Any one watching? On the Green Channel.  150 acres and a cabin.



Pretty good so far.
John

I really enjoy that show.  Now if I could get the wife on board, we live on a small 10 acre farm 10 min from town now and I want out in the bush.  It would be great to be able to live like that, what a life.

I liked the show, but i noticed one thing....his concept of simpler living means hiring contractors to hook up everything for him, so not sure where the simpler living comes in.

He has power thanks to a rockin solar system.  The Xantrex / Outback stuff must have cost at least $ 20 G's.

Hiring crews to put up pre-fab homes, even tiny ones, and hiring helicopters to haul it in was very expensive.

The last shot is them sitting in front of a fire with all the lights in the house on....eating up their batteries.

So, other than roughing it out in the woods in a well insulated home with solar / wind power, a real nice outhouse, with wood stove....where is the simple living coming in ?

Where is the garden....where is the beehive....where are the chickens / rabbits / lambs / goats....you know...farm animals...

Just my observation.


EDIT:  As my wife just reminded me....it's like a Hollywood version of what simple living means....I guess i expected it to be more like Green Acres meets the Amish.

that was really cool.

I agree with SFC.  It seemed pretty odd how they went about pretty much everything they did. They spent massive amount of money and seemingly used little common sense.

Would it not have been cheaper and made a hell of alot more sense to buy an older used backhoe ($6,000-8,000) Which he could have used to develope his road , dig his water cistern , dig drainage to he can have more usable land. Hell they built in an area that turns into a wet mess of standing water... Not to mention keep his road clear in the winter.

With a usable road they could have trucked in materials and built a proper structure that would be able to he heated efficiantly. I can understand his "dream" but it seems like somone sat down and was like ok we need to do all this asap just to shoot a show. So how can we just hurry up and make this work.

Bad, you make very good points as well.

The first thing that caught my attention was...Why are they starting to do all this in the dead of winter ?  Had they thought it out, they would have used the summer to prep the road and start building so it was ready in winter.

I think you are right, it was rushed so they could shoot a show.  They said at the end it was their second summer.  Seems like not much was done in two full years at the site.

I still like watching it though.  Makes you think hard about what you would do.

I don't know about you, but if I had someone at Discovery with a checkbook ready, I would be having my stuff brought in with a helo too... Just sayin'

Like the old sayin goes, you either have the money or the time, rarely both.  Looks like survivorman has the money (or at least his producers do), and I say good for him.

it's a good show for the most part.  others have already mentioned my gripes about it - i don't care if you use helicopters to bring in every stick of wood you use, but don't represent yourself as some sort of environmentalist.  you can also find the show on youtube.

It's a good show if for no other reason that it really illustrates what happens when you fail to follow "the six Ps":

Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

I just watched it here

Yes, it seems getting off the grid is expensive. Spending $20K on solar can be done quite quickly. If your electricity (Hydro) bill is $110/mo you have over a 15 year ROI. Not very cost effective.

All in all, it was quite interesting to watch. I think a better example is Doug Fine and his book Farewell My Subaru

Thanks for the link

I believe he says they are "miles" (whatever that means) from the nearest power lines.  How much would it cost to have lines run all the way to their structures?

Also I got the idea that by simpler they meant not having to rely on other people and the government for services along with bringing them closer together as a family.  I think that Les rightly recognizes that moving back out to a structure like he and his wife lived in for their first year of marriage (you see it near the beginning of the show) is not a practical solution for long term "off the grid" living with a family.  I agree that some of the stuff with the helicopter and seasonal timing seemed weird, but we don't know the totality of the circumstances.

Could of bought one hell of a gen set for what all that solar cost.  Plus there is a propane fridge ?  Fun to watch  i would of done diffrent  but stil cool i guess.