Off Grid Behaviors
Off Grid Behaviors
Emergency Preparedness Enthusiast's Guide to Self-Reliant Living
Imagine standing amidst a thriving garden, the fruits of your labor bringing not just food to the table but also a profound sense of preparedness and community. That's the vision I, Barry Smith, unfold in our latest podcast adventure, where we traverse the path from a casual garden box project to a deep-dive into sustainability and self-reliance. We uncover the secrets of raised bed gardens, the alchemy of innovative composting, and the simple genius of rainwater harvesting—all inspired by lessons from the Augusta Locally Grown Homesteading Conference and a surprising muse, 'The Walking Dead.'
From the unsettling quiet of a 2014 ice storm to a confidently stocked survival toolkit, I recount the transformation into an emergency-preparedness enthusiast. Listen in for a toolkit of tips—from generators humming in the background to a neatly-packed go-bag—crafted for those moments when the grid blinks out. While balancing the demands of city life with off-grid aspirations, I walk you through savvy strategies to minimize your footprint and keep your space pest-free. It's a journey of foresight, blending the rugged with the practical, and a testament to the resilience we can foster within ourselves.
As the sun sets on another episode, we cast our gaze over the verdant promise of a Southern garden. Join our green-thumbed community as we chart out a season's worth of okra, squash, and heirloom tomatoes, and share in the sweet anticipation of planting fruit trees. We're rolling up our sleeves and getting our hands dirty, learning from past trials with berries and looking ahead to the homemade protein shakes they'll soon yield. So connect your earbuds, grab those gardening gloves, and let's embark on this growth journey together—where every seed sown is a step towards greater sustainability and community.
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Barry Smith, off gray behaviors. We're being abnormal is completely acceptable. First of all, I'd like to thank you guys for tuning in again. This is second episode. It was supposed to go up last week by, however, comma. Due to whatever reason, it just wouldn't upload. But I'm here to redo it and resubmit it. I would like to talk a little bit about the conference I went to last weekend in Augusta. Georgia is the Augusta locally grown homesteading conference.
Barry Smith:I learned a lot or a couple of classes I was very interested in, for example, the raised bed gardens. You know, building something very efficient compost bin, which seems very elementary but it's more to it than it seems. Rainwater harvesting, which is in some cities I mean some states, I heard, is illegal but not here in Georgia. And then I came across something dealing with that preparedness by Brandy, while she has a farm here, and that really took me to another level of thinking about how to be prepared for certain things. But first of all, what got me into building raised garden beds was when I was teaching a few years ago and we went into lockdown with COVID. I built this garden box and it was very inspirational. Just a building process, taking some screws, taking some compost, putting some stuff together and to wash. Those plants grow like that, which is. It was amazing just to see that little bit of growth and it just brought me ever since then and hadn't been able to stop Then. Secondly, of course, when the pandemic hit, I started watching the Walking Dead and that was something as well. It took me down a rabbit hole watching the Walking Dead and those series really did something to me as well. I started building a compost bin out of my property last year. It was just this old trash bin thing or whatever it was so I started throwing stuff in there and turning it over, but of course I got lost by not taking care of it because I was doing a lot of traveling last summer. I didn't even plan anything really last summer because of the traveling, but now I know a little bit more just by doing research and trial and error.
Barry Smith:Then the rainwater harvesting. The gentleman was talking about how rainwater can come off your roof If you have a 1600 square foot roof, and what you could expect to how many gallons you could kind of predict off of that, how to keep it strained and how to keep it clean and what to do with afterwards, how to connect various containers if you needed more or less. So that was informational. And, of course, the garden beds making those a little bit more efficient by not just packing those things full of the expensive soil that you get out of the box stores, but filling the bottle maybe possibly with starting with cardboard there's some sticks and some leaves and then go from there. But building a box and putting it full of that expensive material from the stores can be costly. So figure out ways to make it more efficient and use what you need only.
Barry Smith:But Brandy Wallace of Wallace Farms talked about preparedness, and what got me super excited was this. He mentioned that and many times in your city or state they will make these announcements about a test on the radio or TV with a big horn or siren, and you'll know what it is. This is only a test or whatever else it might be, but unfortunately they don't tell you what you're supposed to do. When that happened, I don't know about you, but I don't have an underground tunnel or anything like that in my yard. I don't have anything like that. So what do I? What does anybody else do? Right, what type of escape route. What do you do? Because we live near a nuclear power plant, we live near an army base, so we're talking about, I think, three or four reactors that are out there. So everyone doesn't have that type of situation when they can build in the backyard bunker.
