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Abuso fuera de la red

La historia impactante de Tara Westover, que cuenta en su libro de memorias recientemente publicado ‘Educated’ arroja una sombra inmerecida sobre las familias fuera de la red y sus formas de vida. El abuso fuera de la red no es la norma.

Tara llegó muy lejos de crecer en una montaña en Idaho con su familia radical de supervivientes mormones para estudiar en la Universidad de Cambridge y escribir un libro que seguramente va a hacer olas. Solo la historia de que la envíen a trabajar en un basurero es una lectura aterradora. Pero también hubo compensaciones.
“Hay un sentido de soberanía que proviene de la vida en una montaña. Se calma con su propia magnitud, lo que hace que lo meramente humano no tenga consecuencias “, dice Westover mientras describe su antiguo hogar en el libro.
DESDE LAS MONTAÑAS DE IDAHO A CAMBRIDGE UNI, REINO UNIDO.
Young Tara sufrió graves abusos emocionales y físicos por parte de miembros de su familia y no tuvo acceso a atención médica o educación superior durante la mayor parte de su vida. “Todo abuso es ante todo un asalto a la mente”, afirma Westover.

Si bien esta historia es desgarradora, es una pena que pueda dar al estilo de vida alternativo de estar fuera de la red una reputación negativa. Vivir en una comunidad remota y autosostenida puede ser una experiencia maravillosa, incluso para las familias.
Personalmente, creo que a los niños se les deben dar las mismas oportunidades cuando se trata de educación o de ir a la universidad y se les debe dar la opción de si quieren pasar sus vidas viviendo fuera de la red o no. El problema en el caso de Tara, al parecer, es que sus padres estaban muy ansiosos y paranoicos sobre el “mundo exterior” (Westover no tenía certificado de nacimiento durante 9 años, le dijeron que durmiera con un cuchillo y ella y sus hermanos no t atención médica cuando se lesiona).

No hay excusa para que los padres abusen de sus hijos de ninguna manera, y aunque no creo que vivir fuera de la red haya conducido a ese tipo de comportamiento, ciertamente lo hace más fácil de ocultar.
Creo que es crucial estar siempre abierto al criar a los hijos y mostrarles y enseñarles tanto como sea posible, para permitirles descubrir qué es lo correcto y bueno para ellos, y darles la opción de establecer metas y seguir su camino deseado. en la vida, incluso si es algo con lo que los padres no están de acuerdo.
Los padres de Tara supuestamente no dieron aquí esas opciones y trataron de alejarla de la sociedad tanto como fuera posible mientras la limitaban física y mentalmente durante muchos años.
La autora ha dado pasos impresionantes para llegar a donde está hoy y estoy muy emocionada de leer ‘Educado’ y obtener más información sobre su punto …

June 21, 2016 No Comments

Lidiar con la Burocracia

<a href=”https://off-grid.net/dealing-with-bureaucracy/feds-attack-rancher/” rel=”attachment wp-att-59153″><img class=”size-full wp-image-59153″ src=”https://off-grid.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/feds-attack-rancher.jpg” alt=”Feds attack Rancher” width=”444″ height=”274″ /></a> Not only in Nevada

La vida fuera de la red y la burocracia gubernamental son totalmente opuestas entre sí. Mucha gente sale de la red solo para alejarse de los burócratas, pero nunca puedes escapar de ellos por completo. Un ranchero anónimo del medio oeste cuenta su historia:

Estoy seguro de que la mayoría estaría de acuerdo en que el servicio público es una vocación noble. Estamos en deuda con todos aquellos desde nuestros padres fundadores que se han esforzado para servir al bien mayor. Desafortunadamente, servir al bien del público y de la burocracia parece ser casi diametralmente opuesto.

