Homesteader News

This is an online bi-monthly newspaper for homesteaders, gardeners, and off-gridders.

Our next issue will be out March 15th

We are looking for stories, articles, jokes, recipes, pictures and anything else newsworthy.

Please send your submissions to homesteadernews@yahoo.com

We can not return submisions and not everything will be printed.

Classified ads are free up to 50 words and one picture.

Business ads can be submitted for a qote to the email above. We have very reasonable rates for anything homesteader related so please give us a try!

 We are always looking for homesteads and pictures of homestead living for our cover so please submit your pics and homestead descriptions

Hi Folks, Due to an injury and pending surgery I am not able to continue the publication of this newspaper. I really want it to continue and will gladly turn it over to any person or group that is seriously interested in helping people to learn homesteader ways.

Contact me at homesteadernews@yahoo.com if interested.

Please be aware it is a lot of hard work but well worth your time and effort.

 I will leave up what articles we have until there is a new publisher.

Thank you for your support and I hope to be a small part of this publication in the future.

Sincerely,

 LaMar Alexander

Life in the outback

Commuting in Porepunkah

Australia is waking up to the idea of living off grid as Melbourne’s crippling power outages become more common.

Hundreds if not thousands of people are living off the land in the Melbourne area, reports the Melbourne Herald-Sun. Their nearest road is gravel and there’s not a train or freeway within 100km.

Ralph Whelan, 51, lives in a comfortably ramshackle house he built on a bush block beside Growlers Creek out the back of Wandiligong. He has no grid power, town water or town gas.

He grows his own fruit and veggies, runs some hens and geese, and there’s always fish, rabbits and maybe even venison available.

Mr Whelan has a mini hydro-electric generator, but when there’s no water in Growlers Creek he simply lights a few lanterns or plugs his car battery into an inverter for instant 240-volt power.

“I laugh at Melbourne when I’ve got power and they don’t. When the lights go out and the supermarkets close they’re only three days away from a riot,” he said.

“If it come to the crunch, I wouldn’t starve and I wouldn’t freeze, I’m pretty self-sufficient with my heating, cooking and hot water all off the solid fuel stove.”

Mr Whelan has been self-sustaining since he moved to Growlers more than 20 years ago, having left Walhalla when it got too crowded.

His children grew up on the self-contained property, and used to run their computers, washing machines, the fridge and even small power tools off the current provided by Growlers Creek.

“It all depends on the creek,” he said. “Sometimes you can have everything running all day, but sometimes you have to gear down.”

In the Buckland Valley, south of Porepunkah on the edge of the Mt Buffalo National Park, Ian and Barbara Rosser have been generating their own electricity and producing all their own food for more than 20 years.

“We’re not on the power grid and I like it that way,” Mr Rosser said.

“We’ve got hydro power from a feeder creek into the Buckland River, solar and ex-Telstra NiCad batteries, and in fact with the hydro going we’ve got excess power.

“We use lots of wood over winter for heating, cooking and water, but it’s all fire-killed or fallen. I’ve planted so many trees we’re way beyond carbon neutral.”

The Rossers have run short of hydro power recently because of the drought, but even a little bit of rain is enough to spark his system into action again.

“By the end of this month I’d expect it to be running again and stay running until at least Christmas.”

Mr Rosser even has enough year-round, power to run electric fences around the paddocks where his wiltshire horned sheep, dexter cattle and goats graze.

His organic vegetable gardens and dozens of fruit trees provide the rest of the food supplies, with enough left over for him to provide food for his children and grandchildren in Bright and still more to sell to organic seed and produce merchants.

“I have a wry smile when I hear about Melbourne and power problems,” he said.

Hi folks,

welcome to the very first issue of Homesteader News and as you can see it is a work in progress so please bear with us.  For those of you that don’t know me- my name is Lamar Alexander and I am a long-time off-grid homesteader.  My grandparents and parents moved across the west in horse drawn wagons and settled on untamed land at the foot of the high Uintah mountains on what is now the Ute Indian Reservation.

 My grandparents raised 11 kids and my parents raised 9 kids through 3 wars and the great depression. Homegrown food, homemade clothes, gardening and farming skills is what kept us alive. Today I live on my parents old homestead in a solar cabin I built with my own two hands. I drink water from a well I drilled. I supply most of my own food from my garden, orchard, and animals I raise. I hunt, fish, trap, play guitar and sing, make homemade wine, and have been known to dance naked in the moonlight. Grandpa would be proud!

      Simple Solar Homesteading Ebook Link

It is my hope that Homesteader News will help to preserve and teach some of these old homesteader skills for our future generations as well as teach some of us old homesteaders about new ways of  homesteading like using solar and wind power to make life a little easier.
This newspaper will always be free to the reader and its content will be primarily from reader submissions. We really need you homesteaders, gardeners, and off-gridders to help us out and submit your articles and share your skills and knowledge.
We will accept business ads that are relevant to homesteading to offset some of the cost of publishing but our goal is to be as non-commercial as possible.
I am very interested in how-to articles and simple inexpensive projects and crafts to make homestead life more enjoyable. I will include what I have learned from my homestead and I hope all you readers will submit your articles so this valuable knowledge can be shared and preserved. This is your newspaper and I hope you will help us to make it the finest homesteader newspaper ever printed and something we can all be proud of!

LaMar