Barry Smith:So she says she went a step further and went down to the municipal building and asked them, because that was in the law or some information emergency response from years ago. She went to the municipal building and they had no idea what she was talking about, right? So then who knows? Maybe just the elite people who have money, maybe the mayor and some other local officials, maybe they get to go underground and do whatever, but there is no plan. So I would definitely suggest figuring out what your plan is and go from there. So, underground bunker, that's one thing. That seems unrealistic, but my idea was okay, does it really have to be underground? Because my major concern is how do you breathe? I know there's air apparatuses and things like that, but I don't know. I guess if you tucked off somewhere and you built some type of fort, maybe people can get into, but if it comes to that, it just is what it is. So going from there.
Barry Smith:So about the walk of death, as I mentioned earlier, I was binge watching that thing. I was just fascinated by how people come together in a tragic situation. Of course I was disappointed how people didn't come together in a tragic situation. I remember being a part of a team in the military. I love to come. Writer is a little bit different in corporate America and of course, as an educator I don't see my fellow workers as much because we're all teaching. I see kids all day. So it's a little bit different language and a different vibe. But the corporate America sector and the military had a little bit more vibe. As far as talking with adults Now, I spent a lot of time off grid talking to animals and squirrels and crickets and mosquitoes and so forth.
Barry Smith:But back to the. Walk and dead is about 10 seasons and then it has some spin-offs. Then they had some other spin-offs with individual characters like Morgan and Darryl Dixon and of course you guys remember Rick Grimes. He disappeared and I guess the show came back where it's talking about the ones who live. So I'm a shone is looking for Rick Grimes for a husband and I'm looking forward to that. So I downloaded an app on my iPad because I don't have cable out there in the woods and I'm going to be able to stream some of those new episodes of the walk and dead and that's pretty exciting to me. It was just really something about it. Just I mean gathering food, going out, growing food, washing clothes by hand, hanging them up, cooking all the things that I'm used to doing when I was growing up as a kid at my grandparents' house, as I mentioned before on my first episode. So that stuff is I'm duly familiar with all those things. So that is something to consider. If you like to walk and dead, take a look at that. I think it's like 899 if you don't have AMC or Prime, whatever it is, and it keeps me kind of busy and keeps me motivated.
Barry Smith:Speaking of motivation is daylight saving town here in Georgia. I don't know what you guys are located, but it's daylight savings and I've been able to get a lot more accomplished on the farm, being that it is lighter. So what I've been doing is cutting down trees, moving trash around, getting the ground and the beds ready for growing. Some things here in the gust area is like the last frost could be latest mid this month, in March, or it could be first week in April, but usually April is a good time to start, of course, that spring break for me and, as I mentioned before, that first second week in April I'll be on spring break, so hopefully I'll get some stuff in the ground and waiting for nature to water some stuff while I'm gone and come back and ready to get hard and heavy at it. In fact, yesterday I went to a farmers convention, which was a lot of information, and I think, from what I'm working with on the property, I could definitely see myself not just taking care of myself but actually helping different projects that are in place throughout the city, throughout the state, helping kids, helping mothers who need food and vegetables and such.
Barry Smith:Now back to off grid behaviors and why I call it this. I'm not considering myself as a full time off grid person. I have off grid behaviors. For example, I consciously think about what happens if. I'm constantly preparing for what if? Whether it be with solar panels, whether it be with Generators, whether it be with food and water store, whether it be Flashlights, batteries and whatever else camping stuff, I'm in the mindset of thinking about what I need to do if a crisis happen Again, beyond Zombies, we're not talking about that.
Barry Smith:I'm talking about back in 2014 when we had an ice storm here and the city was not prepared. It was about three or four days and it lasted and I thought I was out of the clear because first, two, three days it didn't affect me, but powers out in various places, that the lines got frozen and everything else and I thought I was safe. But like day three or day four, the last day of it, I got iced up, had to take food out of refrigerator and take it to my sister very inconvenient. I Didn't have stand by power, I didn't have a generator, I didn't have solar panels, didn't have any batteries, didn't have a plan whatsoever. Ten years forward, I now have two generators, several backup type of solar power panels and everything else two big RV batteries, portable stoves, portable toilets, back up, everything, if you will. Everything is back and course. Then we're cold.
Barry Smith:We came that really extrapically, really hyper, since it, you know, just took me to another level of being prepared COVID, people losing mine about toilet tissue and water and wipes or whatever else there may be. So in my storage currently I have all those things. If you ever saw the movie, the accountant would been athlete when he had to get out there and do something. He had a storage unit with his beautiful airstream RV and it had different exchanges of money, art Things that you could exchange for money. I'm sure he has some type of ammunition and food sources and everything else.
