Me and the Wife are doing kind of this in Alaska right now.
80 Acres, building a post and beam (load bearing) straw bale (nonload bearing) with a lime based earthen plaster. The bales are getting shipped in all other materials are currently onsite (using our trees for the posts beams and any flooring. We can't go subterranean or even partially subterranean because of permafrost.
Totally off grid, it would cost $30k for power and likely the same for wired telecoms. Water will be drilled or pounded in the spring (which is kind of ironic) depending on whether what we found is a natural spring, or an underground aquifer.
Then clear planting and pasture areas, for goats, chickens, rabbits (not hare). Plus we have plenty of game too.
So thoughts are I think its a great idea, drawbacks for us at least is its fr**king hard work, I thought I was fit until we started, even spending an hour or so a day at the gym will not prepare you for the work ahead. Of course at this time of year, we're averaging -10F daily dropping to -20F to -30F at night, but we've had runs of -40F or less for a couple of weeks so we're not doing much but surveying, and dropping a few of the bigger tree's while the sap is down.Oh and getting firewood of course.
You should check out our blog http://www.jenninewardle.com
I've seen lots of survival threads here, and was wondering if anybody had any thoughts or experience with Earthships. I've been researching them for some time, and I really like the idea of having a home that is off the grid and that requires no outside sources of water or power. Put one on a nice piece of land, and it would be pretty easy to have some crops and animals and basically run a self-sufficient homestead. I live in Dallas, and am seriously considering buying a hundred acres of land somewhere within a 2 hour drive from here and building an Earthship. Not a bad fall-back position if TSHTF, and at the very least it would be a fun place to go on the weekends with the wife and kids. Has anybody tried to build one of these? Any thoughts, ideas, alternatives?
Thanks.