#rural housing mobile home

[kentuckybats]

Kentucky Mobile Home Buyers: USDA Loan

USDA Loans for Manufactured Homes in Kentucky USDA Loans for Manufactured Homes in Kentucky – 100% Financing Coming Soon! Are you looking for affordable home financing options for manufactured or mobile homes in Kentucky? Big news is here! Starting March 4, 2025, the USDA will officially offer 100% financing for manufactured homes. This exciting change will make homeownership more accessible…

[crumb]

[abby-howard]

Some folks were asking for my boiled peanuts recipe (as they feature in our game, Scarlet Hollow, and we made a big batch this past weekend), but it's unfortunately a bit difficult for me to post with lightness in my heart right now because this past weekend the entirety of western North Carolina, where Scarlet Hollow takes place, was devastated by hurricane Helene.

Towns I have been to and have fond memories of have been described as "washed away." The region is almost entirely still out of power, the water is all contaminated with repair efforts expected to take weeks, and there are hundreds of people stranded, including my relatives, as roads have been totally destroyed. My uncle sent a photo of the road near his house, thankfully his home is okay but I have to image it's going to take a while for roads like this to see repairs:

I know this photo has been making the rounds, but it bears posting for those who haven't seen it-- the main strip of Chimney Rock, before and after:

Trees, cars, buildings, everything is gone. And now all that debris is just sitting in lakes and rivers. This is Lake Lure today:

Pictures from Swannanoa, an absolutely lovely town with so much character, where my sister went to folk music camp as a teen, where mobile home parks were hit hardest-- people's houses just floated away downriver:

And of course Asheville is the town most people will have heard of. A city of 95k, completely isolated in the days after the storm. The River Arts District was still underwater as of yesterday:

People throughout the entire region are without power and transport and fuel and water and food, they've lost their homes and their businesses, and people have had to resort to hiking to reach loved ones to see if they're safe or whether their homes were just wiped off the face of the earth-- hundreds are still missing because it's been so difficult to get in contact with people in these isolated, rural communities that are now nearly impossible to get to because roads were washed away or collapsed in landslides.

I honestly don't even know where to start when it comes to relief funds or ways that people can help. I've been listening to the local radio station and it sounds like the area is in shock, people are coming in to help pick up the pieces but there is so much recovery that will have to happen that it's hard to know where to start.

This article from the Citizen Times has a list of places that are currently helping with relief efforts.

It's absolutely unfathomable that a hurricane could hit the mountains. The effects of this are going to be felt in western NC for a long time, and my heart goes out to everyone who is currently stranded or trying to get in touch with people who are.

[dollhog]

I think you should try and mive as little as possible! Your muscles will atrophy and that will really push you towards immobility!

Because I’ve been asked quite a few times, this is how I fund my journey to immobility and how I will continue to totally bed bound 💖

Moving as little as fucking possible is kinda how I live my life honestly. Actively aiming for lack of mobility, so I really only move a few hundred steps for absolute essentials, which is almost always food. I do everything from home, mostly from bed, I get groceries delivered, some food delivery (but they don’t always deliver down in rural Australia). But honestly my life is very feedism oriented, everything else kinda comes second.

I’ve found myself in strangely positive life circumstances for gaining immense amounts of weight. Work is not a necessity with the way my disability is set up. But that disability only came from a series of pretty awful injuries, they may cover housing and payment, but it’s not all roses living with the pain of repeated injury. Though patreon is slowly becoming a pretty massive help as I add more and more! Meaning significantly more food and takeaway! And the ability to get the occasional sexy outfits to wear over there! So it sort of sustains itself, if that makes sense?

But yeah, folks have asked me how I plan to accomodate immobility. Honestly, that’s how. A mixture of patreon and disability I receive for a series of injuries leaving me with a quite painful and permanent chronic health issue to do with my legs. However my issue is pain related and predominantly a problem when walking! So frankly, it’s not like I’m walking far, immobility or not. My condition isn’t directly worsened by weight gain, as weight gain cannot cause it nor play a role. But honestly EVEN if it did, it’s taken enough from me over the years, I’m not letting it even so much as affect my gain, and especially not the decisions I make surrounding how far I’ll go. I would NEVER want to live restricted, I’d rather you put me down like an old fat cow. But anyways, if anything it only facilitates the ability to gain without work being a form of exercise.

But yeah folks! That’s the reality of how I am actually in a very viable position, with direct plans to ensure my ability to gain rapidly to immobility. There is literally nothing standing in my way of doing it, so I’m damn well going to!!

(Hope I answered the original question!! Just using it as a way to explain this, it’s been asked a few times and I was reminded when going through the asks!! But thank you so much for your question, I do love these asks!! 💖💖💖)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Christopher Brown’s ‘A Natural History of Empty Lots’

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Christopher Brown is an accomplished post-cyberpunk sf writer, a tech lawyer with a sideline in public interest environmental law, the proud owner of one of the most striking homes I have ever seen, and an urban pastoralist who writes about wildlife in ways I've never seen and can't get enough of:

https://fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/

All of these facets of Brown's identity come together today with the launch of A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys and other Wild Places:

https://christopherbrown.com/a-natural-history-of-empty-lots/

This is a frustratingly hard to summarize book, because it requires a lot of backstory and explanation, and one of the things that makes this book so! fucking! great! is how skillfully Brown weaves all that stuff into his telling. Which makes me feel self-conscious as I try to summarize things, because there's no way I'll do this as well as he did, but whatever, here goes.

Brown is a transplant from rural Iowa to Austin, where he set out to start a family, practice tech law during the dotcom boom, and write science fiction, as part of a circle of writers loosely associated with cyberpunk icon @brucesterling. After both the economy and his marriage collapsed, Brown started his restless perambulations around Austin's abandoned places, sacrifice zones, the bones of failed housing starts and abandoned dot-crash office parks.

When he did, something changed in him. Slowly, his eyes learned to see things that they had just skipped over. Plants, animals, and spoor and carapaces and dens of all description, all around him, a secret world. These were not pockets of "wilderness" in the city, but they were pockets of wildness. Birds' nests woven with plastic fibers scavenged from nearby industrial dumpsters; trees taking root in half-submerged tires rolled into a creekbed, foxes and rodents playing out a real-life version of the classic ecosystem simulation exercise on the edge of an elevated highway that fills the same function as the edge of a woodland where predator and prey meet.

As Brown fell in love again – with the artist and architect Agustina Rodriguez – he conceived of a genuinely weird and amazing plan to build a house. A very weird house, in a very weird place. He bought a plot of wasteland that had once housed the head-end of an oil pipeline (connected to a nearby oil-storage facility that poisoned the people who lived near it, in an act of wanton environmental racism) and had been used as a construction-waste dump for years.

