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Have container, will settle
Bangor Daily News ^ | 6/21/11 | Bill Trotter

Posted on 06/21/2011 2:45:35 PM PDT by Kartographer

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To: Peter from Rutland
I’m in MA and last winter was insanity.

We're just east of Worcester, and I agree. Though in our 23 years here, we've had a couple of winters like that; early on. But we're making plans to remodel, get the heck out of here and move back home to MS, and I'd love to do it before next winter. Remains to be seen if we can do it, but I'd sure love NOT to spend another winter here that's like the last one.

41 posted on 06/21/2011 5:27:43 PM PDT by SuziQ
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To: Paladin2
"That's interesting as in my "People's Republic" one can build a shed without any building code requirements."

...same here. The part about shipping containers is in another part of the code.

"Maybe I should have a couple of containers dropped off to test the system. (They would work as garages AFAICT)"

Sounds like a plan. ;-) I've seen a few containers on neighbors' places around here and haven't heard of any persecution over them, yet. The cost of getting them here is the only thing preventing me from using them somehow. ...more expensive than on the coasts. I'm also cheap and tend to build agricultural structures at even lower costs than that (no structural permits for agricultural structures here, only electrical, plumbing, etc.).


42 posted on 06/21/2011 5:56:13 PM PDT by familyop (Shut up, and eat your brains!)
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To: little jeremiah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthbag_construction


43 posted on 06/21/2011 6:00:12 PM PDT by Tucson_AZ (A million seconds ~ 12 days; a billion ~ 31 years; a trillion ~ 31,000 years - now think dollars)
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To: Tucson_AZ

I’ve seen a bit of info about them before but figured (rightly or wrongly) that they would work in very arid climates but not with very wet winters. We get on the average about 65 inches a year, in about 7 months mostly. We do have very clay soil, though! Or rather, very clayey clay.

;-)


44 posted on 06/21/2011 6:28:32 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: Kartographer; All
I wish them well - however, two things right off make me think they'll have a tough time: If Helen and Scot Nearing are their role models, they are in trouble.

Two: With all information and uniquely designed homes made from containers - they simply plunked the two down, separately, and are living in a space only 8’ wide. That's going to shrink considerable come the winter months!

If they had simply put them side by side and converted into a 16’ x 20’ living area - it would be quite comfortable - if spaced them side by side with 4-8’ in between, then simply connecting them with a roof and end walls, they'd have a really comfortable place - with enough space to have a wood stove safely.

Now, back to Helen and Scot Nearing.
she was from Europe, born into wealth. Scot was from Pennsylvania. She met him when she was 20-21 and he was in his 40’s, jobless, a Communist - a teacher who could no longer get a job due to his writings.

He thoroughly converted her and they bought a farm in Vermont but were never accepted by the locals. Years later, they moved to Maine.

In both places, they had hundreds of young people who wanted to learn how to ‘live the good life’ would come to visit - and end up building walls, cutting wood, weeding gardens, helping to build the houses, etc - FREE.

The home in Maine is a lovely Swiss Chalet style, two story stone and wood. NOT austere at all. Even after Scot died, at 100, hundreds would make their way to the ‘homestead’ and find themselves doing chores - and maybe be fed a bowl of popcorn.

And what most people never realized was that Helen and Scot didn't ‘winter’ in Maine. Palm Beach and the French Riviera was where they skipped off to.

Now there is a couple up there that bought a good chunk of the Nearings land - I think soon after Helen died - who IS living the way people thought the Nearings did.

http://www.fourseasonfarm.com/

I grew up (I'm a great gramma now) on a farm further up north with my grandparents. That was s time before electricity was put in. People then lived the way the Nearings pretended to. (The Nearings money came from their writings, not from ‘homesteading’ or farming.)

ON my grandparents farm - and the others up there - , they were truly independent - never had to work off the farm. With our gardens - vegetables, fruits, berries, eggs and chickens in the coop, beef, milk and pork in the barn, wild game in the woods, fish in the waters - we always had a years worth of food on hand. For thing we couldn't produce, like sugar, molasses, coffee, flour - grammie traded her butter and sold her eggs - and cabbage from her market garden. Grampa sold and traded his berries, was a Maine Guide and, with his gas powered lathe, made tennis racket frames for a famous outfit - and so on.

REAL self-sufficient people.

We watch young people like this come to Maine with stars in their eyes and “The Good Life” under their arms. Not many make it. But I wish them luck - they have, at least, chosen a good area where people will help them.

I wish them well, tripping over one another this winter in a 8’ wide space.

45 posted on 06/21/2011 6:45:22 PM PDT by maine-iac7 (I AM ISRAEL)
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To: Kartographer
The Clinton Library looks like a shipping container:


46 posted on 06/21/2011 8:41:50 PM PDT by LibFreeOrDie (Obama promised a gold mine, but will give us the shaft.)
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To: hoosierham

Agreed. I read all of Nearings books and Mother Earth News back in the 70’s. It’s damn hard work and it’s usually only obtainable if you don’t have a real job, but you still need money.


47 posted on 06/22/2011 3:45:40 AM PDT by caver (Obama: Home of the Whopper)
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To: maine-iac7

I didn’t know all that about the Nearings. Interesting!


48 posted on 06/22/2011 3:50:23 AM PDT by caver (Obama: Home of the Whopper)
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To: caver

I suppose the Nearings were paid for their books and articles thus giving them some real money ,unlike the average schmuck who tried to live in that style.
Some other publications seem to have a few prolific writers of how-to-survive-on-nothing but I just bet without the checks from writing they’d be looking for work.
Subsidence gardening and disinclination to have offspring is NOT a long term social survival mechanism.
I think people like the Nearing ought really to held up as example of social misfits who lead people to waste their lives.


49 posted on 06/22/2011 1:35:24 PM PDT by hoosierham (Waddaya mean Freedom isn't free ?;will you take a credit card?)
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