Totseans

Tag: Morphine

  • Growing Potatoes, In Tires

    This guide is to teach you how to grow potatoes in a very limited space.

    The nifty thing about potatoes is as the greens are growing you can continue to bury them and as the plant tries to keep growing up to break out of the soil, it will keep producing potatoes. I am going to show you how to use this to grow a long string of potatoes, and recycle some old tires at the same time.

    You are going to need;

    • Seed potatoes
    • 3-4 tires per seed potato
    • Enough soil/compost to fill said tires
    • Lots of water.

    Once you find your potato of choice, before you can plant them they need to be chitted. Basically this just means making them sprout. If you all ready have some sprouting in your kitchen then ok, if not, you will need to place them in a light, dry place, out of direct sunlight, until they start sprouting. Kitchen counter works well, or near a north facing window.

    You will then need to cut them up so there are about 3 eyes per piece.

    Your seed potatoes are now ready to be planted.

    Now here comes the hard part (unless you plan on growing them in your bedroom, or parents basement) you will need to go outside. I promise this won’t take too long, you will be fine.

    You don’t need to prepare the soil underneath very much, but you do want to select a location with good drainage.

    Now place your tire flat on the ground, and fill it about halfway up with soil.

    Place your seed potato in the middle and cover it with a bit more soil.

    Water it well and wait.

    You need to keep the soil moist and check on the growth at least every week or so.

    As soon as the greens get an inch or two high you will need to add more soil. DO NOT completely cover the plant, leave just a bit poking out of the soil. You will need to add more tires as you reach the top, up to 3-4.

    Here is a .gif I made to demonstrate it a little.

    When you get to the desired height, let it alone to grow, but keep watering it. Depending on the type of potato you can either let the greens die off, cut them off, or dig them up right away.

    When you are ready to harvest, simply kick the tires over, an pull out your spuds.

    A few tips to help.

    Don’t grow them in the same soil as the year before.

    Cabbage will grow in old potato soil well.

    If you expect frost, you need to cover the plants with straw or something to protect them.

    Some potatoes need to be planted and harvested at different times of year. Do a little research.

    Potatoes like lots of sun. The plant NOT the roots.

    Any questions?

    Discuss http://www.totse.info/bbs/showthread.php?t=15082

  • Another Method of Building a Campfire

    To start a campfire, you need to:

    1)Clear the ground of flammable materials (dry grasses, sticks, leaves). Use your hands, feet, a shovel, rake, or whatever you have on hand. The ground should ideally be flat and level.

    2)Collect your three different combustable materials– tinder, kindling and your main fuel. It is important to have all three at arms reach when you start the fire.

    -The tinder is the thing that catches the initial heat source. It should be be easy to burn and/or have lots of surface area (so something ‘furry’). Natural sources of tinder include: dried grass, tinder fungus, bird’s nests, shaved bits of coconut/corn/other husks, and cottony materials such as cotton, dandelion seeds or anything similar. Use your imagination. However, some of the best tinders are the ones you buy/prepare yourself. there are many – lighter fluid, magnesium shavings (see the fire starting section below), char cloth (cotton cooked in restricted oxygen), fatwood, trioxane, tissue paper, etc. One of my favorite things to use is cotton balls soaked in an oil, like petroleum jelly. The cotton catches fire really easily, and the oil keeps it burning long enough. This fuel, along with fatwood, trioxane magnesium and char cloth, are good because they work when damp.
    Often, you will need to tease out the tinder a bit, as clumps would not catch heat very well. If you’re using something like birds nests, tissue paper, or cotton balls, just tear them apart slightly.
    Finally, you can also use steel wool. This is special in the sense that it can be ignited if you use it to complete a circuit. the wool will short out, causing it to burn. It also works with regular fire starting methods.

    -The kindling is the thing that feeds the fire after the tinder burns. Tinder normally doesn’t burn for more than a few seconds, and so you need something that will burn long enough for the main fuel to catch fire. Thin sticks, between the sizes of toothpicks to pencils, are pretty good for this. It is important that your kindling is dry. If you live in the Australian outback, the desert, the Midwest badlands or any place dry, you can probably just get sticks straight off the ground. Anywhere else, and you should let them dry in the sun (or another fire) for a few hours if possible. otherwise, you should look for wood from dead trees that are elevated off the ground. They sound hollow when you tap them. Just the smaller sticks off. You can also split thicker sticks down the middle with a knife. Use a larger stick to hammer the blade down through the fibers. The good thing about such processed wood is that the edges are sharper than sticks, and therefore catch fire easily.
    Another thing you can do is use a larger stick and using your knife, shave splinters on it, such that it looks like a little Christmas tree. The extra surface area should be good for catching heat.