After securing an extremely unlikely loan, Brown remediated the plot, excavating the oil pipeline, then building the most striking home you have ever seen in the resulting trench. Brown is a pal of mine, and this is where I stay when I'm in Austin, and I can promise you, the pictures don't do it justice:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/style/christopher-brown-edgeland-house-austin/

Formally, A Natural History of Empty Lots is a memoir that explains all of this. But not really. Like I say, this is just the back story. What Natural History really is, is a series of loosely connected essays that explains how everything fits together: colonial conquest, Brown's failed marriage, his experience as a lawyer learning property law, what he learned by mobilizing that learning to help his neighbors defend the pockets of wildness that refuse to budge.

It's an erudite book, skipping back through millennia of history, sidewise through the ecology of Texas, all while somehow serving as a kind of spotter's guide to the wild things you can see in Austin – and maybe, in your town – if you know how to look. It's a book about how people change the land, and how the land changes people. It is filled with pastoral writing that summons Kim Stanley Robinson by way of Thoreau, and it sometimes frames its philosophical points the way a cyberpunk writer would – like Neal Stephenson writing a cyberpunk trilogy that is also the story of Leibniz and Newton fighting over credit for inventing calculus:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/11/20/neal-stephensons-system-of-the-world-concludes-the-baroque-trilogy/

Brown is a stupendous post-cyberpunk writer, and also a post-cyberpunk person, which I've known for sure since I happened upon him one morning, thoughtfully mowing his roof with a scythe:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/46433979075/

You can get a sense of what that means in this lockdown-era joint presentation that Chris, Bruce Sterling and I did on "cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk":

https://archive.org/details/asl-cyberpunk

Brown is a spectacular novelist. His ecofascist civil war trilogy that opens with Tropic of Kansas got so much right about the politics of American demagoguery and was perfectly timed with the Trump presidency:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/07/11/tropic-of-kansas-making-america-great-again-considered-harmful/

The sequel, Rule of Capture, uses the device of courtroom drama in a way that comes uncomfortably close to the Orwell/Kafka mashup that the authorities have created to deal with environmental protesters:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/08/12/rule-of-capture-inside-the-martial-law-tribunals-that-will-come-when-climate-deniers-become-climate-looters-and-start-rendering-environmentalists-for-offshore-torture/

And the final volume, Failed State, is one of the most complicated complicated utopias you could ask for. This is what people mean by "thrilling conclusion":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/12/failed-state/#chris-brown

As brilliant as Brown is in fiction mode, his nonfiction is unclassifiably, unforgettably brilliant. A Natural History of Empty Lots is the kind of book that challenges how you feel about the crossroads we're at, the place you live, and the place you want to be.

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/17/cyberpunk-pastoralism/#time-to-mow-the-roof

[weaselle]

Let's dream. These are the things i think should be provided to the public for free

Food Centers:

it's not fancy and there's not a high variety, heck it's basically just rice, beans, some fruit juice, and the vegetable of the month, but you can go to any food center and get, for free, the baseline nutrition you need for staying alive and healthy. This food is available, for free, in any amount, in both raw and cooked forms, as Food Centers are both storage and cooking facilities. Some diet alternatives are made available for those with, for example, allergies or food related mental issues, tho this may require registering with whatever Food Center you plan on visiting ahead of time. And of course baby formula, baby food, and clean water.

Public Hospitals:

And yes this includes ALL medical treatments physical or mental. Any person, at any time, for any reason, can walk into a Public Hospital and receive the best medical care available. No paperwork (i mean they do keep your medical records on file etc but there is no paperwork for the patient to fill out). No hoops, no proving anything, no barriers to entry, nothing -- you enter a hospital, you receive medical care, period. Medical transport and mobile medical staff available as needed. Unlike with food, there is no "free tier" because anything less than the best medical treatment available is a crime against humanity. Possibly publicly available bathing facilities attached.

Public Housing:

Government built apartment complexes, first come first served, if it's empty you can move in. All you have to do is register, so that you don't go on a trip and have people move in because the place seemed empty. Probably some regulations like you can't register for more than one permanent residence, maximum of bedrooms equal to the number of people registered plus one, but you can have a temporary second apartment on a weekly basis, subject to availability - so like, you can go on a trip for a week, and then extend the trip by a week, and then maybe you want to extend a third week and you get told sorry there are now people waiting for a permanent residence in this area, temp residence at this location is no longer available until new housing units are completed. Something like that.

Information.

This is basically free school (through college) but i call it Information because I believe internet access and libraries, and press/public broadcasting also belong on this list

Clothing:

It isn't high fashion, it might be little more than socks, shoes, blankets, and government issued jumpsuits in hot and cold weather variants, but nobody is going to be left without clothing if they need it. Probably a small distribution center attached to each Food Center. People often forget about this one, but it's important.

Public Transportation:

what it says on the tin. Comprehensive, networked, including something like a (free) taxi program attached to train depots servicing rural areas that lack infrastructure or population density for even busses (so like, there might not be a train station in Lewistown Montana, but you can still get transported to Billings and catch a train)

BUT HOW WILL WE PROVIDE / PAY FOR THESE THINGS?

glad you asked

first of all there will still be taxes, because there will still be jobs, because almost nobody is going to want to wear the government issued jumpsuits and eat nothing but rice and beans. These things will keep you alive and healthy, but almost everyone is going to want their favorite foods and to be dressed fashionably, etc etc etc. You'll have hobbies you want to pay for, you'll have special dates you want to go on, people will want to live in their dream home... humanity is going to WANT THINGS, and so there will still be work and pay and money and taxes. There will even still be rich people and poor people if economic ladders are your kink, it's just now nobody will ever die of being poor. And if this is what we're getting, i do not care if the taxes are at like 65%, as long as the wealthy and the corporations are paying it too, but let's try to get it done for 50% for easy math. And we don't have to do all that complicated shit about this person should only pay less than that because they are poor or whatever, because a person could have zero money and still be basically ok. Just. 50% across the board.

BUT ALSO. We have resources. Do you know who owns all the offshore oil? Do you know who owns all the national forests that get logged for wood? We do. It's pubic property that our government leases to private companies to sell us back our own stuff. So maybe we should handle our resources differently.

AND. Labor. I've written about this before, but, i say instead of the unending argument about military spending, we increase the military budget, but we use them as a public work force here at home. Only about 10% of the US military is combat personnel. The other 90ish percent have jobs like Forklift Operator, Computer Engineer, Doctor, Mechanic, etc. So let them have some more funding, and let's get them building our government housing and staffing our Food Centers etc.

And sure, it probably wouldn't work perfectly, it would need constant management and innovation to continue to function. But it's not like our current system is working very well, right? Current system sucks so much that in Chicago alone every year senior citizens die because they have to choose between freezing or paying for their medicine. So we don't really have anything to lose. I mean most of us don't anyway. Might take some pitchforks and torches to convince the corporate oligarchy, the political puppets and their billionaire puppeteers.

oh, and

[yourdailykitsch]

Taylor Kitsch Was Sleeping on the Subway Before He Was Cast in 'Friday Night Lights'

Taylor Kitsch, 43, is a Canadian actor best known for his roles in "Friday Night Lights," "Savages" and "American Assassin." He stars in the Netflix Western miniseries "American Primeval," which starts Jan. 9.

