I saw this pileated woodpecker on one of our poplar trees today. In this picture it looks rather small but actually these birds have a foot long wingspan and their raucous call can be heard throughout the hamacka. This isn't a rare bird at all but it's quite a majestic sight to see filtering through the tree canopy. To be honest it's quite funny when all of our fowl mistake it for a hawk, they all duck and cover from a bird that eats insects, not chickens.

The River Side Arts Market

Here's what we usually do on the weekends in out neck of the woods, This is our local farmer's market. There you can find all sorts of things from local produce, homemade items as well as plants for sale.

Our market actually takes place under one of our many bridges that span across the St. Johns river.

Talking to vendors can often be beneficial, you can network, buy sell and trade, and possibly visit some of their establishments away from the market stand. There you can learn more about urban agriculture and you can share information and discuss new ideas. 

The Unintentional Off Grid Lifestyle Part Three

Well this is the latest installment of my series, I thought I should go over a few ways and tips to save money.

The first and easiest thing to do is consider turning off your water heater when you leave for work. It can save you around $50 dollars each month and when you return home, or when you plan on taking a shower just turn it back on. Most water heaters only take about 20 minutes to warm the water, so it's a good thing to keep in mind. Just remember to turn it back on or else you'll be taking cold showers at the end of a long day. If you want to you can be brazen enough to just forget the water heater entirely. Hot water dries out your skin, where as room temperature water helps retain the moisture. I have done this, but it's really just because I'm to lazy to check to see if it's on, so I just take a shower anyways.

The second thing I will mention is to make your own beverages. If you cut out all the fancy juices in your diet you can save a lot of money too, besides many of the drinks you buy at the store are actually sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. ( I will post why this is bad later) The easiest thing you can make is tea, you can either make sweet tea or you can make those fruit teas. All you need is one average sized tea bag for a pitcher of tea. That's actually all we have in our house, water and tea. The fruit teas have the same flavor as the juice without all the additives. Think of how much money you could save by doing that, then you can spend your money mindlessly elsewhere.

I'm sure you heard of this one already, make sure all of your lights are off when you're not using them. Then unplug and appliances that you aren't using, because they are still using electricity on the stand by mode.

Another way to cut expenses is at meal time. As far as breakfast goes, we eat oatmeal to cut down on the food bill. It costs only three dollars per person per month. No we do not have those little fancy packets we eat oatmeal out of the Quaker canisters, we just use cinnamon and brown sugar as flavoring, it tastes exactly the same and you can add other things as well such as dried fruit and vanilla extract. I think it's much better than eating GMO corn cereal. Although, because of the way we run things here, we always make things from raw ingredients.

 Last week, we ran out of ground cinnamon for our oatmeal but I discovered we had cinnamon sticks in their natural state sitting on our shelf. To my suprise grinding a cinnamon stick is not an easy task, it took me about five minutes to mash one into splinter form, and I wasn't going to stand there for however long it was going to take me to get it into power form. For those past five days, I didn't eat breakfast, no cinnamon no oatmeal, simple as that. Basically what I'm trying to so say is, don't wear yourself out for a darn bowl of oatmeal, it's just not worth it, do what you can do,nothing more. Modify your food choices to your life, not the other way around.

Again, this way of living is not for everyone, it's difficult and time consuming, but if you can make little changes throughout the day you'll end up saving money and your health in the long run.

                                                      Finally.......

Home Sweet Home

I saw this little shanty in the woods and I thought wow, I wonder if someone lived in this at some point of time?

I also found that it has a sun roof.

I know this is a pointless post, but I thought I should share this, it's not everyday you see something like this in the woods.

It did however have a nice backyard.