    -The final thing is the wood. It should be obvious what this is. Good sizes for these are about 35mm/1.5” to 100mm/4” in diameter, but use what you have. If possible, cut larger pieces down to this size. Again, dry wood is the best.

    3) The next thing you need is a heat source. Most of them which make a flame (matches, lighters) are really good, and often you can skip the process of finding tinder and go straight to kindling. You should already know how to use them. However, on an outdoor adventure, it is important to not rely on such a device, as they often will not work when wet.
    The next thing you can (and should) use is a ferrocerium rod aka a firesteel. this should not be confused with flint and steel (which no one uses anymore). With flint and steel, the flint breaks of bits of steel, which ignites, creating a spark. with ferrocerium, it is the steel that breaks off pieces of the firesteel. Usually you can get the ferrocerium and steel together. If you dont have the steel bit, use the back edge of your knife, or a file from a multitool or something. To use it, place the point of the ferrocerium rod on your tinder, and with the steel scrap the entire length of the firesteel with great strength. This should throw sparks on the tinder, hopefully it would ignite. Alternatively, pull the ferrocerium up and away from the tinder while keeping the steel stationary. This prevents your hand from knocking the tinder away, but is harder to apply more force. some firesteels come stuck to a piece of magnesium. This is basically emergency tinder that can be used wet. Use the steel to scrap off bits of magnesium. Push them into a pile. When the pile is about 8mm/0.5” wide, throw sparks on it. This burns really hot, but it burns fast, so you have to be quick.
    In addition, some new firesteels come with magnesium embedded inside it already, so you can softly scrape off bits of the firesteel with the steel, then strike it hard to throw sparks on it.

    You can alternatively do things the really old way and rub sticks together, use a firebow and all that, but i dont know how to do them well. Perhaps there is an expert here.

    When your tinder has a bit of an ember, blow on it gently, and hopefully it will ignite.

    4) Once it has ignited, place a small amount of kindling over it, being careful not to smother the flame. If you find the flame dying out, blow on it gently. Then add more and more of the kindling until you get a decent flame happening. Then you can feed it your main fuels, starting with the thinnest sticks, then working your way up.

    ———————–
    Thats the gist of firebuilding, but there are a few advanced techniques. One of them is the arrangement of your wood. When building a heat for warmth only, it is good to try to arrange your wood in a teepee fashion before starting, and building the fire underneath. This is really good for letting oxygen flow through, resulting in a hot, roaring fire. If youre using it for cooking with pots and pans, however, you might want to build a tower by placing two sticks horizontally, then arranging two sticks on top of them, perpedicularly, then repeating this process such that you have a square pipe sort of thing that you can rest a skillet on, then build a fire underneath that. However, usually, i dont bother with that. As long as there is good air flow, it should be fine.

    Another thing to note is the placement of your fire. Sometimes, you might want to build it next to a rock face. This allows the heat to be reflected back on you, so you can use less fuel it is pretty important to block any strong winds, lest you be left cold if the wind is blowing in one direction, and roasted when it is blowing in the other. You can build your own fire wall by sticking four sticks in this arrangement:

    *……………….*
    *……………….*
    Where * is a stick on the ground, then slotting sticks and leaves between them, forming a wall. This is good, as it can dry any green sticks for you such that it can be used for the next night.

    Also, it is good to practice fire building techniques if you have time. A cheap chinese made fire steel, which works just as well as any expensive one usually has magnesium in it already, and will cost about $US4 on ebay.

    Discuss http://www.totse.info/bbs/showthread.php?t=5322

  • Building a Campfire

     

    I hope you’re hungry because i have a lot of copy pasta for you Campfire Basics By Bud Journey YES, of course you know how to build a campfire.

    Campfire Basics

    By Bud Journey

    Everybody knows how to build a campfire. That said, may I timidly offer some suggestions that could facilitate things a bit for you? During a lifetime in the outdoors, I’ve learned from some of the best. In places where they are legal, campfires can serve as any­ thing from warm friends that are centers of social gatherings to life-saving measures, during times of potential hypothermia. Knowing how to build one can be a convenience or a necessity.

