125. School-Bus Living, Off-Grid Systems and Community Stewardship

In episode 125 of The Permaculture Vine Podcast, host Cormac Harkin was joined by Lindsay Brandon for a Permaculture Canada livestream covering her move from Calgary to an off-grid school bus in Golden, British Columbia.

The conversation covered Lindsay’s move from Calgary to a school bus in Golden, British Columbia, the practical systems needed for living off-grid, joining an established community, shared food production, sociocracy, creative work, travel and the future use of the bus.

Who’s at the Table

Lindsay Brandon is moving from Calgary, Alberta, to Golden, British Columbia. Her work includes permaculture design, yoga instruction, music, illustration and sculpture. At the time of the conversation, she was preparing a camperized school bus for the move while continuing to undertake permaculture designs and planning upcoming travel to Iceland and Thailand.

Cormac Harkin is the host of The Permaculture Vine Podcast. He joined Lindsay for this Permaculture Canada livestream and discussed her move, the bus conversion, off-grid systems, community arrangements and future plans.

Leaving Calgary and Downsizing

Lindsay had lived in Calgary while raising her children for 23 years. With her children now adults and out of the house, she decided to stop renting a three-bedroom property in the city and move into a school bus in Golden.

The decision followed winter travel with her partner through six countries in Central America. They were looking for places where they might spend Canadian winters while retaining a home in Canada near family and their children.

Maintaining a city house while travelling created considerable overhead. After returning to Calgary, Lindsay found that the house was larger than she needed. She wanted to move away from the noise and routines of the city and spend more time on the land.

The move also required a significant reduction in belongings. Lindsay estimated that she sold around 70 per cent of what she owned. This took approximately three months of managing listings, calls, collections and negotiations through Facebook Marketplace.

She retained her instruments, recording equipment, seasonal clothing and other belongings that she still needed. These are being stored in a rented 20-foot shipping container near the airport, allowing her to collect or exchange equipment and seasonal items when she returns to Calgary.

Making Space for Creative Work

Lindsay described the move as an opportunity to spend more time on music, songwriting, painting, illustration and sculpture.

In Calgary, she had a large music studio but generally used it only occasionally in the evenings. On the land, she intends to create music with other artists, build sculptures in the woods and paint murals on the school bus and shipping containers.

She also plans to use a virtual reality headset to transfer her illustrations onto larger surfaces. Drawings can be loaded into an application, enlarged to the required scale and viewed against the surface being painted. Lindsay intends to use this process to turn sketches into large murals on the bus and other structures.

A future music studio may be housed in a yurt. She also discussed purchasing two shipping containers and using them as separate workshop spaces beneath a large covered structure.

Stewarding Land Without Owning It

The conversation considered the difference between purchasing land and entering an arrangement to inhabit and help steward land owned by someone else.

Lindsay is exploring agreements based on the needs of both the landowners and the people living there. She mentioned bartering, trading and contributing skills as possible parts of these arrangements.

She plans to spend a year living in the school bus on the property before deciding where to position it permanently. This will allow time to observe different parts of the land before choosing a longer-term location.

Lindsay and her partner are also considering eventually building an earthship. She said they hoped to begin that process the following year, but the location had not yet been selected.

The initial infrastructure may include two shipping containers with a Quonset-style roof between or above them. The containers would provide workshop space, while the covered area could be used to protect the school bus and other vehicles during the snowy Golden winters when Lindsay and her partner are travelling elsewhere.

Preparing the School Bus

The vehicle is a full-sized International school bus that had already been camperized. Lindsay thought it was approximately 25 feet long but was not certain of the measurement.

At the time of the recording, the bus could not safely make the journey through the mountain pass to Golden. It needed a fuel pump and new tyres, so it was due to be transported on a flatbed. A diesel mechanic in the area would be able to work on it after it arrived.

The bus already had plumbing, curtains, shelving and considerable storage. A friend removed part of the former bunk-bed structure and built a two-level workspace. Clothing bins fit on the lower level, while the upper level serves as a standing desk. Covered windows were also reopened to bring more natural light into the bus.

Another friend built a new bed frame with storage underneath and repaired broken glass. An additional countertop was installed near the front to provide more food-preparation space.

The existing full-sized refrigerator will not initially be operated because of its power demand. It will instead provide storage for dry food and dishes, with the option of selling it later.

Water, Hot Water and Composting Toilets

The bus has plumbed water, but the hot-water system had not yet arrived at the time of the conversation. Lindsay had ordered a propane on-demand unit, which remained on back order.

Water will be obtained from the property, where there are creeks and wells. Lindsay plans to capture and store it in a larger container connected to the bus system.

There is no fitted bathroom. The bus has an empty cubicle that could hold a bucket and toilet seat when going outside is impractical.

One of Lindsay’s first jobs will be to build a three-stage composting system into which toilet buckets can be emptied. There was already a box and seat at one prospective location, and sawdust was readily available. A shelter would still be needed to keep the toilet covered during cold or wet weather.

Until the on-demand hot-water unit arrives, Lindsay considered using a solar shower bag or black pipe placed on the roof. Cormac also described a compost-heated water arrangement in which pipe was routed through a compost heap, as well as the simpler option of using black pipe heated by the sun.

Lindsay also mentioned the possibility of heating water using copper pipe around a fire made in a converted keg. Current fire restrictions limit the use of open flames, although she said propane fire pits were permitted under the restrictions she described.

