Interesting things we’ve found in the undergrowth #467154219:
I do remember there being some troughing on that shed and a downpipe, so putting the sink there next to the old wartime vegetable plot would have made sense. It would have stayed fresh with regular rainfall and any overflow would have just slopped over the top. I really like the thinking behind it: it’s simple and effective.
Sometimes it seems like this off-grid project is a bit pie-in-the-sky, especially when I start to think about the myriad of practical details in all their complexities and wonder if it will ever come to pass, but the fact that, as Nick Rosen said in How to Live Off-grid: Journeys Outside the System: “We were all off-grid once,” is always a comforting one. Because it doesn’t have to be complicated, does it? And the proof of that is right there, on our own plot.
2 Comments
June 23, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Re: “we were all off grid once..” too true. I get a tear in my eye thinking of my grandfathers natural make do and mend waste not want not a stitch in time saves nine ways. They had one gas fire they used very occasionally, the house was in darkness due to saving on lightbulbs, all veg grown in the garden. No washing machine, telephone only for emergencies. Ye washed in an inch or two of water, only flushed the toilet when absolutely necessary. Every item that could be reused (like the wrappers off the butter) would be cleaned and folded carefully away.
He grew up with no electricity, no toilet, no phone…as did a lot of his generation. He shone health despite a really rather awfully hard beginning.
We take it all for granted these days I spose, but going without wouldn’t be the worst thing that happened to us.
Lovely sink!
June 24, 2008 at 7:04 am
Yes, it seems like we’re all addicted to the plug-in, switch-on life now, doesn’t it? Regardless of the financial and political difficulties it might cause. And I hate just throwing things away – it feels so unintelligent, somehow. A cop out.
The sink has long since had its day I suspect! Belfast sinks are lovely, but need re-enamelling every few years, don’t they? Our kitchen one could do with a touch up now, since a great big lump was knocked off it recently. Mysteriously.