Beginning in the fourth grade, I loved talking in front of my grade-school classes. We had public-speaking contests, and I'd get up and tell improvised fictional stories.

Some kids spoke about penguins or polar bears, but I made up funny stories about nightmares. Classes often voted for me as their favorite, sending me on to compete on the assembly stage. If the audience there voted for me, too, off I'd go to compete against other schools.

I was a class clown, always trying to make people laugh. While I had zero interest in drama in school, public speaking planted a seed for acting years later.

My family first lived in Kelowna, British Columbia, but I don't remember much about it. My parents divorced when I was 1. My father, Drew, had been a race-car driver and then worked in Guyana diamond mines before going into construction.

Following my parents' separation, my two older brothers - Brody and Daman - and I lived with my mother, Sue. When I was 5, we moved to Anmore, a rural area north of Vancouver. My mom held a few jobs to pay the bills.

Three years later, my mother had a serious boyfriend, Peter, who was older than her. We moved into a double-wide, ugly blue mobile home with four bedrooms in a trailer park.

The surrounding area was forested, so I often played in the woods with my best friend, Paddy. All those trees and quiet provided me with a sense of calm and wonderment. The woods were an adventure and an escape.

Peter was a gentle soul and taught me to play soccer. When I was 12, he and my mom split up. I was a mess, angry, and not totally understanding. I was emotional when Peter and I had to say goodbye.

I insisted my mom drive me a half-hour to his house so I could spend weekends there. This continued for several months until I was told he'd died.

Peter was a big guy and incredibly athletic. He never yelled, and he taught me it was acceptable for guys to express their feelings. That was a huge help. As a kid, I was so freaking insecure. I didn't know where to put my energy when I felt things.

In high school, I was good in subjects I liked - English and history. The rest was a mystery. At the University of Lethbridge in Albert, someone told me to major in finance. I took a semester of macroeconomics, which was ridiculous for me.

After a year, I left. I was lost. I'd hoped hockey would be my ticket, but an injury at age 20 ended that dream.

Then my mom tricked me into meeting a modeling agent in Vancouver. He sent my pictures to IMG Models in New York. They signed me, and I moved there in 2002. While acting wasn't part of my grand plan, it seemed like a logical offshoot.

I took classes, but I was super cocky at first, which angered my acting coach, Sheila Gray. She kicked me out of class, and said, "Come back when you're ready to listen and study." That was the nudge I needed.

I returned to Sheila a few weeks later and dug in. My passion for acting grew as I uncovered my love of a challenge, leading to self-discovery and belonging. That's when I realized acting was more than just a craft. It was a career.

Most helpful were sheila's classes on improv and scene study. Chris Forberg, my friend and modeling agent who knew I was studying, saw that I'd stuck with it and thought I would make a better actor than model. He offered to introduce me to a few acting managers, and that's how I found Stephanie Simon, who is still my manager.

Though Sheila let me take classes for free, I didn't have a visa so I couldn't work. I lived on friends' couches, slept on the subway and coached clients on nutrition for cash.

Eventually, I went to Barbados and worked construction with my dad for nearly two months before returning to Vancouver. I bought a small car and drove to Los Angeles but had to live in the car. I soon returned to Vancouver again.

In 2005 I auditioned on tape for the TV series "Friday Night Lights" and was cast. The studio got me a visa to work in Austin, Texas, where the series was shot. That was my big break.

Today, I live in a wood-and-steel contemporary house in Bozeman, Mont. I also have a 22-acre property outside of town on top of a mountain that I'm developing into a foundation and a drug-and-alcohol healing retreat for veterans and kids.

Three months ago, one of my brothers was on Facebook and came across a photo of Peter at his 93rd birthday. I was shocked. Just before Christmas, we paid him a surprise visit and stayed for two hours. He was grateful. I left him a card thanking him for his influence on me. And for teaching me about kindness.

Taylor's Hike

"American Primeval"? I play a weathered loner who helps a woman and her son fleeing their past cross the violent West in 1857.

Your dad and mom? He passed last year. My mom lives outside of Vancouver.

Fireplace? It's a long, contemporary, black steel gas model. I turn it on every morning when I have my coffee.

Home splurge? I recently bought a nice Breville Barista coffee machine.

Bozeman too chill? If you're bored up here, it's your fault. I just went on a 7-mile waterfall hike. It helped clear my head after a long stretch on set.

[sleepingdeath-light]

s/o who moved to the neighbourhood after a car crash ; wally

requested by ; anonymous (07/05/23)

fandom(s) ; welcome home

fandom masterlist(s) ; here

character(s) ; wally darling

outline ; “Could I get Wally x reader where reader moves into the neighborhood after a car accident, and the two become very close. One day Wally learns that reader's family is actually pretty rich but reader didn't want anyone treating them different because of it? Also Wally finds out around Christmas time as reader's parents wanna meet Wally for Christmas”

warning(s) ; references to injuries, references to a car crash, references to hospitalisation, but mostly fluff

you moving to the neighbourhood had been less of an active choice and more of a compromise with some of your more fretful family members

you’d wanted to maintain your independence after your car accident whilst you healed

they wanted you out of the busy city where it happened (and where you lived)

so rather than move back home and be pitied 24/7 by family, friends and staff, you just barely managed to convince them to let you move away to a smaller, more rural town

you had your little bungalow that gave you full freedom to move around with your mobility aids

everything and everyone was a stone’s throw away from everything else, so there weren’t any cars (in fact the only vehicle you’d seen was a unicycle in front of one of your neighbours’ houses)

it was completely isolated from everywhere else aside from a small gravel road which, being your typical country road, was very thin, very rarely used and you only really saw deliveries being dropped off to the local grocers and the post office

so maybe one or two cars a week tops and they never came anywhere near your little home

your family were appeased, you got to keep your independence, and as an added bonus you got to move into the quaintest little neighbourhood ever

everyone was so friendly and keen to get to know you that it threw you for a loop — having come from such a large city to somewhere where everybody knows everybody it was bound to happen

but you couldn’t say that you particularly minded

eddie, the postman, was always happy to stop by and chat as he went about his rounds in the morning — he was also happy to offer any assistance if a delivery happened to be a bit too heavy or large for you to carry in on your own

howdy, the grocer, always made sure that he had what you needed in stock — even preemptively ordering things like your medications and other things you needed for the upkeep of your health (e.g. new wrappings for injuries, oil if you’re using a wheelchair with a squeaky wheel, and so on)

julie, a particularly colourful neighbour, was always happy to stop by and make you feel beautiful even when you were too worn down to even really get out of bed — keeping materials and items on her that best suit your hair texture from the moment she starts randomly dropping by

