we were able to obtain the necessary permits not only to continue, but we are able to build through to completion of our dreamed of BackYard Farm. Funny  thing, the Area Planning Commissions Maps of the city we live in clearly show their  garage over our property line, so survey away lady.

We are thinking of sending her a thank you card. We wondered if we would be able to  build the greenhouse as planned and now we have our answer. We can build it now start to finish, the sky's the limit. Thank you nosey neighbor lady.

BackYard Farm...Humble Beginnings

Beautiful day today and making lots of progress. The chicken houses and coops are done and inside the base wall of the greenhouse situated between 2 sheds where we've taken up all the space and then some. The chickens have adjusted nicely to their new outdoor abode and we have a fresh new batch of fryer chicks in the aquarium.
  The rabbit cages are being stacked 4 cages high on the side of each of the sheds next to the coops which make up the back of the greenhouse base wall. There will be 2 sets of 4 rabbit cages which should give us plenty for the rabbits we will have initially. They are not quite finished but will be in the next day or 2, we've a few projects going at once.

 We're recycling everything we can get our hands on for this project, and nothing is safe, pallets used wood and even used swimming pools. We found a discarded blow up ring pool like those found at walmart. It's the small kiddie pool that runs about 50 bucks. It seemed to be in usable shape so we brought it home. It's now in position and being filled for fish. We will be using a couple of fish tank aerators and a sump pump to create our water flow and oxygen for the fish for now. We plan to have 2 fish tanks or pools (remember we're upcycling) and the fish we've chosen are yellow perch and a hybrid bass as they are popular fish with fish farmers in our localized area and what I've read about them suggests they are hardy fish and also good to eat(quite tasty). We will be picking up our 1st batch of perch on monday.

 Things are shaping up nicely. The actual base wall and greenhouse itself is roughly 24x28 and encompasses the entire between our 2 existing sheds and comes out into the yard a bit giving us plenty of room to do lots of stuff.

We haven't even begun the plants yet. We won't be growing anything in the ground as traditionally done. Our plans are to grow everything inside of totes barrels, kiddie pools and grow tables that we will build. We are going to line the inside of the base wall with pallets on the inside and fill them with dirt and plant peppers tomatoes and whatever else might go into them and grow well to maximize every inch of space. Once we have things organized and going the next phase will be to incorporate the aquaponics system which will feed all the fish water to the plants and then back to the fish creating a small ecosystem in our greenhouse to fertilize the plants and keep the fish water clean.

We have a long way to go but i'm pleased with our start.. There are many more innovations I plan to incorporate into this backyard system, and I will share them as I get to them, and keep you guys updated. Until then guys, Happy Farming.

Cob Building

While I was researching heat options I ran across something called Cob. Cob is a mixture made from earth, sand, clay and straw. Basically a type of mud building, adobe or Cob. While looking into Cob Construction I read some articles about the best usage a mixtures and some building techniques that are quite simple and can be adapted for many green projects. If you search cob houses on Google Image you will see some lovely homes made of cob. I was very impressed with what I learned of cob and think it prudent to share. The best information and direction I could find initially for making and building with cob are covered in the video found at the link below.

Cob Building. Earth building Course with Edwards Eco Building

Now I haven't yet tried my hand at cob construction. At this stage of getting off the grid I'm discovering and researching green systems and innovations I can possibly put to use to get myself onto a self sufficiency platform. Cob is but one new discovery that I will discuss here and consider ways to incorporate into my green living systems. My Interest in cob has to do with something called a Rocket Mass Heater, which is something I will discuss in another post.

Getting off the Grid

Lately I've been thinking a lot about getting off the grid. For me that means self sufficiency above and beyond the systems we use in our society. Food growth and sustainability will be an important factor. Producing our own electricity, water storage and filtration, gardening, a greenhouse, even raising some animals for food will be factors in getting off the grid. We live in a rural area but within a town, city limits as it were, so there will be limits to amounts and types of livestock we can have where we live. I'm thinking to start we may raise some rabbits for meat and get some laying hens for eggs and the occasional chicken for dinner. I'm also wondering if it might be possible to sneak in a goat for milking options though that might really be pushing it. Ive been scouring the internet looking at food growth and other food producing options to cut our grocery bill and get further off the grid.As the prices of food and commodities will steadily increase growing or raising your own food will become a more popular notion as it was in older days.
Getting off of the power grid is high on my priority list. I hate paying electric bills and giving my money to big corporations. I plan to use a few different innovations to produce electricity. Solar panels, wind generators, battery packs and any other viable option I can find to create the power needed to run 100% off grid. I've Been investigating what will be needed for the power systems and have concluded i will have to test my options and use more than one. Wind and solar will likely be the primary sources of off grid power.
One of the challenges will be converting the houses heat sources. As of now we have natural gas but I'm looking at other options. Wood has become a more expensive option than in past years but there are innovations to wood heating units that make it a cheaper means of heat in some instances and those are the options I'm looking at most.
Another challenge will be powering the water heater, well pump, and cooking stove. We have an electric cook stove now that runs on 220 power. I'm not sure what to do about cooking yet. The water heater and the well pump i think i can get to run off of solar / wind power with the use of power inverters. I'm also considering a wood heated water heater of some sort.
There are lots of green possibilities when it comes to producing food, generating your own power, heating and inexpensive green building solutions. My plan is to incorporate the ones I can use and become as independent from the system as i can. Wish me luck.