Conozco a muchos rancheros que han considerado abandonar el sistema por completo en lugar de lidiar con burócratas y burocracias. Pero la realidad es que no hay forma de evitarlos, sin importar cuán frustrantes, impersonales, complejos, incompetentes y arrogantes puedan ser. De hecho, el alcance de las burocracias en nuestra vida cotidiana parece estar creciendo exponencialmente, casi al ritmo de su incompetencia.

En los negocios, tenemos que innovar, tenemos que hacer las cosas de manera más eficiente (reducir los gastos generales), tenemos que mejorar la calidad y la puntualidad de nuestra toma de decisiones y tenemos que centrarnos más en el cliente y ofrecer más valor. Es una lucha diaria e interminable por la supervivencia que asegura que las empresas tengan este tipo de enfoque.

La gran ironía es que las burocracias, a causa de su naturaleza, a menudo tienen perversamente incentivos opuestos. Deben gastar todo su dinero, hacer crecer su esfera de influencia y engullir más y más recursos mientras que a menudo hacen cada vez menos.

Por lo tanto, innovadores, rentables, eficientes, centrados en el cliente, receptivos al cambio, o incluso amigables para el usuario, no son palabras que uno usualmente asocia con burocracias, y por una buena razón.

Por ejemplo, recientemente tuve que ir a una oficina de seguridad social local, local cuando eres ranchero, que incluye viajar 180 millas hasta la oficina gubernamental más cercana, para obtener una tarjeta de seguro social de reemplazo para mi hijo. No pasaré el mes del tiempo perdido intentando el proceso a través del correo que sufrió su madre.

Sabía que estaba en problemas cuando el guardia de seguridad alerta me envió de vuelta a mi automóvil cuando vio mi navaja de bolsillo. Cuando volví, tuve el privilegio de hacer cola para responder varias preguntas en una computadora con pantalla táctil para que me dieran un número que me permitiera hablar con un ser humano.

No había suficientes asientos, así que tuvimos que pararnos. Lo único que se podía hacer era mirar la red de televisión de la Seguridad Social que estaba reproduciéndose en varias pantallas gigantes de la habitación. El clima fue el punto focal, junto con los mensajes de marketing bien concebidos que lo …

June 20, 2016 No Comments

Communities

Barn shaped blueberry

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Laura and Rory’s barn shaped blueberry tiny home, they designed it themselves, I love the little touches that makes it theirs. With clever ideas, they have made the most out of the small space they call home.

The gambrel roof is a great idea, it creates so much more usable space in the loft area, and the ventilation in the roof area, it’s something I want to incorporate into the SkyCastle.

Here is their video walk thru, enjoy.

https://youtu.be/CvbM_WyrGP8…

June 17, 2016 No Comments

Uninvited guests

They are back, the uninvited guests who arrive as soon as the weather turns warm enough. I’m talking about bugs, insects and arachnids. In the last few weeks we are killing 2 and 3 kissing bugs each night, fortunately they aren’t making it inside the SkyCastle, but it’s not for lack of trying on their part.

They arrive after dark, when you are asleep, they are over an I checked long, crawl up to your face and suck your blood. Think of a giant mosquito with a beetle body…

They carry and spread Chagas, a parasite that causes a chronic disease that slowly eats holes in your heart and lungs, eventually leading to death.

I’m amazed at the lack of knowledge about these insert to, especially here in west Texas, I tell my neighbors about them and they seem oblivious, I suppose it’s mainly because these are nocturnal creatures that are rarely if ever seen during the day.

The other creatures that invade in warmer weather are the ants, spiders, wasps, flies, mosquitoes, fleas and ticks… It’s just a matter of knowing when to expect them and how to make it inhospitable for them.

What creepy crawlies do you deal with and what do you do about it?…

June 14, 2016 No Comments

Keeping your cool

It’s hot here in the desert, but it’s dry heat (as they like to say), this is the time of the year when it gets really warm for us, hitting the high 90s up into the 100s F, we don’t have or use any sort of air conditioning, it uses up a lot of power and this hot period only lasts a few weeks, then the rainy season (monsoon) hits.