frank, a neighbour who was particularly fond of butterflies, was someone you came to appreciate because he didn’t dance around your injury and accident — he’d ask you how you were feeling or drop off some books that might apply to your situation, but he never imposed himself on you too much

poppy, a bird who lived just down the street, was always happy to come to your aid during your bad days — stopping by without a peep of complaint and cooking and baking some food for you, always making sure that you’re taken care of even when you don’t have the energy

barnaby and sally, two more neighbours that live for performance and laughter, became the highlights of your days as they would always make a point to stop by and entertain you with whatever jokes or plays they thought of — becoming part of your routine by making you smile

and they did it all without you needing to ask because they all cared so deeply for one another and for you that it was never even a question about them taking care of you

of course they weren’t overbearing, but they did make sure that you were in good spirits and good health as you healed — keeping enough of an eye out to be able to step in when you weren’t able to step up for yourself

by carrying your deliveries inside, by keeping what you need in stock, by keeping your self confidence high, by keeping you well fed, by making you smile so wide your cheeks hurt and by making you laugh so hard you’re crying

but out of all of your neighbours, one stood out the most; a blue haired painter called wally darling

though you usually just called him ‘darling’ — because you could easily get away with the pet name and because you always got a curious look from him when you did it

wally was the first one to greet you when you moved in, offering to help you put your house back together and complimenting the art pieces you’d been gifted by friends and family

he’s a painter and can appreciate the fine arts, you see — and you appreciated how friendly and conversational he was because you very quickly started to feel at home

and by the time the rest of the town had stepped in to help you organise your belongings, everyone was smiling and laughing and joking and talking like old friends — you almost forgot that you’d known them for less than a day because of it all

it really was a team effort and you smile whenever you recall the utter chaos that was your first week in the neighbourhood

howdy with his four arms carrying a pile of boxes so high that he had to shuffle through your front door on his knees — peering around the stack to smile sheepishly and ask you where everything needed to go (which took you a few moments as you needed to pick your jaw up off of the floor)

julie guiding everyone around the bungalow with the precision of an air traffic controller, using two rolls of wallpaper to ensure that everyone could see her through the mess that was your home layout

eddie and frank carefully — carefully — carrying in your sofa and your bed and placing them according to your and julie’s instructions (and dropping them on poor frank’s foot… twice)

barnaby making good use of his height and strength to bring in the remainder of your furnishings, cracking plenty of jokes along the way that had you snorting and eddie making a victim of poor frank every time he laughed

poppy making good on her promise to keep things organised and ensuring that all of your utensils and trinkets and small things ended up in the right place — leaving the home more organised than you’d ever had it

sally helping move any left over boxes from the moving van to the house all the while making a performance of it — including an impromptu recital of a shakespearean monologue whilst holding a snow globe that had cracked during shipping

wally painting and glossing your walls and cabinets throughout this whole mess, occasionally popping his head back into the main room to poke fun at everyone or to ask how everything was going

all of you dipping your hands — or paws, or wing — in paint and slapping them against the wall just above your fireplace before writing your names in your best handwriting just beneath them

a permanent reminder of your hard work and the mess you made

a mess that was definitely preferable to the weeks you spent bedbound in the hospital after being injured, feeling so very isolated and bored in the aftermath of everything you’d been through

that week was also the start of your relationship — well, at least it was when the two of you started dancing around your feelings and finding excuses to spend time with each other

wally would frequently pop by your home with a new painting or sketch that he’d made for you — getting to the point where a good portion of your house was covered with his work

you’d spend hours talking on the phone — he’d be the first one you called whenever you felt particularly low

he was the only one you divulged the full details of your accident to — thankful that he didn’t pity you or question it beyond telling you to reach out if you needed anything

you’re the only one he shares his apples with (and who gets to see his abnormal way of eating)

you’ll go out on small picnics into a nearby field and he’ll help you get up and down from the blanket, not once making a fuss or batting an eye, instead focusing on more important things like eating and watching butterflies

butterflies like the ones you felt whenever he looked at you or touched you or smiled or laughed or —

needless to say you were head over heels — and since wally was as well, it took very little time for the two of you to become an item

(with plenty of encouragement from your neighbours who were, by now, more than done with both of you tiptoeing around the obvious)

it’s safe to say that he thinks you’re the absolute most

and when the holidays come around and your family, who you haven’t really thought about beyond the occasional letter or phone call, want to stop by and visit, wally is happy to play host

he insists on going the full nine yards but compromises with you that you’ll host at your home and you’ll share the duties of decorating, cleaning and cooking

which quickly become more playful than dull because it’s you two so of course they do

and come the day of, you’re both completely prepared — even if your poor boyfriend is quietly sweating bullets and a mixture of excitement and anxiety as they pull up

and then you realise that you forgot to warn wally about your family

but it’s far too late for that as they’re already at the door and you’re already greeting them — and oh god there’s that antique necklace and that designer handbag and she’s giving his colourful outfit a strange look and wally’s noticed and he’s looking at you and oh dear…

thankfully he’s able to hide his surprise well (has his expression ever changed from that smile?) and as your folks fawn over you and your home and they bring in all of the gifts you’re only given enough time to shrug and smile apologetically before you’re both whisked away to play host

thankfully your boyfriend is an excellent public speaker and is able to charm your family enough to keep them entertained and cooperative (and stop them from invading your personal space and infantilising you) as he serves everyone the meal you’d prepared

by the time he’s sat down beside you and you’re all digging in to the feast you’d made, you’re able to relax because your relatives all clearly adore him

they ask him about the neighbourhood and his job and your relationship — all of which he answers tactfully and politely before moving on with questions of his own

and when the time comes to open your presents (including some generic gifts they’d bought wally as a measure of politeness), your fear of being perceived differently has practically faded away

you’re sat on the sofa, he’s holding your hand in his own, and your family are bickering amongst themselves amongst an ocean of wrapping paper and presents worth half a mortgage but it feels like home — and whilst he does give you a bit of a funny look, he assures you quietly that he gets it

he just would have appreciated a bit of fair warning about it — which is understandable

and you don’t know why you ever doubted your silly little blue haired boyfriend for a moment

he really is the absolute most

[corntort]

PLEASE elaborate on the cscu it seems absolutely fascinating

cscu (CAR SALSEMAN CINEMATIC UNIVERSE) is a silly spinoff au incredibly close to me and some friends' hearts. and dicks. mainly hearts.

we saw the one off drawing made by andy tunstall (this one) and went haha ^_^ thats fun! what if he was a ditzy stupid crazy jittery car salesman tho? (MISTAKE NUMBER ONE. IT ALL GOES DOWNHILL FROM HERE)

OKAY im gonna summarize and then get REALLLLY DETAILED so bear with me.

