The next step

Hello everyone,

So we all have all these pretty awesome ideas for how to run our farm, be it crops, livestock, electricity and running water, but unfortunately we don't have any land yet.

Well, let's get some! As far as I know, and feel free to expand on this, we are looking for between 20 and 25 acres. Conservatively, let's say that will cost us 35-4ok. We may also want to take a little bit more out that the cost of land for starting equipment, mainly work vehicles. So let's say we are looking at a 50k loan for simplicity.

The next step is to figure out what interests rates we are capable of getting, what the required down payment will be and whether or not anyone will even give us a loan in today's "market." I am going to recommend that myself and perhaps Alex should start going to banks and having sit downs about getting the loan. This is going to raise a few questions that we are going to need definitive answers to, such as who is going to take out the loan and who is going to be ready to work when.

Throw me some feedback on how you think we should proceed with this endeavor.

JP

TinyTech

Everyone checkout this website. We can get some cool shit from India.

http://www.tinytechindia.com/ruralelecscheme.htm

Properties

John Stuart Mill stated that all men have an inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property. we've got life, we're looking for liberty, and we need property.


Post as a response any links to properties we might be interested in, or any guidelines you believe we should consider while shopping.

A Layout

I'm back from a week sleeping in a blueberry field, and I have never been more excited to get this project started!

Necessities
Food
-where are we going to store it? how much will we need? we need to have enough room to store the products we will create as well as the capacity to store it for a relatively long time. I recommend a workshop/storage barn where we could keep tools and vehicles when they aren't being used, with electric to run a freezer. We will be designing this project to be low-maintenance and user-serviceable whenever possible, so having a designated workspace will help in keeping things organized when we have so many things going on at once.
Water
Rainwater collection seems feasible, and seems like the best option or the start. Off of a 100 square foot tarp in Maine I collected 10 gallons of water in about 20 minutes. If we organize things properly, we should be able to meet our requirements. I would like to have a well on the property, but to save money at start-up, it looks like we'll have to do without for a little while.
Shelter
We will need immediate shelter for those who will be moving to the property at the beginning. That could be a tent village if we can construct housing quickly, perhaps a trailer so that we can move right in. So far as trailers go, I am concerned about their resale value, since it wouldn't be something I'd like to have on the property as time goes on.
Sanitation
The thing that I found most important this week was finding a place to poop. We went up armed with shovels but after just 2 wildershits I found myself breaking into an outhouse on a neighboring property. it's really nice to sit down, and having a roof over your TP can't be overrated. This is really something we need to have integrated into our living space, but if we start off as tent city, I recommend that we build an outhouse.
Electricity
Where we'll want to put the equipment is open for debate, and will depend to a degree on the property we get, but I would like to use a combination of solar/wind for power.
http://www.mrsolar.com/page/msos/sizingindustrial has a template to help decide what we'll want to do, and from there we can decide on solutions.

Composting toilet

http://www.compostingtoiletbook.com/products.html#Plans

Alright I think its time we start getting creative and planning out what we want and how we want it to work. come up with a mock layout, blah blah.

Points of Unity

Andrew showed me this.

www.nornc.org

I like their Points of Unity. Sounds like pretty much what we believe I think. Think about these? Talk with each other about them? If we can come up with common principles to work around and help us in our problem solving it might make things even easier than they already are for us.

1. A rejection of Capitalism¹, Imperialism², and the State³;

2. Resist the commodification⁴ of our shared and living Earth;

3. Organize on the principles of decentralization⁵, autonomy⁶, sustainability⁷, and mutual aid⁸;

4. Work to end all relationships of domination and subjugation, including but not limited to those rooted in patriarchy⁹, race¹⁰, class¹¹, and homophobia¹²;

5. Oppose the police¹³ and prison-industrial complex¹⁴, and maintain solidarity¹⁵ with all targets of state repression;

6. Directly confront systems of oppression¹⁶, and respect the need for a diversity of tactics¹⁷.

1Capitalism: A Capitalist system values profit and material greed above everything else. The bosses own the machines and coerce profits out of the workers. They use their monopoly on wealth and control over institutions of force (the police) to pay the lowest possible ‘wages’. Capitalism is a distortion of the market to provide privileges to one class at everyone elses’ expense. This is the current economic system in almost the entire world.