Barry Smith:So is that that extreme? Yes, it is, but do you have the capability, having something like that if you can't get home and again, I'm not talking about a populist, I'm talking about something as simple as a traffic jam or a Fire in your neighborhood or someone knocking down a telephone pole or power pole in your neighborhood Because they fell asleep behind the wheel, so there's no power in your neighborhood for two or three days? What do you do? And the streets blocked up? Do you go to a hotel or do you go to your storage shed there's about two miles down the road or between your house and your job and go on and get your stuff out, whether you have a generator in there, some food, some clothes, water, whatever case may be, you can take that and go camping. Now I don't recommend living in the storage unit, but people have done it. You saw people on tick talking. In fact, in my storage unit I saw a guy. He was actually living in the storage unit. In that storage unit I have Trotter trees, I have water. I have pretty much everything that I need to get to. If I can't get to my house, several days of it and it cost me about 25 bucks for that storage shed again, this is between work and my house. If you can't get home driving a few miles to get your stuff and get out of Dodge, you can go camp at a park. You go camp out in someone's backyard Instead of a hotel.
Barry Smith:Hotels are super expensive and, of course, unfortunately when something like that happens, they have the tendency to do what they call price gouging. It's not fair, but they make the market. So, for example, for natural disaster happened and whatever reason, they can take a $30 hotel to make it 300 bucks. That's just the way the world operates, unfortunately. But second option if you don't want to spend the 25 bucks on the storage shed, get you a five gallon bucket or some type of backpack. Keep it in your car. What's in that backpack? Of course, online You'll see these backpacks, these buckets that could cost you 200, 300 dollars.
Barry Smith:But for a five gallon bucket or your backpack, go ahead and put you some of your favorite things you like to eat. Get you some toilet, your toothpaste, toiletries, a bag, couple bags nuts, couple bags of water in your car, in your trunk, flashlight batteries, backup numbers and I recommend getting some walkie-talkies because you know the phone lines were down at one point. So in that five gallon bucket or two, whatever you want to call it, get them. If you take any type of prescription medicine, put a couple days of that in there as well. Don't be surprised, don't get caught off guard. But something as simple as a power, a tree fallen on someone's house and knocked a powerful couple days. Don't make it uncomfortable. Be prepared for something just as simple. So get you a five gallon bucket, seal it up. Gum, two-paste water, non-parasites, tuna, whatever you like to eat, ship whatever you like to eat, pack it in there. It doesn't take up much space. You know donuts nowadays, as far as your spare time on, take up your whole trunk like they used to back in the day. So it definitely recommends something just as simple as that bag. Have it in your trunk and, emergency, go back at your job, have those things there, whatever it may be, and those are type of things are considered as off-grid behaviors.
Barry Smith:Secondly, I don't classify myself as fully off-grid because I come into the city to work every day. The compounds that I'm developing is about 25 minutes out of the city, but I have to come to work every single day. It is tedious and time-consuming, sometimes getting up in the morning, opening this, closing the the camper, closing the gate, getting light you know all those things are very complicated If you have to come to work, every day is dark and it's just whatever the case may be. So how do I eat? I I eat at work. I don't keep any food stuff and in the camper because I just don't want any Rats, rodents, ants or anything like that invading the thing. There's just not a lot of space for that. I haven't built it up just yet to do that. I don't have a separate facility where I can eat in and, again, I've never eaten in the camp. I don't eat around the camper because of ants and those things are everywhere. They just camp out literally.
Barry Smith:So how do I eat? I eat at work. I'll have oatmeal and fruit that are bought from the store. I have a protein shake or Boiled eggs or something quick I can put in the microwave and eat breakfast. I can eat oatmeal and fruit and Boiled eggs every day for breakfast. From time to time I made Benz or whatever splurge and get like an omelette from the wildfire was on the way again. A lot of protein Cards with the omelette and then with the Hashbrowns and a little bacon and some wheat toast, and that could very well be those. I'm just a fairly large, so that may be two meals for me, maybe lunch, and maybe a midday breakfast and lunch, for example. Then of course I have in there some other microwavable stuff, like those bags of microwavable vegetables again a blender for protein shakes for workouts, and then at the grocery store might buy something like a whole rotisserie chicken. So that rotisserie chicken might last two days. So I may have some of it for lunch today and I may have some of it for dinner tomorrow and then just kind of change it up.