fark and spark live in a mobile home/RV park with ej and astra. ej usually goes to school during the day and astra goes out and does Anything Else most of the time so theyre barely home between school/activities/visiting family. spark is pretty much unemployed, only taking up odd jobs here n there for a little extra cash and spends the rest of the time screaming at the tv/napping/trying to fix her busted up cars in her yard/etc. fark works in the used car dealership obvs. spark spends most nights staking out in front of their mobile home for farks (MANY) enemies that try and get into fights with him. she guards the house with a definitely illegal sawed of shotgun.

spark and fark are a freak ass southern married couple.

the full rundown is fark is working at his used car shop in the DEEP rural south (as in, no other town for at least 60 miles) in a small town. he inherited it from his fsmily after they torn down lots of local loved business for something much "cleaner" and to capitalize on the money they could make of being a good pitstop for traveling formies. clarity and freom were notorious in the town for their disregard of local businesses, making more than enough enemies when they bulldoze/compete with gas stations/hotels/motels for their cleaner more modern buildings. clarity is a pretty busted up bot down here though, unable to get repaired due to her age and her parts growing obsolete, so when she finally shuts down shes shut down for Good, leaving the fortune they made to freom.

freom doesnt use a cent of it, it pretty much just rots in an account since her death kinda fucked him up bad. he lives on the outskirts and doesnt go out pretty much ever.

fark doesnt see much of the money either, separating himself from clarity and freom as Soon as he could. other than them buying the used car lot for him and getting him up and running, he didnt really associate with them, but it disnt matter since the town already didnt like him by association to clarity and freom. and it doesnt help that he oversells the quality of his used cars, giving people pretty shitty deals and making even More enemies out of it.

but the enemies that hate him most are ej (at first) and astra. ej and astra stayed with clarity after fark moved out. fark has a lot of survivors guilt, ej saw him as the brother that left and hes pretty angry about it for a really long time, astra has the same anger but 10x worse towards fark. she suffered the brunt of clarity and freoms manipulation and abuse after fark left and she really REALLY resents him for it. she and ej were forced to move in with him after clarity died and ej warms up to fark because of his youth but astra cant.

theres a LOT of tension between her and fark, but she really likes spark, so she doesnt stay gone for too long (the most is like a week and a half). shes a college drop out because of all the stress it gave her amidst all her family troubles qnd she struggles holding a job down but she gets a bit better with time.

ej is as hotheaded and impulsive as usual, finding ways to take out his aggression in school sports and constant practice. hes just very angry and gets in trouble a lot but he is a really good kid, fark tries his best to nudge him in the right direction, spark also has a lot of patience for both his and astra's tempers, cause she was the same as a kid.

caaaant think of anything else to add its late i shouldve been asleep hoyrs ago.

this is so separated from the canon source it might as well be an oc story between me and my close friends LOL. but i am sharing it with u all as well

[necroromantics]

🔥 — TOBIN LAWSEN.

tw; dark themes (abuse, revenge, drugs) // long ramble type post

I. FATHER

"I have this dream that I am hitting my dad with a baseball bat and he is screaming and crying for help."

- dan lawsen was a bitter, mean old man. if he wasn't drunk, he was high. if he wasn't high, then he must have died.

- the man was nothing but shattered glass, booze, and rage that never settled.

- his son, tobin, was a bit too much like him. he was just as angry, just as violent. they never got along.

- the boy grew up in a warzone of a house. a dirty, tiny, broken down mobile home. a crime-ridden trailer park in rural north dakota.

- from an early age, he learned that it was every man for himself. his mother had a long list of mental illnesses, and his father hit hard. tobin spent a lot of time looking after his little sister.

- and from an early age, he learned that it was dog eat dog. it was kill or be killed. it was him against the world. him against his father. against god.

- tobin was the type to run his mouth. his father was the type to drag him out back and beat him for it.

- the boy spent so much of his life being treated like he was powerless, or a problem. and he was angry at the world for turning its back on him.

- in his early teenage years, it had gotten to the point where tobin would wonder if his father would go too far some day and end up killing him.

- and he started keeping a knife by his bed, or in his backpack.

- dan raised the boy in all the worst ways. 'drink, hit your wife, hit your son, drink some more. this is how you aim a shotgun. this is how you be a man.'

- his father would sometimes take him hunting, and tobin was something of a weapons fanatic. he could take a gun apart, and almost put it back together.

- when he'd lay in bed, sore after another fight with the older man, tobin would fall asleep imagining what it'd be like to stand over his father with one of those guns in his hands.

- he imagined that he would look his father in the eyes when he pulled the trigger.

II. PUMPED UP KICKS

"He's got a rolled cigarette hanging out his mouth, he's a cowboy kid."

- tobin was in and out of school all of his life. his parents never bothered to stay on track of his attendance. for most of his youth, he was left to his own devices.

- when he did go to school, it was as if every person he talked to had come to the same conclusion that the boy was fundamentally different from them

- a mangy mutt, a dirty dog. something diseased, or bad. an inconvenience, a problem child.

- he wore secondhand, unwashed clothes. his hair was a mess, he smelt like smoke and rot.

- this followed him into high school, and as he grew up, so did his behavioural issues.

- tobin would find himself as the butt of a joke, or being talked about behind his back, or ostracized. he would always fight back.

- he was quiet, but mouthy. aggressive. he bit, and he bit hard.

- everything was an attack to him. he was constantly on guard, constantly looking for an excuse to make an example out of somebody.

- that boy made sure that nobody fucked with him again.

- after spending a long day of being mistreated at school, only to go home and have it done to him again by his own father, he would lay down in his creaky old bed and stare up at his water damaged ceiling.

- and he would wonder if they'd still laugh at him with a barrel of a gun down their throats.

- and he would wonder if he'd ever get the balls to make it happen.

III. TEENAGERS

"You're never gonna fit in much, kid."

- tobin was a problem child, to say the least. a junkie prick, a street rat.

- everybody who knew him called him insensitive, and for good reason. he seemed to have lacked the type of empathy everybody around him had. or, as he saw it, pretended to have.

- he never cared enough to fake it. his philosophy was that there was no use trying to please a world that constantly rejected him. it was easier to be an asshole if everybody saw him as one anyways.

- the boy was alone his whole life. nobody could tolerate him. nobody wanted him around for very long, and he never wanted to stay.

- it was clear that tobin never fit in anywhere

- he was always in his own world. he did things his own way, fought his own fight.

- always had something to prove. tobin had to get the last word, had to fight bloody, had to put people under him. always fighting something.

IV. TWIN SIZED MATTRESS

"It's no big surprise you turned out this way when they closed their eyes and prayed you would change."

- he never wanted to be saved. he never wanted to be soft, or kind, or easy to swallow.

- he was uncaring, angry, hostile. that boy couldn’t be kind if he wanted to, it wasn’t written for him that way.

