Living off the land

catflea

Hello all for this hitherto unvisited section of the wonderful world of MSE!

I've decided following a summer of off-grid living at various solar powered events and festivals that I no longer want to live in the "modern world" and I have decided that I need to aim to buy a small plot of woodland or a meadow and live off the land there

I was wondering if there is anyone here that has any experience in such matters and can offer any opinions...

ragz_2

Ahhh... the dream. Would love to do that, as would thousands of others. I have a feeling it's harder and more complicated than it sounds...
I think a few of our regulars have done this at least for a little while, in one way or another, hopefully some advice will come.

justjohn

its price of the land, red tape and keeping your comforts lol

dandy-candy

Have you got the John Seymour's book on self sufficiency? He believes it can be done with 5 acres. Your more likely to find people giving great advice on living off grid on American sites. Homesteading Today has a forum, and I think Mother Earth News does too.

lostinrates

There is a thread on green fingered boarded called Daydreamers. Most of us are failed at self sufficiency and merely a but more self provident, but please join us.

catflea

I've spent the summer off grid and I am confident that I can still keep my comforts...

The plan would be to find a little part time job to cover a few costs that I can't avoid if I want to maintain contact with the modern world, telephone etc...

lostinrates

catflea wrote: »

I've spent the summer off grid and I am confident that I can still keep my comforts...

The plan would be to find a little part time job to cover a few costs that I can't avoid if I want to maintain contact with the modern world, telephone etc...

The thing is you need to get planning to live full time, even in a tent, off grid in woods or meadow AIUI.


And as a land owner of land you Must have public liability insurance.

There are fantastic resources on it, and I know some who do it successfully, but most have to take some part time work and also make some pretty big compromises.

For us, the clincher is that we bought to be self sufficientish, no intention of being fully self sufficient, but my health took a down turn in the second year and my veg plot literally went to seed as I was unable to tend it and it became too much all at the same time. Never the less, we have started a successful microbusiness and have some things we want in place...some grey water recycling. We don"t live off grid, we have electricity. And we have mains water. We hope to have heating of some sort too, it will be off grid, but not what we really wanted. .

Bear in mind summer is easier, and this summer has been the easiest for many a year.

Good luck, its wonderful when peoe succeed and love it.

catflea

I know plenty of hippies who do very similar things to what I am intending, so I'm not short of people to lend a hand etc

betterlife

I would love to live off the land and off grid (and harvest our own energy) and although you think if should be cheap to do or even free! you really need quite alot of capital to do it! land is not cheap, and as others have said there are a lot of red tape if you want to live there legally. would love to know a bit more about how you plan to live, build house? tent? caravan? etc x

catflea

Initially I'd dump my caravan on site and work from that but eventually build up and around it as its a little bit small but it is very comfortable and it it would still be great to be able to drag it off to events...

I'd love to make a "tree house" i.e. something built around an existing tree out of forest and repurposed materials

Fruball

catflea wrote: »

Initially I'd dump my caravan on site and work from that but eventually build up and around it as its a little bit small but it is very comfortable and it it would still be great to be able to drag it off to events...

I'd love to make a "tree house" i.e. something built around an existing tree out of forest and repurposed materials

I have dreamed of this way of life for most of my life! Unfortunately, I know that I wouldn't have the dedication through the hard times to keep it going. I had a very large garden and veg patch at a previous house which was great and we had many, many meals purely from our own produce plus eggs from our hens but I very much doubt I could manage to keep 3 of us fed healthily all through winter too. Also, the disappointment of failed crops was horrible! Slugs became my worst enemy with caterpillars a close second.

Plus, the red tape stuff would frustrate me. IF I was able to buy a patch of private land and wanted to put a caravan on it or build on it then it would infuriate me that I couldn't do that... My land, my rules... But it doesn't work like that, sadly.

All the very best of luck. If you manage to pull it off then you will be envied by many