Barry Smith:But eating healthy foods and that's another advantage of living on grid You're not fully Fully your face with junk food, you're not at the restaurants, you're not out and about, you're basically taking care of business and eating Healthy, getting good exercise, and just stand locally. So again, I don't have my camper full of chips and ice cream. There's just no space for that. So once I leave work I Will go to the gym. I will take like a pre-workout, go work out a gym for an hour and a half or so, which is better now because they like it was tough when it was getting dark early. So now I'm not just rushed, but leave work, take a protein drink or some type of energy drink, get through the workout, take a protein shake after that, shower up and then head to the compound. I may have already packed something there like, for example, I can really work out now I'm gonna eat a good meal. Sometimes you can't replace good meals with a protein shake, but I do take a protein shake immediately after the workout and Then I may. But by the time I get into the compound, that may eat that chicken sandwich or something like that prior to. Well, again, I may eat out there, but I just won't take it in the cabin, especially now this time of year where it's bright. I could still eat something, but I will not eat it around the cabin and in fact I'm kind of.
Barry Smith:I'm currently building a gazebo, in addition to building some other things right there currently. So it's been almost three years in the process two really and I see a lot of good things happening. For example, I got my 275 gallon IBC toads cleaned out and they're on the top of the area of the. The slope comes down so I'm able to water my garden just by gravity. You take those things and sit them on about two or three pallets which I get the free ones had some at school and anyone the road. I'm gonna get some pallets and I'm building my garden with those pallets. And also, if you can't find some good ones, spend two bucks and buy some. That it'll be, it'll pay dividends. I know some of you people are probably building all kind of projects with those type of Bins and with those pallets. You can make almost anything furniture, bed, gardens, I mean a wall, just whatever those pallets are, or just there's no limit to what you can do with those things. So that is what I'm gonna use. Just sit those water tanks on top of in addition to building some things around the garden to get those rabbits and deer out of there, because they will not pickpock me this year for my goods. Of course the palace don't do it by themselves. I will extend the height by using some two by fours and wrapping with some chicken wire. So if they get in there they won't be getting out, so we'll see about having that for dinner. They eat my dinner. They'll end up being my dinner later on that day or some other time.
Barry Smith:So let's get back to an investment. We just talked about the $25 if you're winning a Story set, but let's talk about a $20 membership, black card and planted fitness. Right, you can travel all over the United States and go to any planet fitness when you want to, and most open 24 hours. The one here is now 24 or 5, because maybe people don't work as much on Friday night, saturday night, whatever. But anywhere in the United States I go to planet fitness. I don't care where I'm at. You can get a good shower, get a workout, sit there and relax for a little while before your next journey. So if you don't have anything invested in the gym, I would definitely say Planet fitness. And then, again, I do have some workout stuff on the camp. I do have a heavy bag, I do have free weights, I do have a sled out there.
Barry Smith:But when I'm traveling abroad I do go to planet fitness because, again, I don't really have a shower set up mobility, but I did convert that 5 by 10 cargo trailer into a camp. I'm still working on it right now as I plan on going to toast Oklahoma in June, so I need to put up the air conditioning in there. But I don't see myself having a shower set up on that. Camp is not really that tall and I also had considered in the future getting something like a Class B van. Those things are expensive. You're talking about a hundred, eighty hundred, ninety thousand dollars. I'm just trying to wrap my head around that. But if anything I could see myself before I spend that kind of money I would probably see myself getting a Jeep gladiator and maybe a nice pull behind trailer or Get along trailer. That's probably what I would do. Honestly, I just 185,000. I can't really wrap my head around it, just quite it's nice. But I think I probably better off get me a newer Jeep With the gladiator style and then pulling something. So those are two good investments I would say getting your Membership of planet Fitness or getting some type of story facility and go from there.
Barry Smith:So being a good health if you're on lockdown, nothing beats working out. You can work out in your home at a gym and your backyard at work, and in fact I bought a walking pad off of Amazon so you can take it to work with you and in fact, at work at school, I usually walk around the facility during my lunch. I only get a 20 minute lunch. I don't know where that came about, but if you get an hour for lunch, that's good. We get 20 minutes as teachers, but I take my advantage of that. I might eat my lunch after that, but during that 20 minutes I need some oxygen, needs some air, because I have no windows in my classroom or studio at school, so I take my walks and go from there. So I would definitely recommend a walking pad in your office or at your house for bad weather. That's definitely worth a good investment. I think I paid about a hundred and twenty-something bucks for it.
Barry Smith:So don't just some key things to keep in mind to keep you healthy and fit in a situation like that. So we talked about emergency bag. We talked about emergency power. Learn to use solar power, learn to use Power panels, learn how to use RV batteries. Again, I mentioned you before. I was electrician in the Navy, so I know how to work my way around Electricity and a few things about that. Also work around electricity allowed me to figure out a lot of things, whether it's Redoing floors or painting head hanging still in fans, I hanging TVs. There's nothing worse nowadays than have someone TV with those wires hanging. I hate to see that. Put them in the wall. Tuck those wires in there.
