Village Life

It’s been an interesting weekend in the village as it is the first time we have run all our back up off grid systems simultaneously and many local people came to see them and ty to learn a few things to save themselves money on everything from energy to food and to learn how they can do many small things which can add up to many larger savings.

They saw how all our homes get 2KW of electricity from the water turbines in my large pond and how this is limited to 2KW and how it is monitored so they get a little more when their freezer runs to protect all their frozen foods and how it powers their gas boilers so they can still run their gas central heating to remain warm. They saw the equipment we use to ensure nobody exceeds this 2KW and how they bias their electricity usage so they can gave their freezers, lighting, and some other systems such as CCTV running while remaining under their 2KW allowance and how it uses this first then draws anything over this from the grid and also how we do this without smart meters as we have a Craig who designs and installs this stuff for us.

They saw how all our houses have log burners so if both gas and electricity go off we can resort to timber to warm our homes and cook basic foods on our log burners and how we obtain the numerous logs and tonnage of timber we need for these logs and how we make our own paper logs using sawdust or shavings, old newspaper or other shredded paper and cow manure all blended together and then compressed into briquettes. They saw how much heat they can produce and that despite the cow muck they don’t smell and that if they add more air to the log burners, how they turn into cookers and how we can slow cook many foods for free while heating our homes.

They were educated on how we produce and store all our fresh foods and how we complete the circle by composting old cuttings, leaves, and trimmings from our crops to produce next year’s composts and how we blend it and mix it with cow muck which has stood for at least three years and how we make our specific growing mediums and our own fertilisers to feed our own crops while they are growing. They were surprised just how much food we grow during the winter months and just how easy it is to freeze, bottle, or dry foods and use other preservation methods such as charcuterie and if a group of them get together how they can get a trade card for food warehouses and how they can buy in bulk and divide easily stored dried foods such as pasta or rice and how they can make real foods such as tomato sauce from real tomatoes and also pasts sauces quickly and easily. They learned a quick and simple recipe for a pasta sauce which thy could all make with basic foods they can grow at home and how they could tailor their foods to their specific tastes and how they could diversify into other realms such as adding citrus such as lemon or orange zest to their pickles and they can pickle more than shallots and gherkin as most liked my pickled cauliflower with orange zest. They learned that you can have multiple uses from one food and that you can boil beetroot straight from the garden and if you save the cooking liquor how you can turn this liquor usually thrown away; into wine quickly, cheaply and easily and how if you avoid the bling and vanity how cheaply it is made.

Many people liked the way many of us have 12 volt systems in our homes and how these are permanently connected to our massive battery packs and how many of us have included LED lighting strip in existing LED lighting which can be powered from our 12 volt systems in the event of a mains failure or blackout and how the smallest systems would give nearly 40 hours of light with them all switched on. People saw how we made many standard and non standard lights often from recycled waste and just how bright they were and how we could light every room in our homes using a single battery or multiple battery pack and how they recharged when mains power returned and how many of us had recycled battery packs from nuclear submarines connected to digital chargers which charge at off peak times to ensure they are fully charged when needed.

Many liked our ideas of mini greenhouses made from bent canes covered in cling film over a container and how the base of the container may be lined on the outside with polystyrene and then covered in loose laid bricks or pavers and how sometimes we fill a large plastic bag with the polystyrene packing noodles, stand the container on them and fill the bag so the container is surrounded and fully insulates the container and is then tied over the top to give cheap and effective double glazing for your plants. Many liked how this lengthens your growing season by allowing you to start earlier and finish later into the season without using any heat or how by standing containers on, and covering the sides of them with layers of muck you can insulate and generate heat from the composting process and how we compost nearly everything.

Many people were fascinated by what they could do with natural or recycled materials and many incorrectly assumed you needed concrete when often clay would do and of you bend many pieces of thin wood together to form a dome and cover it with clay and lay tiles inside it with more clay you have a basic pizza oven. If you make a wood fire inside it the wooden formers will be burned away and the heat will heat the ovens thermal mass and you simply sweep the glowing embers to one side and put your pizza in it will cook nice and evenly and cook better than any oven. You can often take the same clay and make your own pots and fire them in your pizza oven or you can make a smaller fire and use it as a slow cooker. Many never realised that if you collected second hand bricks or blocks you could do your own building projects and improve your skills and build up these skills and any waste or broken bricks could be further broken and used for foundations or footings or mixed with clay to give it strength or simply used to make paths from where they could become the thermal mass.

Many found out about a drought in summer and tried to cut their water use and often this precluded watering their gardens or containers which in turn lost them some home grown crops which they then have to buy and these ae generally bought in from abroad and grown on unknown soils and generally on a feed of chemical cocktails with massive transport miles and are of poor quality when they reach the UK. Many people were even more surprised just how easy it was to develop and install a home irrigation system and just how easy it was to collect huge quantities of water for summer irrigation and how easy it was to store it ready for a dry summer and just how little water a nicely thought out irrigation system actually used to ensure your crops survive and flourish.

Many of our cooking group have grown most of their Christmas dinner and while many still have parsnips, winter carrots, swede, late cabbage, Brussels and may other traditional crops in the ground which they will harvest fresh on Christmas Day; many others will use already harvested and either frozen or bottled crops for their Christmas dinner and for that of their families or guests. Many will be serving wines made from garden grown fruits and many fruit juices have been made for the non drinkers and the cider was pressed from apples grown in the village using the large hydraulic press we made ourselves and gets most of the apple juice from the apples.
Possibly the most successful project of the year is the rented garden project where older or disabled people let part of their gardens out to people for growing crops and was conceived due to the increase in gardening and the lack of allotments or other suitable growing spaces as often much of this becomes unmanageable to the houses occupants and becomes overgrown. In such cases people take over a proportion of the garden to grow crops and in many cases they are families with children and those with the gardens often see very few people or have few visitors and they become isolated and if they fall and die they can be there for days before they are found and the garden lend allows several benefits.

It ensures these older people ae less likely to become isolated and they interact with potentially people of all ages who generally keep an eye out for them and if they fall they may have someone to contact if they wear a fall alarm; they also have people visiting most days during the summer and if they struggle to cut a lawn or weed their gardeners may do this for them and when the crops appear they often get some freshly picked home grown vegetables. They remain part of the community and at the very least they are part of a small community and if they need some shopping their gardeners may pick it up while they are down there and often they are invited round for Christmas if they have no family and this community spirit keeps the burglars such as antisocial services from robbing them of their life savings and selling their properties from underneath them and anything which prevents this legalised theft has to be a benefit. Throughout the year we have run small classes in everything from gardening to cooking from how to make bread to how to freeze your harvests and how to make wines and ciders from fruits in your or other gardens and these classes will continue into 2023 and beyond.
Our final class of the year will be making lights in readiness for the predicted power cuts which run from 12 volts DC and can run from anything 12 volt such as car batteries, alarm batteries, wheelchair batteries and anything in-between and our local battery supplier is selling the batteries at discounted prices to those participating and undoubtedly they will be sampling the considerable ciders, perrys, and wines we have made.