offgrid day 2 of 2

OFFGRID DAY 2

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Before we continue on from arriving home from work with the days water supply, I’ll cover the weekends when I didn’t cook or get coffee at my place of employ, or pick up a package of meat at the market on my way home.  For breakfast, at first I started cooking wheat with propane.  Biscuits, pancakes and similar.  A cast iron skillet cook.  Well, it didn’t take long to discover-wow, surprise-I was sucking down propane like it was water in an oasis.  This simply would not do.  I was on a very strict budget.  In my case, working at the food bank, I had all the whole wheat factory bread I wanted ( most folks except old humpers with obstructed bowels wanted white bread-so most times the WW stayed there to mold and then go to the chicken or pig guy ) and I usually made grilled toast.  Regular toast with propane, that little camp contraption that sets the bread in a pyramid, doesn’t work well at all.  At least on whole wheat.  I buttered the bread and laid it in the skillet and cooked it on one side until golden and THAT, my fine feathered minions, is a breakfast fit for the gods.  I never tired of eating that ( well, especially compared to nuke bread ).

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Now, if I was doing it again, no way would I buy $3 or $4 a loaf bread from the store, except as an occasional treat when I got too tired of flatbread.  I would go back to making actual flatbread on a propane skillet once a week ( think that weird Indian-dot not feather-bread with the burn spots all over it, but many times better tasting ) and the rest solar oven flatbread ( for breakfast and lunch ).  The solar oven is on my project list-I have enough galvanized sheet metal for the reflectors ( I need to see if that is reflective enough.  Aluminum sheets are way more expensive so I’m trying cheap first ) but need more for the interior box, and then just a few more pieces of lumber and some black paint.  I’m still on the fence as to whether I’ll go with the microwave or not.  It might only be one more panel, but once batteries are no longer replaceable it will be useless unless I go all in on the direct-from-panel power.  I’m not sure if a thousand bucks is a good investment.  I don’t want an Edison battery for the same price, since One Is None.  I’ll also be installing a rocket stove to curtail propane use, there being plenty of dead sagebrush on adjoining vacant properties.

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For coffee I used a camp percolator in the winter, which went a long way warming up the place.  The trailer was solar heat in the winter and the B-POD stayed warm enough ( with wool sweaters, socks and in the dead of winter, a beanie ) just from coffee and cooking.  In the summer I used a French Press to minimize the heating ( I should have installed a propane stove upstairs also, but everything stayed austere budget after child support ended, both because of the now ex’s hospital bills and because I was going all out on preps after ten years of bare minimum prepping deprivation ).  Now that I’m full on gay over Cowboy Coffee ( right up there with the queer Cowboy Poetry bullspit these Yuppie asswhores have fostered on to our poor embarrassed town ) it might be a bit harder to use the coffee making for secondary space heat, unless I just make an extra large pot and keep it under a very low heat ( a smaller pot just boils away as you can only turn the flame down so far.  Of course, this assumes propane.  Rocket stove use will deliver a lot more initial heat ) and then use that leftover the next day.

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Okay, let’s double back to the end of work after you’ve loaded up your water jugs.  Time to stop by the market for that nights meat.  This really sucks.  Single packs never give you any savings and your choices are always limited.  At one point as chicken and beef prices went through the roof I was stuck with pork every night.  The tough cut, too, with little flavor.  It got to the point I almost didn’t want to eat dinner anymore, and that is or at least was my huge meal of the day to fuel up after work and an hour and a half of bike riding.  Finally what I ended up doing after a couple of years was using the walk in freezer at work, a spot so high up the short boss never used it.  In the future I’ll be getting a solar refrigerator, keeping raw meat in there a couple of days, then cooking it and keeping it another couple, so that I can get away from buying single cuts and buy family packs a couple times a week ( I leave the canning issue aside for now ).  If you look at it just from the point of those savings, family pack verses single pound package, you are saving fifty percent or more on meat.  Since I’m cheap, I’ll call that $1.50 a pound verses $3 a pound.  And that savings alone pays for your solar fridge in slightly less than a year.