Barry Smith:Okay, so back to the farm portion. So those are two main reasons I mentioned why I don't consider myself as off grid, because I go to work every day and I'm not eating clean all the time. So those are two of the major reasons. So maybe in a few years from now I will be possibly working virtually or just doing my business full time. And in fact, when I went to the meeting last night, they were talking about how much money is available to farmers, for example, just giving food to neighborhoods or to where they had like food deserts. So you could possibly make, I mean, a few thousand bucks a month just helping a few people. Now I'm not planning on going into debt by buying 10 million dollars worth of farm equipment. I could always lease to get the ground together as I build it up slowly and use that money either to feed myself or just feed a few people, and I'm also thinking about taking a few people onto my land and getting them to actually do some sharecropping just share and experience. So those are some things I have in mind.
Barry Smith:I definitely appreciate you guys for tuning in. If you guys have any questions or want to share some information, I'm definitely open to learn. That is my whole goal with this channel. All grid is something amazing. It just keeps me on my toes. I don't know about you, but it's just something about it. And again, to see what you can do with your bare hands is amazing. You can only watch so much TV, you can only watch so much sports before things really kick into the point where you really need to do something on your own. And again, unless you like having people come to your house or having to go to relative to the house to sleep in a small crisis situation, then I recommend getting your stuff together and getting your own, your own bag.
Barry Smith:Again, wrap up this thing real quick. Get your emergency bag, get you a storage shed. Get you a generator, get you a gold bag, whatever the case may be. Get you some stuff ready to go some food items, your medication, your prescriptions. Get all this stuff prepared. Get you a list, get you some walkie talkies. This is not rocket science. I don't need to go over this. I think there's some things you can look both your own and it takes just trial and error. A lot of the stuff I'm learning on my own, but I get a chance to learn from somebody else. I'm going to do that. Take the investment instead of going to the movie tonight or whenever it is, take that 20 bucks.
Barry Smith:Take a class online about gardening. Learn how to do what they call it the session gardening. I found that out. For example, you have a small family. There's no reason for you to plant a whole acre full of potatoes. Plant them in series, weeks at a time, so that you'll know when they harvest, use them and some other stuff is coming up.
Barry Smith:I made a mistake a couple years ago. For the little bit that I did grow, I didn't tag everything. Tag every stick, every ribbon, every piece of paper that you have out there, so you know when you planted it. Keep a journal or whatever. Tag everything. So in this first row, you know you planted this June, the 12th, and these are beets, because how can you see in the ground what it is? You'll know what it is when you planted it and when you're expecting to come up.
Barry Smith:Take that time to actually do a sketch and stuff online about how to plant a garden. Take that. There's no reason for you to just try to wing it. There's too much information on internet for you to try to wing anything. Nowadays, anything you want to know is on the internet and, along with trial and error or pay for the classes, go help someone on the farm. Go use your labor in exchange for education. Then you get some food at the same time. So while you're learning, you're earning and everything else. So take some time investing yourself, investing your health, and that's what I would definitely recommend that.
Barry Smith:So, when it comes to succession, crop farming and everything like that, know what you like. Plant them in a series so that you'll have the right things at the right time and you won't be wasting money or seeds because you can't use it all. You can't give it all away. So, as we look at the summer months, I realize that I'm not going to be able to get all the property together for the summer, but this is a plan. As I do some little production or gardening over this next month and a half, get stuff in the ground. When it comes up in June, july, I'll build out some more land or some more ground area to get ready for the fall crop.
Barry Smith:Everybody in the South loves collard greens and potatoes and pumpkins and those types of food products, and that's what I'm going to be working on, probably as late as August, I think they said. So right now I plan on putting in the ground some stuff out like okra, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes and some other small things that do well. Again, I'm going to try to beans out and go from there. So by the time that stuff comes up even watermelon those are somewhat simple I plan on buying a couple of fruit trees. I didn't have much luck with the blueberry plant I had a couple years ago, or the strawberries. Those are real finicky little things. So I may try again with the blueberries and the strawberries because I like them and they're healthy. I can make my own protein shakes for that versus the store frozen ones. So those are some things that I look forward to trying out.
Barry Smith:Thank you again. Please share this information with other people. I would love to hear what you guys are doing. I would love to see what you're doing. We'll share some pics and other links later. I appreciate your time and last but not least, I have two words for you. Get lost.