2Imperialism: When one nation, state, or economic system dominates another. Imperialism is at the heart of the current Bush administration’s policies.

3The State: A political organization that exists to support the ruling class by managing and policing people. The state is considered by most, though not by us, as the only modern institution that may legitimately use violence to achieve its goals, via the military and the police. The relationship between capitalism and the state can be clearly seen in the recent Enron and Halliburton scandals.

4Commodification: What happens when those things we share in common, like air, land, water, experience, emotions, and love, are appropriated by business and sold back to us. For example, the water from the Great Lakes which is being taken by Nestle and sold at a profit to consumers in their bottled water (Ice Mountain, Perrier, Poland Springs, Calistoga).

5Decentralization: The principle that we are happiest, healthiest, and most free, when we control our own local institutions. The principle of decentralization means that no one in Washington D.C. should be controlling folks in Saint Paul, or be controlled by them.

6Autonomy: The principle that our lives are most just, and most enjoyable, when we are able to live by the laws we give ourselves. The word comes from ancient Greek, and means ‘the law of the self.’

7 Sustainability: The principle that our societies must live in the world without destroying it. Our practices must be able to be continued forever, not only for the next thirty years (before we asphyxiate ourselves or our children).

8Mutual Aid: One of the oldest principles of anarchist organizing, mutual aid is the principle that we are most effective, autonomous, and sustainable when we help each other achieve our aims without dominating each other. The famous anarchist scientist Peter Kropotkin wrote a famous and still influential book in which he pointed out that Mutual Aid is a “factor in evolution.” Not all of life is reducible to the principle of the ’survival of the fittest,’ and a ‘war of each against all.’

9Patriarchy: The ‘rule of the fathers,’ a social habit in which only certain men have authority, and where masculine qualities are valued over feminine ones. People are punished for failing to live within assigned gender roles. We often find patriarchy even in oppositional movements, for instance whenever a movement is dominated by a few well-meaning, educated, white, men.

10Race: There is no scientific basis for the concept of race, but it dominates our interactions, even when all the people in a single room are of ‘one race.’ Race and skin color help to determine your power in society.

11Class: A term referring to the position of economic groups in society. Your power in society and over your own life is directly related to your economic situation.

12Homophobia: Hatred of or discomfort with anything aside from prescribed heterosexual norms. Rooted in sexism, a fear of difference, and a cultural aversion to sexuality.

13Police: A group of working class people who have sold their loyalty to the state. They are paid to enforce existing power structures through the use of violence. The police as a class are enemies of any movement for liberation.

14Prison-Industrial Complex: A modern partnership between the State and Capital. Prisons punish rather than heal. The Prison-Industrial Complex imprisons the most rebellious and oppressed communities in our country, and then holds them in for-profit prisons, both public and private, that taxpayers are forced to financially support. The prisoners are then forced to labor (for free or literally pennies an hour) to create commodities for sale by the capitalists. See also, “Prison Blues” Jeans.

15Solidarity: The support we lend to others in fighting for a better world, whether our support is material, political, or emotional. Solidarity is occasionally summed up in the slogan, “An injury to one is an injury to all.”

16Systems of Oppression: Any of the numerous systems that take their strength from the domination and subjugation of others.

17Diversity of Tactics: A tactic is a practice intended to achieve a goal. There may be many ways to ’skin a cat,’ and this principle insists that while we may choose to identify or practice only one type of tactic, we leave the policing of tactics to the police. We will not attack our sisters and brothers for using tactics that are not our own. Having a diversity of tactics means we are stronger overall.

AltE Webinar: Preparing for Renewable Energy

This is a webinar I found. I am at work so I haven't watched it but it looks good. This website has a lot of resources on the renewable energy.

http://store.altenergystore.com/webinar/AltE-Webinar-Preparing-for-Renewable-Energy-w6184/

We need to come up with a list of appliances that we need/want and the watts per hour that they use so I can start working on sizing and pricing an electric system.

Freezer?
Stereo?
Laptop?
Modem?