Do I just want a burn barrel out back?

You know one year into the journey about looking at home –  actually a homestead – I often think a lot about what I  really want in being a landowner which obviously has to include a house. I want land and a burning barrel out back, or at least some kind of incinerator that I can take care of my own burnable waste.

It would be so nice to only have to go to the transfer station once a year with a few bags of tin cans and glass for recycling, some scrap metal and a few other broken things that can’t be burnt. To not have to clean out or sort those inevitably discarded plastic yogurt cups and milk jugs, the junk mail and plastic wrappers that frozen fruit and vegatables that are just plain garbage with not even a possibility of being recycled.

I get tired of looking at the endless mounds of garbage in the city. It seems like every job I’ve had is overlooking a garbage dump, whether it’s in the sky scraper downtown, out in suburban buildings in Pine Bush or now in the data department in Menands. I really don’t want to be part of mine-buy-consume-landfill system. And I note with a burn barrel or incinerator you can break part of the cycle.

Truth is that Iike fire and it’s wonderful to be able to burn debris rather then haul it off your land. Sure is nice when you have a roaring fire up in the woods, to be able to toss that empty yogurt container or onion wrapper in the fire, and it disappears into smoke. Fire is great, it not only disposes of material, it warms you and provides light and entertainment.

But also I don’t just want land to have a burn barrel – I want to be able to homestead, produce as much of my energy and food on site without reliance on the primarily natural gas and coal-fired grid, instead primarily making electricity with solar and heating with wood.

I also want to turn my compost into chicken and hog feed, and rich soil to grow things, rather then keep buying things packaged in plastic, sending my money off-my-land and into the mound on the outskirts of town rather. And to the extent possible, return poop and urine to soil using an outhouse, composting toilet or humanure system.

Truth is I have a real problem with the buy – consume – landfill way of doing things that removes one entirely from the costs of production and disposal, which isolates you from the smells and pollution, which makes everything so fake.