So for this short period of time, we look for ways to keep cool, especially during midday when it came get dangerous. The main things we do are:

Take frequent breaks
Don’t work during the heat of the day
Drink lots of water (super important)
Eat light meals
Don’t cook when it’s hot
Stay in the shade
Use fans to circulate air
Find cool spots, shady spots
Work in the morning and later in the day
Nap during the heat
Use a spray bottle of water to cool off
Take a quick cool shower to rinse off and cool down

Fortunately, being the desert for us, it does cool off at night, so it is bearable, many who live around us do use air conditioners and evaporative coolers, we just haven’t seen the need to invest in one of those, if we lived anywhere else, it would be required to have, to survive. How do you get through the heat of summer?…

June 11, 2016 No Comments

Communities

Stealth camper van

Sketch14223912 Living out of a van, for some that would sound like a nightmare, for others, a dream come true. To happily live in a van, you would have to be a minimalist, you could not have loads of stuff, unless you hauled a trailer behind you. Part of me says I could do it, then I look around and realize I’m a major packrat, so I am probably not a good candidate.

This guy seems to have his situation all worked out, I must admit that I absolutely LOVE his “closet”, it’s the best setup to store clothes I’ve seen to date, especially being in a regular full size van.

Watch and enjoy

https://youtu.be/s5CEWqoUTwk…

June 9, 2016 No Comments

Communities

Go away mosquito!

20160606_202454-01_wm
Is Zika a real problem, is it a man made disease, or is it just a smokescreen to deflect our attention somewhere else? I don’t know, what I do know is mosquitoes are a problem, even where I live in the high (and dry) desert. I don’t like using chemicals if I don’t have to, recently I ran across a recipe on Facebook that claims to keep mosquitoes away for up to 80 days, and of course we all know that if it’s found on Facebook that is must be true, right? I shared the recipe to keep it on my timeline, a friend of mine tried it and said it worked for her, so with high hopes I struck out to town today with a short list.

The ingredients are :
3 cans of stale beer
3 cups Epsom salt
1 large bottle of cheap blue mouthwash

Mix all ingredients together until Epsom salt is dissolved, put in a spray bottle and spray the area where you don’t want the mosquitoes, it’s not supposed to hurt plants, it’s not toxic.

OK, I got a 24 ounce can of beer, since I don’t drink beer I didn’t want a 6 pack, and it wasn’t going to be stale, I didn’t think the mosquitoes would mind… I used 2 cups of Epsom salt because of the smaller amount of beer going into the recipe, I mixed the salt & beer together in a saucepan over heat just to quicken the process. Once I couldn’t detect the salt granules, I split the mixture between 2 large spray bottles, then I topped it off with cheap green mouthwash, again I didn’t think the mosquitoes would care if it was spearmint or peppermint.

I took this outside and liberally sprayed the trees and grass in little tree nook where I sit outside. In the past few evenings, sitting outside has been a trial, my arms and legs have lots of itchy mosquito bites. This evening, I have seen exactly 1 mosquito, just 1, I am pretty impressed. I have doubts as to whether or not one spraying will last for 70 or 80 days, but if it lasts for even a few days or a week, I’ll be happy with it. I’ll keep a spray bottle down by the road, that’s where we hang with friends, and the other in my tree nook.

Now for a second DIY product that uses cheap mouthwash. Remember my
https://off-grid.net/keeping-it-clean/? Well I have a better formula, this will be Pit Spray II, the original used half witch hazel and half water with just a few drops of liquid soap. You use this on your stinky parts to clean without having to rinse. I decided to replace the witch hazel & soap with original flavored cheap mouthwash, I did cut it with half water, I chose the original …

June 3, 2016 1 Comment

Communities

It’s not illegal to DIY

diy not1
When I was a kid, electronics and appliances came ready for the end user to repair when necessary, radios and TVs had vacuum tube that you could replace, warranties weren’t voided as a result of breaking the seal on the case. Now days, most electronics are made to be disposable, or you are forced to send it or take it to a licensed, authorized professional to get something repaired.

