Among the things I ramble on about; skills, self reliance, and liberty rank in the top few. You might say that it’s become an obsession of mine.

Lately, I have been looking for ways to make my life more resilient to the unpredictable world around us than I already have. With food stored, new skills always in the works, and caches spreading, I asked myself, “How far can I really go?”

Since I was a small child, I have always loved experiments. Over the next few years, I will take myself as far off the grid as possible, while still remaining in the city and remaining part of society.

The focal points of this experiment will be: Food, Water, and Energy.

The first step in the experiment will be food. Water may be more important in the scheme of things, but at the moment their aren’t any major imminent issues around water. Food prices on the other hand are experiencing significant inflation and at the rate I eat meat, it’s getting pricey.

Yep, I said meat. Live stock is more appealing to me than gardening. That being said, gardening will be the next phase of this experiment. By then, there should be plenty of manure to work with.

Wabbit Season

This past weekend Jason McConneil, known as the “Redneck Resource” on my podcast, and I kicked things off by building Rabbit Hutches. We spent approximately 8 1/2 hours working on them, and by the time we were finished we were rather impressed with ourselves.

Sure, hutches can be bought from just about any pet store, but where’s the fun and blisters in that? My girlfriend even stopped by the shop and helped for 30 minutes, till she decided it was boring and went to go workout.

Rather than building a stand for the hutches. we went with a method of suspending the cages with zinc coated chains, recommended by the breeder I met with. The notion is that it makes cleanup and manure collection easier.

By the time we were done, we had two cages with internal dividers that allowed for housing four rabbits. This weekend we’ll put the roof on and pick up the rabbits.

Update soon…

Resources:

Storey’s Guide To Raising Rabbits, 4th Edition by Bob Bennett
In The Rabbit Hole Podcast, Episode 15
Brant’s Woodforest Pets – Prebuilt cages and cage building supplies
Pneumatic Air Nippers
Boling Bunny Farm – Rabbit Breeder