     The key to getting a fire going quickly is in selecting the right tinder. Naturally, if you have paper, that’s good tin­ der. Other good natural tinder is dry moss (wet moss is terri­ble); a thin layer of leaves (with enough open spaces to allow air through); very small, dry twigs (a couple of millimeters in diameter); dried pitch nodules; a handful of shavings from a dead, standing tree; the paper-like dried outer layer of birch bark; and dead brown needles from any type of conifer tree. In my opinion, the last is the best. It will get a fire started quicker than anything else I’ve found, including pitch (which is also very good).

    I once stared a warming fire during a hunts trip in the British Columbian Rockies when it was rain­ing, and there were six inches of wet snow on the ground. All the materials I used were wet, and I had no paper. My tinder for that fire was dead fir needles. Dead pine needles would have worked equally well. After you have found the tinder, the next thing to look for are small dead limbs – the drier the better. A good place to find such limbs is low on the trunk of a live tree or the interior of a dense shrub, where they are protected from moisture. Break off the small ends of these twigs and place them immediately above the tinder, then use the slightly larger butts for the next layer of campfire material.

     Next, look for slightly larger firewood that is suspended off the ground, such as limbs that are still attached to dead logs. Other limbs and small trees that are not lying directly on the ground also make good firewood. Don’t bother with wood that is in contact with the ground or wood that has begun to rot. They make poor burning material. Preparing the Materials for a Fire- I seldom use an axe to cut firewood. It’s easier and quicker to break the large pieces over a log or a rock. Gloves come in handy to protect your hands from vibration. The smaller twigs are easily broken up by hand. It pays to break your firewood into relatively small pieces, not more than two feet in length. It is wasteful and unneces­sary to make huge, roaring campfires. Small ones will suffice nicely for both warming and cooking. Rock fire rings can leave long-lasting scars on the land and are unnecessary. If I’m not using an established campfire site, I place one or two flat rocks next to my fire bed to set things on. When I’m done, I put the rocks back where I found them and eradicate the fire bed, returning it to its original appearance.

    The area around the fire bed should be scraped down to mineral soil to reduce the danger of igniting nearby materials. More often than not, in a forested environment, this means you will be building a fire on damp soil. Damp soil is difficult to build a fire on for two reasons:

    The dampness tends to reduce the temperature, which inhibits the flames ability to grow; and 1) as the fire heats up, the water in the soil begins to steam, which will also cool the fire – or put it out altogether. To overcome the damp soil problem, put a layer of insulation between the ground and the fire. Cardboard from a food package, a paper bag, or several layers of paper towels, or some other combustible material that will last long enough to let the fire mature before burning up is all you need. If you have no man- made material to use for this purpose, a tight layer of small, dry limbs will do. Building the Fire – This is the part where you Boy Scouts will differ with me. The Boy Scout method works fine.

    This is an alternative. Set two pieces of wood about four to six inches in diameter about six to eight inches apart. Green ones last longer, but dry ones work fine. Put the layer of insulation next to the ground. The tinder goes between the two pieces of wood, and then the layer of very fine twigs goes across the top, followed by another layer of slightly larger twigs. Start the fire now, by touching off the tinder. Don’t add any more wood until the largest of the twigs are well ignited. Then slowly add slightly larger pieces of broken limbs. When this third layer of fuel is well ignited, the fire will continue to burn well even if the insulation next to the ground is destroyed. It’s important to remember during these early stages to layer your combustibles carefully.

    The pieces of firewood should be far enough apart to allow oxygen to the flames, but they must be close enough together to maintain enough heat to keep the fire going. After building a few fires and studying them, you will get a feel for the optimum spacing. This is important, especially in cold and/or wet weather. You can start cooking on a campfire as soon as the third layer of wood is burning strongly. This is a good time to start boiling water. Vigorous flames create a lot of heat, and it’s easy to burn food over them. I like to pile a pretty good stack of medium-sized branches (about an inch to two inches in diame­ter) on the fire and let them burn down to a good bed of hot coals before I put the skillet over them. Once the cooking is done, and the campfire turns into a cozy spot for socializing or reflecting on the aesthetics of the out­ doors, larger, slower burning pieces of wood work fine. By that time the hot bed of coals has sealed off the steam from the soil and created enough heat to keep even damp and rotten logs going. Again, frugal selection of proper firewood will almost always provide all you need from a campfire.