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As it was, I had been spending $15 a week on fresh meat and another $2 or $4 on canned meat for the weekend ( all of which suck.  I haven’t even thought of eating tuna or chili for years now ) for the two of us.  That same amount now feeds me almost three times as long, with a freezer.  I should be able to duplicate that on a weekly basis with a fridge.  If you can’t afford the fridge, you can always just haul meat home as needed, and eat a lot of cheese and eggs or even beans.  Just remember, if you buy refrigerated eggs they need to stay refrigerated.  If you get fresh, they can stay room temperature.  I was using the “eggs underwater” trick for keeping eggs a couple of weeks and I was always getting an upset stomach from them.  Now I know why, since I was getting them from the store and they should have stayed in a fridge.  For a short time there was cooked hamburger in a foil pack but nobody sells that anymore.  You are stuck with canned fish, chili, Spam and other horror meats.  Yes, I know a lot of you like Spam, and that makes you…lucky?  Anyway, no fridge or freezer sucks as far as meat goes, unless you can yourself.

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Once I got home it was time to bath.  I alternated nights between shaving and bathing, and you gals can alternate between washing your hair and bathing.  Most of the year I could use my solar hot water heater to bath with.  This was an insulated box buried in the dirt slanted at an angle towards the sun, cover in a sheet of glass and with a flat black painted sheet of metal on the bottom.  I had four Mason jars capped off with spaghetti sauce lids ( you can use the one piece lids they sell in plastic ), propped up off the bottom with two by fours to get full sun exposure, each with eight ounces of water in them ( when resting at an angle they can’t be too full ).  That was my hot water, retrieved with an oven mitt and carried in a wire basket to the home.  Simple and almost free.  No soldering, copper pipes or etcetera.  Sometimes they barely warmed and I finished heating the water on the propane stove.  Other times they were too hot.  I added cold water as needed, or propane heated water as needed, one quarter gallon total for shaving and one half gallon for bathing.

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There are many ways to hand bathe and I think I’ve tried most.  I tried the floppy solar shower bag, the bleach jug and the garden weed sprayer pressure thing, and none work as good as a simple whores bath.  Don’t use a wash clothe, use a small thick hand towel.  Start at your head and work your way down, skipping the pits, butt and crotch.  With a sodden but not excessive dripping cloth, wet and scrub all.  Usually unless you are really greasy you just need water scrubbed skin everywhere except the head, pits, crotch and butt which need soap.  Less soap and less than daily bathing is better for your skin anyway, and skipping a day will not see you stinking or unsanitary.  Just don’t skip more than that one day.  Scrub all, then go back to the pits, then the crotch and last the butt.  One half gallon is more than enough and you are refreshingly clean.  The other gravity fed water delivery systems just roll down your skin, and use more water.  The scrubbing method works much better and conserves water.  You are also conserving razor blades ( if you must be clean shaven for work, use an electric razor there prior to punching in ).

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We already talked about diner, so we skip to washing dishes.  The lazy way is to soak everything.  The water conservative way is to use a cooking dish and then immediately wash it with a cup or two of hot water.  Use a vegetable scrub brush to remove food ( food catches in cloth or scrub pads, not so much in that one ).  If you must soak it, place that minor amount of water on the bottom and keep coming back to scrub, especially the sides not underwater.  Don’t give it a chance to dry and cake on.  Plates, cups and flatware are washed in a plastic tub or small sink with the same cup or two of hot water with soap, immediately so it doesn’t set.  Use a very minimal amount of soap.  Even one drop per plate, dipping into the hot water and scrubbing, dripping back down where the other dishes lay.  Use that cola bottle to squeeze water to rinse.  Done correctly, dishes take almost no water. 

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Okay, now it is nighttime, so we concern ourselves with electricity.  Solar is easier than ever.  If you can replace a wire under the hood of a car, you can set up a solar system.  One panel, one charge controller and one battery will provide you with your lighting and even TV for the night.  $250, bulbs and wires included.  Any other appliances such as the microwave or fridge get their own system ( there is a reason for not sharing panels or batteries or controllers. One goes out, there is your replacement you can cannibalize.  And while parts last five to eight years, something is always going out at the worst time ).  From your panel, run a positive (+) wire and a negative (-) wire from the panel wire down to your battery.  If you keep it from freezing it will last much longer, so I bury mine.  The holes for wires vent the charging gases, which is why batteries can come inside, but not charge inside.  Right alongside the battery, the panel wires connect to the charge controller ( this stuff is easy, + to +, - to - ), and the controller wires to the battery.  Now, separate wires with that O end connector, the O connecters on the same wing nut battery stud as the controller connection, lead back into your dwelling.  To the light fixture ( RV store or auto parts store, you are using a bayonet bulb LED ) or to a cigarette lighter plug in for 12v appliance ( they sell 12v TV’s, mainly to semi-truck drivers ).  The cigarette plugs always come with a glass fuse.  Have plenty on hand.  You can also wire to an inverter to use regular 110 AC power. 