- everybody around him wanted him to change, he played the ‘troubled teen’ role so well, they had hope for him. they thought that maybe if they tried, if they ignored the bloody knuckles and canine teeth, then he would be better.

- but the boy had a lot of issues with authority, and being told what to do. he hated rules, a troublemaker from birth. tobin fought against change like it was his right to do so

- they wanted to love him, they did, but that boy was not built to be loved.

- at the end, he became what everybody expected him to become. a junkie, a criminal, a good-for-nothing.

- nobody was really surprised when they heard the news of what he had done. dan got what was coming to him, and tobin being the one to do it was written from the start.

- maybe he was cursed, maybe it was all the stupid things he did and said.

- maybe, it was all of the consequences catching up to him.

V. PRETTY FLY FOR A WHITE GUY

"Our subject isn't cool, but he fakes it anyway."

- from his years of not really having any friends, and being socially isolated, tobin was the definition of a socially inept loser.

- but he wouldn’t tell you that. no, he was the master of lying to himself, or maybe he just didn’t care.

- tobin was in and out of school, constantly dropping out for months just to come back. he was always bad at math and sciences, he hated all the rules. and with all of his time out of education, he didn’t know a lot. he barely knew how to read.

- tobin wasn’t braindead though, he knew he wasn’t like the people around him. but he had a knack for acting like he was. he spent a lot of time making mental notes on how people socialized, on how people interacted, on what they deemed acceptable.

- he wanted friends, he wanted to keep himself busy. tobin wanted to prove that he could make anybody like him, that he could get whatever he wanted. to him, that was power and control. that was being smart.

- outside of the violence though, tobin was a goofy kid. he liked to joke around, he was different from the other kids, but he played into it for the fun of it. almost everything he did was to entertain himself, to make himself laugh, maybe others.

- his sense of humor was mostly insulting others, or teasing, or making weird comments. he liked to banter, liked to piss people off. he never cared to be liked anyways.

- tobin talked a lot, moody, but typically full of energy. he struggled to show much emotion, but he smiled wide, and always had a joke to make.

- awkward, but a social butterfly. he never tried to please anybody, and said what he wanted, but he was funny, and he was bold, and people liked that.

- but it was his nature to crash and burn. so he hopped from friend group to friend group, leaving the last one nothing but ash, torching every bridge he had ever built. to him, everyone was replaceable.

- because behind all the jokes, and the confidence, and the entertainment, tobin wasn’t a good person.

- everything was a performance act for him.

- he couldn’t connect with people even if he tried. behind the acts, the boy was off-putting, weird. vulgar and offensive. a dumb mutt.

VI. AVOCADO

"I'm the fucking king of everything."

- tobin was an egotistical prick.

- he didn't necessarily think he was better than everyone, but he was the king of his own world, he followed his own rules, he never considered anybody but himself.

- confident, not because he thought the best of himself, but because he knew in his world, he could do whatever he wanted.

- if he wanted to have something, he’d steal it. if he wanted to say something, he’d say it. and knowing that he was capable of that, of having that freedom; he was definitely an egotistical prick.

- tobin always assumed he was above consequences, and would put blame onto anything but himself. when faced with what he had done, he would preach a gospel of excuses, or just completely brush it off.

- the boy thought that if he stayed on the move, then nothing would catch up to him.

- he never apologized. he hated saying sorry for things he wasn’t really sorry for. he hated putting himself below people for the sake of civility. the one thing nobody would catch tobin doing, is pleasing people only to cater to whats expected of him.

- tobin never felt bad for the things he did, because he could justify anything, to others, and to himself.

- he did what it took to get by, little to no moral code. morality was just another expectation to him, another rule used to control him, another norm to reject.

- prideful to a fault

VII. PINEAPPLE BOY

"I know it's bad for me, I don't want to here it."//"Told myself I'd find a limit, honest to God I'd be done with my sinning".

- that boy had a problem of destroying everything he touched. bloody knuckles, bad choices.

- tobin wasn’t built for guilt, remorse, or shame. he didn’t have any of it.

- making the same mistakes over and over again. he never learned.

- but honestly, tobin was just bored all the time. horribly bored. and he thought, that maybe, setting everything on fire was better than the cold, gaping void in his chest.

- he lived life on his own terms, reckless and wild, brushing consequences off like dirt on his shoulder.

- on the other hand, though, he was ambitious. to a fault, like everything else about him.

- tobin always needed more, he was never truly satisfied. always unimpressed.

- he didn’t need anybody to help him. he didn’t need to rely on anybody. he was going to prove to everybody who said he’d never do anything great that they were wrong, and he was going to do it all on his own.

- the boy pushed his own limits until he was kissing the pavement. busted lip, aggravated.

- he pushed himself like he pushed everyone else around him. until they snapped, until they wanted nothing more to do with him. until he was left with nothing but a shovel in his hand, and dirt on his sneakers from digging his own grave.

VIII. DEAD IN 2008

"I'm a kid with a mission so I'm getting fucked up."

- he knew he did it to himself, at the end of the day.

- but he didn’t want to think about any of that, so he’d do another line, pop another shitty pressed pill.

- he spent a lot of time replacing bike chains, getting into fights, and running from the cops.

- always smoking cigarettes or rolling joints. he liked having something to do with his hands.

- tobin was a junkie kid, he had a few bad habits to say the least.

- in his hometown, he was known as a reckless troublemaker. drinking until he blacked out, snorting coke until his nose bled. always stoned or wasted, jumping fences.

- street fights and broken noses.

- it was something he was raised into. it was all he knew.

- he didn’t know how to control his anger, but he knew that weed helped him calm down. he didn’t know how to get things done, but he knew that doing lines of ritalin helped him focus. tobin was never good at math, but he was good at selling, and good at counting wads of cash.

- he couldn’t tell you about pythagorean theorem, but he could eye a baggie of white powder and tell you how much blow it was before putting it on a scale. he didn’t know anything about physics, but he could take apart a semi-automatic pistol and tell you how to put it back together.

- tobin was a dumb kid, but he knew more about parts of the world that no other boy his age knew about.

- and maybe thats what did it, he thought. maybe knowing more about how it feels to overdose than how it feels to get along with his father, is what did it.

cr; banner of tobin drawn by @clockeyedtoy

[solar-sunnyside-up]

Okay okay I can't find it again (plz message me if you know who it was) but someone was talking about ppl migrating between winter and summer to different places. In particular, deeply dense housing to more rural and spread out housing during summer. And I just haven't stopped thinking about it. a) We have different mobility, energy, socializing, and labor needs during different seasons. ex. During winter we need more indoor work/social/learning spaces. During summer we have more mobility outdoors and require different transportation and infrastructure and need more shade and outdoor gathering spaces. b) Our diets should change with the season and thus would require different preparation, storage, and distribution system.  c) our education system could work with different things for different times. Art, theatre, lit, and theoricial stuff could be done during winter months. While summer could be focused on home eco, building, agriculture, and other outdoor things. Idk the idea of Lunar cities filled with lots of color and soft glowing lights and transit systems built to get you to the sewing club, hanging out in the communal kitchens. With underground or covered paths to protect from environment, with communal or multigeneration living connected to other houses. With the world moving slower so it's denser. The idea of solar towns with different roads and plants. With smaller houses that are less focused on entertainment and more like a hobby house filled with crafts and stuff for projects, with a cellars for your food when your not going to communal Bbqs and fire pits, large playgrounds for all ages and accessability, and less lights bc so little of the time is spent in darkness. And finally the idea, that over a few weeks as the weather changes and the seasons change ppl start getting ready to go on these journeys to their other seasonal homes, connecting with different neighbors and family for different places.