    I seldom use wood larger than six inches in diameter and eighteen inches long. There is nothing quite like a campfire in the great outdoors. It can save your life, or it can just keep you company. Either way, it is a useful tool. If you follow these suggestions, you will be able to start and maintain a campfire under almost any kind of weather condition; you won’t exhaust available firewood supplies; and you won’t scar the land.

    AMERICAN SURVIVAL GUIDE/NOVEMBER 1991

    Discuss

  • How to Properly Gut and Clean a Deer

    Since hunting season isn’t to far away I’m going to write this guide to teach you how to properly gut and clean a Deer after you kill it. Then how to properly age it for the best results.

    FIELD DRESSING

    Field dressing is the first step to take after you’ve killed your deer. This procces involves removing any of of digestive fluids and blood that may have been caused to seep out by the gun shot. It also involves removing the organs which will deteriorate pretty quickly. If you can hang it upside down first that will make this process much easier and will allow the blood to drain out better. What you want to do first is roll the deer over so the belly is exposed. Then using a sharp blade you want to make a cut down the center of the deer from the beginning of the neck down to the tail end of the Deer. After you do this take a knife and cut around the anus of the deer carefully so that it comes free with the intestines still attached. At this point the intestines and stomach should be removed. After you do this take your knife and cut around the Deer’s diaphragm and split the breast bone. Once you do this remove the lungs and the heart. I recommend saving the hear it tastes excellent. If you haven’t by now hang it upside down to allow all of the blood to drain from the body. Always remember to remove the area that has been hit by the bullet you don’t want to poison yourself.

    AGING THE MEAT

    This step isn’t absolutely necessary but it is recommended if your able to. It will make the quality of the venison much better. To do this you want to hang the deer in a dry place with a temperature of about 40 degrees farenheit. Let it sit for about 5 days for the best result.

    CUTTING THE CARCASS

    The most convenient way to do this is to take it to a trained butcher for best result’s. If you choose not to do this the picture below should help you out. The Rounds, Tenderloins, Loins, Ribs, Stew Meat and Ground Meat for Sausage and Burger. The heart and liver is also very good.

    Further links
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKm42ql7NSw
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEYw6qtiJZY

    Discuss http://www.totse.info/bbs/showthread.php?t=5392

  • Homesteading on the Cheap

    Homesteading on the cheap.

    This guide aims to give you a basic idea of where to start building your own homestead in the cheapest way possible. With an attempt to cover everything needed to live a normal life in a more sustainable manner. Mostly this guide applies to the USA.

    Land:

    Chances are if you are like me you’ll want land as far away from anyone else as possible. Fortunately this is the best way considering price and, getting land with some decent resources on it e.g.: trees, water.

    First off you need to know where to shop, E-bay is pretty good if you are looking for several acres or more of cheap land. Also just using Google to search for rural land sales will turn up quite a few relevant results. Look in local newspapers in the area you are considering buying land in. Depending on what exactly you are looking for will define how you go about looking for it.
    Sometimes you can even find decent deals in the advertising section in the back of some magazines, Like Mother Earth News.

    Things to consider when buying land are:

    Topography (how flat the land is) If you are going to be farming and growing most of your own food, and maybe even have some livestock (pigs, chickens, goats) you will want land that is mostly flat, maybe with some low rolling hills. Also flat land makes it easier to build a home later.

    Resources:
    Water , You can find land with natural springs and rivers, but the price starts going up with the amount of water on the land. Also there is no guarantee you can get the rights to use that water, even if it does flow across your land. You want to look for land in an area with a high water table, eventually you will want to have a well drilled, which will usually run you about $10 a foot. So the less they have to dig, the cheaper it will be for you.

    Until you get a well dug, you will most likely be hauling water, or using a rain catchment system (see below). Rain catchment is only really effective in wetter climates obviously. But even in drier areas, it can be used to supplement your other water supplies.

    Timber/trees, You will want to look for property with a decent amount of trees, which tends to be the most expensive. No trees, and the land is cheap, Thick ass forest, the land is cheap. Finding land with a good mix of trees and open space is going to be hard. I recommend just buying the heavily forested land. As the trees you will clear can be used for firewood and building materials later. Land that has been logged before can usually be found pretty cheap from the logging companies. Most of the time they just go in and take all the old growth trees, build roads, and leave it like that. Which is nice being able to actually access your property.