Being an independent lady, when I’m told there is something I can’t do, that makes me try even harder. Last summer I got a tablet,the idea was to use less power than my laptop, this was a https://amzn.to/214uoqL, it was refurbished and worked well. But lately the battery hadn’t been holding a charge, it got your the point where energy plugged in with a full charge, it would lose power quickly, I could forget about trying to use it off the charger. Since it was refurbished and I’d had it for a while, I decided to change out the battery myself.

They are not supposed to have an end user changeable battery, but a quick search on Amazon let me know I could purchase a new https://amzn.to/1tdzA0R inexpensively, and a quick check on YouTube showed me how to do it. I ordered this battery, I didn’t need the one with a video included so that saved me some money. A few days later I had the package. It came with tools, they were cheap, but they did the job.

I had trouble getting the case cracked open, PB helped get it started, once apart it was just a matter of a few tiny screws and a few ribbon cables to remove the battery, reverse the process to install the new battery and I was in business. I did make one mistake, I didn’t have the battery cable completely seated, it booted up but immediately shut off, I took it apart and checked everything, once I fully seated the battery connection, it worked just fine.

I had a 50% charge, so I fully charged it and after rigorous testing, it works great, I am happy with it. I will be doing this for my smaller https://amzn.to/1tdApa8 soon, I am noticing that battery is holding less of a charge. What about you? Have you replaced something that you weren’t supposed to be able to do? …

May 31, 2016 No Comments

A woman living off-grid

As a woman living off-grid, I can speak definitively about this. But apparently I’m not the average woman. Many women I speak to, they tend to say things like “that is wonderful but I could never live like that…”, I suppose they think I’m living like a cave woman. I can assure you that I do not live like a cave woman, but I am more comfortable with a level of primitiveness (is that even a word? It us now, LOL) that most city dwellers might not find pleasant.

I watched this video talking specifically about this subject, I will say that I personally agree with most of what they discussed, but some of it, we’ll IMHO I think they have some learning ahead of them.

Guys, this is where you can skip ahead or skip altogether if you wish, though if you are planning on bringing along some female company, these are things you will deal with directly or indirectly. Either way, you have been warned. :)

The monthly curse, I like the use of the menstrual cup, I have one, I’ve used it, but with my age comes that other M, menopause, so that is becoming less and less of an issue for me, and for that I am eternally grateful. The thing I personally don’t agree with is the requirement of a daily shower. Especially if you have limited water, if you have to haul it in and such. Of course if you have unlimited water, a well or some other source and have the fuel to heat the water, then daily showers are fine, but for many living off-grid, it’s a luxury that is best saved up for when it’s more necessary.

For me, I’m quite happy taking a sponge bath everyday, I take a full on shower once a week or so, of course if I do something that makes me grimy, yes I’ll take a shower as needed. In the summer I’m likely to hop in the shower and just do a quick rinse between regular showers. But I do not require a daily, full on shower. No I don’t stink, I don’t look dirty, I do work in the public so I have to be presentable. I also don’t wear makeup or bling, it’s just my personal choice, to each their own. :)

Here is the video, watch and enjoy.
…

May 29, 2016 3 Comments

Communities

Life updates in west Texas

20160519_141825 Things have been going pretty well here in the SkyCastle, summer is definitely knocking, warm to hot days, cool to cold nights… The rainy season seems to be trying to start early. I even got caught in a fairly heavy hail storm last week between towns, I pulled over because I couldn’t see and the road was nearly white with ice. But a little farther and I cleared the storm OK.

I took my laptop to town to get it sent away for repair, I had spilled sweet coffee in it a few months ago, it finally quit booting up altogether. Fortunately I had purchased an oops drops & spills warranty through Square Trade, I am so impressed with them. They overnighted a box for me to return it in, complete with a prepaid return label.