[annaplaybook]

My Old Town Makeover 🗺️

I felt uninspired when I realized I hadn't put enough thought into the neighborhood design and how much that could detract from the fun of the game. I wanted to share how I've been planning Old Town!

The process starts with the population. The first step is deciding the timeline or country my Sims will be in. I chose the 90s for its matching aesthetics and pure nostalgia.

Next comes layout planning. Old Town has 41 lots, which I divided into four distinct neighborhoods:

West Country Road reflects the town's rural farming origins, inspired by the west.

Mr. Hall St is the exclusive area where only the wealthy and famous live, separate from West Country Road.

Summit Road is a suburban hub for families of all sizes, featuring duplexes, mobile homes, and multi-family homes for 2-3 families to play simultaneously.

Districts Aly is the entertainment district leading to downtown, with townhouses and live-work buildings designed for 1-2 families to play simultaneously.

The lots shown in the picture are ones I built before creating the new plan. I left them as they are because their locations work well, and the overall design fits the new vision.

I've made some progress since creating the image, but it's going to take time, each lot takes several hours to finish. I think starting with community lots is essential, as they play a big role in gameplay. Once a few key ones are complete, building houses will take less time, and I'll be able to start playing while adding more lots and homes as I go!

Here's a house for the mid-sized families area, and a community space currently under construction 😊

Am I taking on too much of a challenge? Maybe. But I know it will be worth it in the end. ❤️

[decepti-thots]

au where minimus speaks with one of those heavy yorkshire farmer accents

Ah, Yorkshire accents. I love them.

This is an interesting one because that accent is so moderated by class; there are of course posh people in Yorkshire, but Yorkshire-born-and-bred folks from the upper middle classes and above will generally not have what is considered by non-Yorkshire folks the 'quintessential' accent, because you get taught to speak differently from the outset. The Yorkshire 'farmer' accents (plural- Yorkshire's big and rural accents highly differentiated in that part of the country) are not just Yorkshire, but working/lower middle class accents, usually from very specific parts of Yorkshire.

Concept: the Ambus house is never actually said to be prestigious per se. There's no actual canon stating they're Fancy Folk TM. Maybe Ambustus Minor is a little out of the way place and Dominus was very upwardly mobile. The kid who got into Oxford, you know. Minimus never shook his accent pre-war and had to work very hard in the armour not to let it come out despite the new vocalizer, and it now mostly bleeds through when he's angry, which confused the hell out of everyone on the LL the first time he blew up at Rodimus following his not being in the armour all the time.

Minimus is, regrettably, a canon prescriptivist (his greatest sin) so he presumably doesn't speak dialect. Shame. Yorkshire dialect's great (and similar to my home county's!)

[jordanianroyals]

Queen Rania of Jordan celebrates her 53rd birthday on 31 August 2023

The Royal Court has released two new portraits of Queen Rania for the happy occasion.

The past year featured a number of joyous occasions for the Hashemites: the wedding of Crown Prince Hussein, the wedding of Princess Iman, the university graduation of Princess Salma, and the high school graduation of Prince Hashem.

In the days and weeks preceding their children’s weddings, Their Majesties were eager to share their happiness with their country’s people, involving the Jordanian public in the various celebrations marking the marriages of their first-born son and eldest daughter.

Her Majesty hosted a Henna party for Princess Iman, as well as a dinner party held in honor of the Crown Prince’s wife, Princess Rajwa, where the Queen and members of the royal family were joined by women from across Jordan’s 12 governorates to celebrate the two happy occasions. Both events spotlighted the richness of Jordanian culture and included several folkloric musical and dance performances by local female artists.

Throughout the year, Queen Rania continued to follow up on issues of importance to the Jordanian public by carrying out a number of visits to charitable associations, home-based businesses, startups, and other organizations across the country’s cities, villages, and rural areas.

A celebrated advocate for women and youth, Her Majesty’s local engagements included meetings with women artisans and young entrepreneurs, as well as visits to a number of women-led initiatives and associations supporting women’s financial empowerment.

During the holy month of Ramadan last March, for the second consecutive year, the Queen organized a mission to Umrah – the lesser Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca – for 500 women from across Jordan, a group of whom the Queen joined to perform the sacred pilgrimage herself. Earlier, in December 2022, Her Majesty took part in the lighting of the Fuheis Christmas tree among members of Jordan’s Christian minority.

Alongside her work within Jordan, over the course of the year, Queen Rania participated in several distinguished global gatherings, and accompanied His Majesty on a number of regional and international working visits.

At the invitation of the Her Majesty Queen Camilla of the United Kingdom, Queen Rania attended a reception at Buckingham Palace in London aiming to raise awareness of violence against women and girls. She also met with U.S. First Lady Dr. Jill Biden at the White House while joining His Majesty and Crown Prince Al Hussein on a visit to Washington, D.C.

While in D.C., the Queen delivered the keynote speech at the 2023 National Prayer Breakfast (NPB) Gathering’s International Luncheon on Capitol Hill, where she affirmed that religion is not “a shelter for hiding,” but “a launch pad for living.” She also posited that, in the face of widespread polarization, the act of prayer can lead us towards a better, more nuanced path that she described as “the third way.”

“This third way is not the average of extremes, but rises above the binary, elevating us to higher ground that can become common ground as well,” she said. ��Our win doesn’t need to be someone else’s loss. And being right doesn’t mean that the other side is wrong — only that we need other points of view to see a multi-dimensional picture.”

The Queen also spoke at the 2023 Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, where she underscored the potential pitfalls of humanity’s increased reliance on technology. “I am concerned that we’re undervaluing the most precious currency of all – our time,” Her Majesty said. “I am concerned that, even as virtual reality improves by the day, we’re neglecting the needs of our actual reality.”

In her capacity as a member of the Earthshot Prize Council, the Queen delivered remarks at the first-ever Earthshot Prize Innovation Summit, hosted in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. In her speech, Her Majesty called for mobilizing collective action and ingenuity to repair the planet, cautioning against claiming that “climate change is somebody else’s problem,” or leaving it for future generations to address.