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Note that your factory rated panel of 100 watts usually produces less than 100 watts, even on a bright shiny day.  Usually 15% less.  Charging your battery eats another 10% or so, and using an inverter kills another 10%.  This is why I generally overproduce and under consume.  Just try to do the same.  Don’t try to max out your use or the battery won’t last as long.  I use a simple Wal-Mart RV & Marine battery.  The least efficient but the easiest to replace on my budget.  Above ground I get two to three years daily use, buried I get about five years.  Charge controllers last seven or eight years, LED bulbs and panels nearly forever ( at least my lifetime ).  Your battery has a cold crank rating.  Usually 600 or so watts.  A good rule of thumb is that is the amount of watts you can use before your battery is drained half way.  Try not to go below that level, to maximize battery life.  LED bulbs are usually five watts, and a small TV about 12 watts.  I could run my light for six hours a night and my TV for two, and I’d use about 55 watts total.  Which is almost what my panels were ( don’t worry about subtracting the 15% and the 10% for this calculation ).  Even with a week of snow or rain clouds I never had an issue with my batteries not being charged the next sunny day after several hours.  Under use, over produce.

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In the evening, or even early morning, the middle of winter, sometimes cooking didn’t heat enough.  I used to use Mr. Buddy heaters but they went south on quality as the prices rose.  And hardly anyone sells small BTU ( 4k or so ) indoor propane heaters.  Now I just take an ungreased cast iron skillet and put it on my cook stove under low heat to bathe or take the chill off.  Use the cast iron propane stove they sell at Sportsman’s Guide, which is the same cost as the crappy soon to break Wal-Mart sheet metal camp stove.  You want the new propane stove that use the small hose with built in regulator on the hose, not the ones that use the bigger disposable tanks or their adaptors.  The camp stoves with built in gas pressure regulator are built to break 90% quicker than they used to.  Once settled for the night, you don’t need heat.  Under the sheet, place a squishy foam pad.  That reflects heat.  On top of the sheet, wool blankets.  Never buy a blanket under three pounds or under 70% wool content or it will be nearly useless.

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On top of the blanket(s) put a feather comforter ( synthetic feather works just fine ).  Don’t neglect a duvet cover.  In time your white comforter turns grey and is embarrassing.  Using the above, I’ve slept comfortably in eight degrees ( the outside was eight below ).  Sometimes you need to sleep in a T-shirt, or if in a trailer rather than underground you need a synthetic comforter between the wool and the down comforter, but other than that you stay toasty warm.  To wrap up, a new odds and ends.  You can just use disposable battery powered lamps, lanterns, stick up pucks and the like, not even needing a large 12v solar panel ( just a small unit to charge the AA and AAA batteries ) as long as the lumens ratings are good.  LED’s have gotten much brighter using less power in the last five years.  The toilet is easy, just a sawdust in the bucket to cover solid waste ( the urine bucket is separate ), then moved to a solar heated underground composter.  For laundry, the towns Laundromat is your friend.   You need to go shopping or to work anyway.  I had a large gym bag with strap I hauled mine in on my back, the bike baskets full of water.  Since time slows to nothing in a Laundromat, defying the laws of physics,  eventually I couldn’t stand it anymore and stopped using their dryers ( my work slacks kept shrinking in the length, also.  Dryers kill clothes.  Boycott dryers! ) and just strung a clothesline.  In the winter, I brought them in at night if not dry, hanging them from every nonporous surface and repeated the next day. 

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Sweet Baby Jesus in a Yugo, that is more than enough for today.  I’m sure I covered it all.  Frugal off grid living, oh my.

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