From “Grid” to “Green”! A Lifelong Journey Begins!

The thought of creating a self sustainable lifestyle whilst having the technology and gadgetry that I take for granted still available has always interested me. The ability to harness the intense Florida sun for food and to create my own electricity, or collecting rain water to conserve and reduce my family’s footprint on a very fragile ecosystem may sound like an extreme move for some. But for my family, going from “The Grid” to “Green” is our inevitable future!

The journey of removing our household as much as possible from “the Grid” of modern day society’s wasteful conveniences comes with some difficult and costly changes, but the benefits should also be considered. Not only does it save money in the long term, make us feel like we are making a positive impact on the earth, but also potentially prepares us for cataclysmic events. Here on the Central Coast of Florida, we do get hurricanes which could very easily remove us from availability of simple modern day’s conveniences.

Maybe I’m just a hippie in a 32 year old body! Or maybe Zombies or Rogue Robots with development of self realization will become reality. It could happen… Right!? I almost forgot! I’m not building a fortress, just a self sustainable lifestyle (as much as possible)! Whatever the benefits, I see too many to sit back and watch things change without doing what I can to help. So our Journey begins!

This journey has begun and I intend to share it with the world! Using social media, photos, video, blogs, and whatever other means necessary to show and share my ideas, failures, and progressions. Together we can harness new ideas and learn from one another! This particular “column” of my blog will now be a featured category for easy viewing, and therefore the “home base” for this “From Grid to Green” journey. It is not expected to be a quick success, or even approach any sort of conclusion over some long term goal of 2 years! This is a lifestyle! A journey that will continue forever!

A Quick Teaser!
To give you a little bit of a teaser about the start, today I have researched, drawn plans, and purchased all supplies for a rain water retention system that I plan on using to water my plants and a future garden automatically with an electronic scheduled zonal watering system. In the future I also plan on using this same supply of water to function our most often used toilet. Toilets are one of the most inefficient, and wasteful items for water in most of the world’s households. This first phase of the hydro system will be 4 industrial strength white plastic 55-gallon barrels (220 Gallons total) that are fed minor-filtered water from a new PVC gutter system that I have already begun installation of.