    Soil/dirt/ground, Obviously if you want to be planting and growing most of your own food, you will need to find land in a place with decent soil. And without trees like black walnuts, and certain pines that will keep plants from growing well, if at all, in that area.
    There are places, like local colleges, where you can have your soil taken and tested.

    Sunlight, Yes this is a resource, especially when you are living on solar power. You don’t want to build a house on the north side of a mountain, or in an area where it rains 200 days a year. Make sure you get land with a clear view of the southern sky, all the way down to the horizon. This is also necessary if you plan on getting satellite internet.

    Building codes:

    You’ll also need to check out the building codes in the area. A lot of places in the USA still have no building codes in rural areas. These are the places you want to buy land, so you can build whatever kind of house you want, as cheaply as you want it.
    Not a good idea to buy land in someplace like CA, where you have to pay hundreds of dollars to get plans drawn up, and permits, and inspections, just to build a shed, or chicken coop.

    Size:
    Remember you only need as much land as you can take car of. No point in buying 100 acres of land, if you can’t do anything with it.

    For this guide we will focus on about 5 acre chunks of land. As that is the amount you would realistically need to support a family of 4, and still be able to manage reasonably. If you plan on having more people out there, and more houses. You can go in together and buy more. Just keep that in mind. What you spend on land, you can’t spend on digging a well, or something else. So only buy what you need.

    Price:

    Depending on how you are paying for your land, you can go about this a couple different ways.
    Paying the full price in cash, may be the best method for you. As then you will have no land payments, and getting out from under bills is one of the main things this is about. Usually you can get some deals on the cash price, but if you are poor like me, chances are you will have to go with a smaller piece of land. 5 acres can usually be had for between $2000-4000 Cash price.

    Financing, oh yes, maybe not the greatest idea, since you will have to come up with some way to pay the loan every month. But usually you can find owner financed property between $50-200/month for a 5 acre parcel. A lot of owners/financiers will not even run a credit check. So no matter who you are, land is within reach. They won’t run a credit check because they don’t care, it is in their best interest for you to default on the loan. That way they keep your money, and can re-sale the land for the full price. The downside to this option though, is you’ll likely end up paying 2x the actual cash price of the land. But if you are lucky, you may be able to find someone who doesn’t/won’t charge interest.

    Shelter:

    Well now, if you followed my directions in the “land” section, you should now have a few acres of land, with a section of flat ground, and few to no building codes. Why don’t you build a place to live.

    Your options here are pretty much limitless, if you got property in an area with no building codes. From:
     

    There is a lot of great guides for most of those on the internet, so we will be focusing this section of the guide on building your own house.

    First you’ll want to envision what kind of house you would like to build. Likely something small, so it’s cheap to build and maintain. Something that reuses and uses as many free materials as possible.

    If you don’t have any construction experience, now is the time to get some. Learn basic carpentry, plumbing, and electric.

    You”ll want to have some kind of plan drawn out, whether it’s Google Sketch-up, or just jotted down on paper.

    There isn’t a lot to be said on this subject, since the possibilities are so wide open.

    All I can say is be creative. I stayed in a house that was built around an 18′ trailer they later converted into their kitchen. They had the power and plumbing to the whole house ran through there, just for the sake of simplicity.

    When you are driving around and see an old barn that’s falling down, go ask the people if they would let you take it down if you can keep the wood. Barn boards make awesome siding on a house, or floor boards.

    I recommend a relatively normal stick built type house (2x4s and shit) Tin roof, wood floors, and a shitload of insulation.

    Use a wood stove, instead of an electric or gas heater.

    You can buy a LOT of materials real cheap at HfH ReStore. All the stuff that people donate to them that they don’t use gets sold at one of these stores, and they are all over the country. Things from doors to windows, to plumbing and electrical fixtures. Some of it is used, but that just helps add character to your new home.

    Look around and study up on energy efficient building practices. Like building an upstairs loft, which stays warmer where you will be sleeping, so you use less wood to heat your home.

    Don’t cut corners on insulation and good double paned windows, since most of your warm/cold air is lost through these places.

    Power/Electricity:
    If you are like every other American, it would be hard for you to give up electricity cold turkey. Things like your radio, internet, television, coffee pot, fridge.
    Well the first thing you need to do is eliminate all non essential appliances, (yes that means get rid of the microwave and stop being a lazy fuck) like your microwave, extra TVs, extra computer, alarm clocks, pretty much anything that plugs in that you really don’t need more than one of, if any.
     