I handed it to the FedEx driver at 3pm, Square Trade had it in Dallas the following day. A few days later, they said they might not be able to get the parts to fix it, then another few days later, they confirmed that fact, they immediately cut me a check for the purchase price I paid for it.

I emailed them to ask what they do with the data in the hard drive, they never replied to my email, but a few days later, I received a box that contained the hard drive! Yes, I am impressed and happy.

Now I have the task to pick out another laptop, I’ve been using my tablet, but for writing, it’s nowhere as easy to use, I can type fast on a regular keyboard, but on a tablet, I just don’t have those crazy thumb skills I see all the teens & 20somethigs doing.

In this same week, I finally got a haircut, it’s only been 2 years, the lady who does it is a jewel, Im sure we chatted longer than she worked on my hair… You can see my way picture above, a rare selfie showing off my new trim.

I hope to have my new laptop in hand in the next couple of weeks, I have some fun and serious things to do with it, more about that later.…

May 27, 2016 No Comments

Communities

Solar panels Suspected cause of Fire

A spate of reports across the world pinpoint faulty solar installations as the cause of serious house fires. Badly installed isolators are just one of the possible issues. The problems worsen when it is not possible to shut off the solar power after the fire has started.

But there are positive sides to sad tales of homes being immolated by faulty solar: Here is one from Will Elrick in Australia

“In a moment without realising, a community not seen, then suddenly a community rallying around and are ready and waiting to help pick up the pieces.

About five weeks ago our house which we had only lived in for three months burned to the ground and everything was lost.

We are relatively new to the area and do not really know many people. We lived off the grid and in an isolated area; hence no-one saw the fire until my partner came home to find the house burned to the ground.

It was then our lives were changed. With this tragedy (it is still shocking to be writing this) we have found such amazing people around, and to be quite honest I am not sure where we would be without the community and their generosity.

The reason I am writing this, is that we would like to say thank you; thank you for your help, generosity and outright kindness.

Luckily we were insured (thank goodness) and this has highlighted the importance of this.

Another point to consider when living off the grid is solar. If anyone has solar please get a check up and make sure an expert comes and gives you a ticket of health. We will never really know what started our fire but the investigation found that a strong possibility was that the fire started from our solar system. I think solar is one of the future ways for energy production however like all types of technology it needs to be installed properly and checked regularly.

We were lucky in some ways as a large bushfire could have started but, because of the fire prevention work we did this was not the case. It is also important for the other property owners around the area and also the animal and plant kingdoms that we reside with that they weren’t affected.

Again we would like to say thank you to our community, without your generosity and help life would be a lot different.

It is interesting that the fire affected us both differently; I still feel a huge sense of loss and sadness particularly for my partner as she had collected things from all over the world. She feels a sense of sadness but at the same time knows that life’s plans are never totally determined by us, as outside influences play such a large part in the world; but indeed how we react to them and the …

May 26, 2016 No Comments

Communities

Root cellars

rootcellar
With spring in the air, summer right around the corner, many of our gardens are booming with lots of produce, much of it we eat right away, but it’s nice to be able to save some for later in the year, that’s where root cellars come in handy, they keep the temperatures moderated (not too hot, not too cold) and keep the humidity consistent so our fruits and veg stay fresh longer.

Root cellars, as the name indicates are dug into the ground, if you have a hill or slope you can incorporate that into your design making it unnecessary to dig a hole but rather tunnel into the hill. You can also place a structure on top of the ground and pile dirt around the sides, even over the top if it’s strong enough.

There are many ways to create a root cellar, from creating a large walk in space to burying an old fridge or freezer in the ground. Here are a couple of ways to do it. Do you have a root cellar? If so, how do you use it and how do you like it?

https://youtu.be/C32MqyE26w4