The Unintentional Off Grid Lifestyle Part Two

As I have stated before my off grid lifestyle was unintentional, which is why I call this series in the blog, "The Unintentional Off Grid Lifestyle." I think out biggest accomplishment is that we haven't owned a car in about six years. (We traded it to remove a tree that was hovering over our house.) If we do use a car, we ride share. I know this may sound strange but when you don't have a car you really do appreciate the the little things in life, such as going to the grocery store on your own time, and taking your time there as well. It really does change your life though, you become healthier by walking or bicycling, and you become mentally stronger as well, I'll explain. What I mean by you become healthier is, when you need to go to the store for say, a gallon of milk, you have two options, you can either go by bicycle or by foot. Either way you go, you have to carry home about 7 lbs of liquid home with you. I have to say carrying your things home in a bag sounds like a good idea but it is HELL, so don't overestimate yourself. Never in my life have my shoulders been so sore. Then again with us we buy everything in bulk so whenever we come back from shopping we have a lot of luggage to take home. I think I lost about thirty pounds since we stopped using a vehicle as our main means of transportation, imagine what it can do for all of you dieters out there. As far as the mentally being stronger part goes, I mean that you appreciate being at home, everyday is a stay cation. Of course you have to appreciate it because or else you'll hate it, it's best to see the positive side of things. I really can't tell you how bad the withdrawal was from not having a vehicle and being able to just get out and drive in the country side for a while, or some other type of whimsical trip. You become content with what you have. When I tell people about not having a vehicle I always say, "I'm as happy as I allow," all I'm trying to state is that I allow myself to be happy and to be grateful for the things I have. They look at me like I'm nuts and it is somewhat true, but then they smile and laugh as they see me walking down the street, with that gallon of milk.

Now I'm not telling you to put your little priuses for sale on craigs list, keep your cars! You will need them to drive junior to the hospital if he falls on his arse and blood is splattered everywhere. You can however walk or ride your bicycle to do little errands, or you can ride share. It's very difficult to ride home with a fifty pound bag of feed on your lap while riding a bicycle, don't ask, just trust me it is. So you will need a vehicle to do those types of things, but like I said you can ride share or you can spend $40,000 on some eco car to save you $100 of gas each month, the choice is yours. You just have to have good friends and schedules that are alike that way you can go to the store at the same time and kill two birds with one stone, more if possible.

 I prefer to do things by bike, it's so  much easier and quicker, I also like the feeling of the outdoors, just don't get run over by a car. Find bike lanes or short cuts.

Rounded up in a cheese cloth, it's not for everyone, I understand a lot of you have kids that have soccer practice and things of that nature, and you wouldn't be the same without your minivan, or you may just live too far from a store to walk or ride a bike to, but you can make little changes. They don't have to be big ones at all, like I said work it into your schedule and don't put yourself through hell. We only did it because we had the time and the will power (and we needed our tree gone) , but don't be afraid to try new things. Let me forewarn you all though, it is NOT easy, I repeat NOT easy, but I do encourage you to try it for at least on day if it's possible, to help the environment, to help your mental sanity (although you will go crazy for the first few weeks if you do this cold turkey), and to better your health.

Here is our bike lane, I just wanted to show you all that yes that's what those little lines are for, designated off grid living participants.

How to Feed a Mocking Bird

The mockingbird is our state bird, this little resident of the oak trees is actually one of the most aggressive birds in Florida. There have been many occasions where I've had to rescue their young out of the rain gutter and they expressed their gratitude by dive bombing me. I have to say these are birds of little brain but they do know how to defend their territory quite well, the one shown above is one I took a picture of on one of my walks. It was sitting nicely on a neighbor's fence, he was camera shy though, as you can see he did fly away.

I strongly encourage people to feed the wild bird population, we use thousands of acres of land every year to build houses, use for timber land and whatnot that the wild animal population has no where to reside. It can be as simple as hanging a bird feeder in a tree or placing a small  terra cotta saucer with water on an upturned pot that birds can use as a small bird bath.

Placing a bird house in a tree can also encourage nesting among local birds. Small little modifications like these can make a big difference when it comes to re establishing local wildlife numbers.

On our urban farm we have colonies of bees, blue birds, starlings, and even chickens. Most are welcomed however Florida, being as fickle as she can be, send us her own colonies, ones that sting like a bee and appear to be completely harmless. In the picture shown above are fire ants, yes fire ants, as you can imagine their sting is similar to a bee sting. Now these little things can be beneficial, they clean up all that road kill that some road maintenance crews miss. They can clean a carcass in few days, as well as invade and rob a bee hive. I am one of those types of people who like to work with nature rather than against it. fire ants though, can over stay their welcome, as you can see they have invaded my herb garden. A harmless way (to the environment mind you not the ants) to get rid of these nuisances is a pot of boiling water, that way you don't have to use heavy pesticide. Just pour the pot of boiling water directly on the ant hill or the source where they are coming from, it may seem gruesome, but it does the job, and that's that.