    Then you need to replace you existing appliances with energy efficient ones, a smaller more energy friendly fridge, smaller LCD TV, laptop computer.
     
    Now how to power what is left. Well your options are solar, wind, water. Because chances are there isn’t a power pole anywhere near you, are using it would be against the whole purpose of this guide anyways.
     
    Solar, You’ll need enough panels, and battery capacity to power everything in your house. Solar Panels aren’t cheap. Here is a good guide on how to build your own, and how to figure out how many you will need to power your home.
     
    You’ll also need some good deep cycle batteries. Which can be really expensive. Find a place where they repair golf carts, and take a flowmeter with you. They will likely have quit a few batteries in good condition (some people replace the batteries in their golf carts every few months or every year) that they will sell you pretty cheap. Make sure you test them all and get the best ones.
     
    I recommend housing the batteries and inverter in a well ventilated, concrete block shed, away from the house. They can blow up. And for Christ sake, don’t fucking smoke around them, especially when they are charging.
     
    But you say, “well what if it isn’t sunny, solar panels won’t work” Well lucky for you god saw fit to make the days that aren’t sunny generally windy. And here is a guide to building a cheap wind turbine, which will hook up to the battery system you all ready have in place.
     
    If you are lucky enough to have fast running water on your property year round, you can build some form of water wheel, hooked to an alternator, to charge your batteries. But you are on your own on how to do that one.
     
    Food:
    So ideally we would like to raise and grow our own food. This includes food for an omnivores diet. A variety of crops, and a couple kinds of meat.
     
    What animals you choose to raise, is completely up to you, but chickens are almost necessary. As far as them giving you eggs 6 days out of 7, and being made of meat, so when they stop laying, you can eat them. You can let them go free range. Or coop them up. Either way chickens are the best bang for your buck on a farm. You just need to select a breed that is right for you. Whether you want better egg layers, or better meat chickens. There are some breeds that are ok at both. Do some research.
     
    Another good animal to raise for meat only is rabbits. Even though cute little bunnies are a bit harder to kill for food. They do produce a lot of meat, and quickly. A rabbit can have a litter every couple months, and it is a matter of weeks before they are big enough to eat. You can expect to get a pound or 2 of meat off a 3 pound rabbit. As before do you research and select the proper breed for your needs.
     
    Goats are also a good small farm animal. They produce milk, which can be used for a lot of things. But they don’t take up nearly as much food or space as a cow. They can also be eaten, when they have outlived their usefullness.
     
    Lets talk about farming.
    Don’t make the mistake I have seen a few people do. You need to do the research on what grows best in your area, and soil type. Do not just pick out a bunch of weird ass seeds and start planting. It doesn’t work like that. If you do it right, yes, you may end up eating a lot of the same shit all the time, but you’ll have enough of it to keep eating all the time.
     
    Green houses do help for growing things, that wouldn’t normally grow in that climate, but there are also some things that grow well no matter where you are. (corn, zucchini, squash)
     
    On a small 5 acre property, don’t bother trying to grow any grains (rice, wheat, barley) there just isn’t enough space to make it worth the effort.
     
    Certain beans, are worth planting though, Pintos can average over 20cwt per acre (1cwt = 100lbs) If you live in a drier climate. Everything you need to know about Pinto beans.
     
    Research all your crops before buying seed and planting, practice proper crop rotation, so you use as little soil additives ass possible. And plant what is right for your area.
     
    Get used to eating the same thing.
     
    Water:
    If you are lucky enough to have running water on your property, you can just use a hydraulic ram pump, to move your water to your house or storage tank. It’s always good to have a storage tank of at least 1000 gallons for emergencies, and a gray water (water from your sinks and showers) storage tank of a few hundred gallons, to water plants and stuff.
     
    Then you have catchment systems, which usually consist of a large roof area, and gutters that funnel rain water into a large storage tank. Like this.
     
    And of course, there is a well. Only thing to mention about this is making a separate PV system to power the pump and stuff.
     
    Making Money: As far as earning a living goes while you are doing this, chances are you will end up growing a lot more than you can can or eat, so try selling the excess at farmers market and such. Or making soap from goats milk. Really the possibilities are endless.
     
    Helpful link:
    Diy Sawmill

    Any questions, or more info on any of these subjects, please start a thread and I’ll be happy to give you everything I know.