This year, Queen Rania continued to use her global platform to advocate on behalf of refugees in Jordan and beyond. At the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York, Her Majesty explained that a refugee crisis is “not just a short-term humanitarian crisis,” but rather a “crisis of human development” that requires long-term solutions focusing on growth, building resilience, sustainability, and job creation.

Additionally, the Queen repeatedly underscored disparities in the treatment of refugees based on their country of origin. Speaking at the Paris Peace Forum, she noted the difference in reception of refugees from Ukraine to those from countries such as Syria, Myanmar, and South Sudan, who had also been driven from their homes.

“What accounts for the contrast in compassion? Does skin color make all the difference?” she asked.

In May, Queen Rania attended the coronation ceremony of the King Charles III and Queen Camilla in London alongside King Abdullah. Their Majesties also attended the funeral of the late Queen Elizabeth II in September.

[shanjanblog]

How To Go Off Grid Now With No Money

In today’s fast-paced world, the concept of going off-grid and living a more ecojoyful and self-sufficient lifestyle has gained tremendous popularity. However, many individuals believe that making such a significant lifestyle change requires a considerable amount of money. The truth is, with creativity, resourcefulness, and determination, it is entirely possible to transition to an off-grid lifestyle with little to no financial investment. This guide will walk you through practical steps to achieve this dream without breaking the bank.

1. Finding Free or Affordable Land

One of the biggest challenges in going off-grid is securing a piece of land to call your own. Fortunately, there are ways to acquire land without a hefty price tag.

Seeking Out Land Grants and Donations

There are organizations and local governments that offer land grants or donations, particularly in rural areas that are looking to attract new residents. These programs often require you to commit to living on the land for a set number of years and contributing to the local community, which can be a win-win if you're serious about an off-grid lifestyle.

Homesteading and Land Sharing

Another option is to connect with other off-grid enthusiasts who may be willing to share or rent out a portion of their land. This arrangement can reduce your costs significantly and allow you to benefit from the shared knowledge and resources of a community.

Squatting and Adverse Possession

While not the most traditional route, squatting on unused land is an option that some have pursued. Over time, with the proper legal understanding, this can lead to adverse possession, where you can gain legal ownership of the land. This approach requires thorough research into local laws and a willingness to navigate potential legal challenges.

2. Building a Shelter with Recycled Materials

Constructing a shelter doesn’t have to be an expensive endeavor. With the right approach, you can build a comfortable home using recycled and natural materials.

Utilizing Reclaimed Wood and Pallets

Reclaimed wood and pallets are often available for free or at a low cost from construction sites, businesses, or online marketplaces. With some basic carpentry skills, these materials can be transformed into a sturdy and ecojoyful off-grid home. Pallets, in particular, are versatile and can be used for everything from walls to furniture.

Earthships and Cob Houses

Earthships and cob houses are types of sustainable architecture that use natural and recycled materials like earth, clay, and glass bottles. These structures are highly efficient, insulating, and can be built with little to no money. The building process can be labor-intensive, but with the help of volunteers or community members, it’s a feasible option.

Alternative Shelters

Consider unconventional shelters like yurts, shipping containers, or tiny homes on wheels. These can often be sourced affordably and adapted to off-grid living. Yurts and tiny homes offer mobility, while shipping containers provide durability and a solid foundation for a permanent residence.

3. Harnessing Free or Low-Cost Energy Sources

Living off the grid means generating your own power, but this doesn’t have to be expensive. There are various methods to harness energy without spending a fortune.

Solar Power on a Budget

Solar panels are a common choice for off-grid energy, but new systems can be costly. Instead, look for used or discounted solar panels online or through local classifieds. DIY solar panel kits are another budget-friendly option, allowing you to build your own system at a fraction of the cost.

Wind Power

If you’re in a windy area, consider building your own wind turbine. There are many tutorials available online that guide you through the process using inexpensive materials. Wind power can complement solar energy, providing power during cloudy or stormy weather.

Micro-Hydro Power

For those with access to a flowing water source, micro-hydro power is an efficient way to generate electricity. Building a small-scale hydroelectric system can be done with minimal investment, and it provides a consistent power supply, especially during the night or in winter months.

4. Sourcing Food Sustainably and for Free

Growing your own food and foraging are key components of off-grid living. With some planning and knowledge, you can sustain yourself without spending much on groceries.

Starting a Garden with Seed Swaps and Cuttings

Starting a garden doesn’t require purchasing expensive seeds or plants. Participate in local seed swaps, where gardeners exchange seeds and cuttings for free. You can also propagate plants from kitchen scraps, such as potatoes, onions, and herbs, to kickstart your garden.

Foraging and Wildcrafting

Foraging for wild edibles is an excellent way to supplement your diet. Learn about the local flora and fauna in your area to identify edible plants, fruits, and mushrooms. This not only provides free food but also helps you connect with nature on a deeper level. Wildcrafting, or harvesting plants for medicinal or culinary purposes, can also be an essential skill in off-grid living.

Raising Livestock on a Shoestring Budget

If you have space, consider raising small livestock like chickens, rabbits, or goats. These animals are relatively low-cost to maintain and provide a steady supply of eggs, meat, and dairy. You can often acquire animals for free through online ads or by connecting with local farmers looking to downsize their flocks or herds.

5. Water Collection and Conservation

Access to clean water is essential for off-grid living, and with a bit of ingenuity, you can secure a water supply without relying on municipal systems.

Rainwater Harvesting

Rainwater harvesting is one of the most straightforward and cost-effective methods of collecting water. By setting up a simple gutter and barrel system, you can collect and store rainwater for drinking, cooking, and irrigation. Ensure that you have proper filtration and purification systems in place to make the water safe for consumption.

Using Natural Water Sources

If you live near a natural water source, such as a river, lake, or spring, you can set up a gravity-fed water system. This method requires some initial work to install pipes and filters, but it provides a reliable water supply with minimal ongoing costs. Be sure to check local regulations regarding water rights before using natural sources.

Water Conservation Techniques

To minimize your water usage, implement water conservation techniques such as greywater recycling and composting toilets. Greywater systems reuse water from sinks and showers for irrigation, reducing the need for fresh water. Composting toilets convert waste into compost, eliminating the need for a septic system and conserving water.

[realcleverissues]

Digital Red-Lining

Neufeld, a district IT worker and member of the Fresno Coalition for Digital Inclusion, started noticing patterns. He heard about students going to Taco Bell and McDonald’s for WiFi to do their homework, but he saw comparatively low download speeds across entire neighborhoods, disparities that reminded him of redlining, the practice of denying people housing and wealth based on their race. Neufeld and a colleague built an open source tool to gather 14 million speed tests across Fresno over the span of two years. “What it shows is that it’s not just people in rural areas who have a real need for better internet,” he said. “It’s people in urban, low-income neighborhoods in apartment buildings and mobile home parks, and these patterns are showing up across multiple large cities that have higher poverty.”