Building the Solar System

The solar installation was still incomplete despite Lindsay allowing more than six weeks to assemble it.

She and her partner already owned a Bluetti power bank that had been charged from the alternator of their truck. They had used it to run DJ turntables and other equipment during pop-up performances.

For the bus, they ordered an expansion battery and 500-watt solar panels. The first expansion unit arrived cracked on both sides. Its replacement was then delivered to an address where Lindsay had lived two houses previously.

Finding the correct cables also proved difficult. Some components came from different suppliers, while tariffs affected the practicality of ordering equipment from outside Canada.

Once complete, Lindsay expected the system to take approximately six hours to charge and provide more power than she required. Her computer has a relatively low demand, and she does not expect to spend long periods inside using electrical equipment.

The bus also has a conventional fuse box that could be used when connected to mains electricity at a campground. Lindsay’s normal arrangement, however, will be based on the separate solar system.

Refrigeration and Food Storage

For refrigeration, Lindsay purchased a 58-litre Anker Solix EverFrost 2 rolling cooler.

The unit has two separately controlled compartments, allowing different combinations of refrigeration and freezing. Lindsay noted that the internal compartments were smaller than she expected relative to the overall size of the unit, with part of the space used for its battery system.

They purchased three batteries. Lindsay believed that one battery could run the unit for approximately three days. The batteries can be charged through the solar power system, and the cooler can be monitored and controlled through a phone application.

Shared Gardens and Food Production

The Golden property already operates a community garden. Lindsay said that someone who contributes one day of work can eat from it.

The garden is large, irrigated and open to additional planting. It includes a range of vegetables and a dedicated structure containing hot peppers and basil. Other gardens around the property have different functions.

The property also has ducks, chickens and pigs. Eggs, bacon, sausages and other meat products are produced there. One of the landowners also owns the natural food shop in town, and products from the property are sold through an existing store.

The mountainous ground is rocky and rich in minerals. The people living there have spent years building soil with hügelkultur, imported biomass and composting systems. A compost collection programme at the natural food shop previously brought material from town to the property. Some of it was fed to chickens, with the resulting manure contributing to soil production. Pigs are now also part of that process.

Lindsay brought a collection of perennial plants that had previously moved from her parents’ property to her Calgary home. Some were planted among existing orchard rows, while approximately three-quarters remained in pots until their placement could be considered more carefully. The collection includes perennial berry bushes, hops and grapes.

Animals and the Layout of the Property

Although the property covers more than 140 acres and is surrounded by forest and mountains, Lindsay said she had not seen bears or deer on it. She attributed the limited wildlife pressure in part to two large dogs, Odie and Phoenix, which respond loudly to signs of animals.

Most food production and livestock are concentrated near the people, gardens, community kitchen and dome. The dogs have a defined perimeter that keeps them away from the B&B, glamping and camping areas.

The pigs are contained with electric fencing and moved regularly. The ducks move freely around the property. The chickens live in another school bus within a fenced area where much of the compost is deposited.

Joining an Existing Community

Lindsay had watched the property develop over many years but had not originally expected to live there.

As she considered purchasing land independently, the amount of work involved became a concern. She referred to household maintenance, snow clearing, road access and pump management, alongside the continuing work of a homestead. She also expects to be absent for approximately half of each year.

Joining an existing community allows responsibilities to be shared. The current landowners use seasonal workers and WWOOFers to help manage the farm and rental operations, but it can still be difficult for them to leave. A larger group could watch over each other’s homes, systems and projects, allowing different members to travel.

Lindsay also wants to learn additional practical skills on the property, including operating heavy equipment, building ponds and undertaking more carpentry.

Sociocracy and Community Agreements

The community is moving towards a sociocratic model, although Lindsay said she had not yet seen how it would work as the group expanded.

She has helped the landowners define parts of their business plan, investor possibilities and the matters that need to be addressed when forming agreements with residents. Some meetings had already been conducted in a small-scale sociocratic way.

The discussion included taking turns to speak, communicating honestly and accepting responsibility for personal issues. One landowner focuses on self-awareness and communication, while the other places importance on self-responsibility and acting for the good of the group.

Cormac and Lindsay also discussed the relationship between shared decision-making and responsibility for individual areas of work. Cormac suggested that someone managing a particular system, such as chickens or pigs, should retain responsibility for its day-to-day operation while remaining connected to the wider community.

Lindsay said that expected contributions should be established in advance. These might include meetings, shared meals or a specified number of working hours. She also identified personal freedom as an important part of the arrangement.

Travel, Recording and Future Work

The bus is intended to become mobile once its mechanical work is completed. Lindsay and her partner want to travel to land they have in Mexico and continue making music on the road.

They plan to install a recording studio in the bus. During previous travels, they carried DJ turntables in a backpack and performed pop-up sets on beaches and volcanoes. Moving the equipment into the bus would allow them to record in different locations and work with musicians who may not otherwise have access to recording facilities.

They are also considering a business retrofitting existing vehicles for off-grid use or completing full camper conversions. Lindsay described the intended conversions as artistic and individually decorated rather than conventional recreational vehicles.

At the time of the episode, Lindsay was also preparing to travel to Iceland for the Eclipse Festival. She was scheduled to speak about observation from a permaculture perspective, connecting with land and reading the landscape.

She was subsequently planning to attend a permaculture convergence in Bangkok, followed by a five-day bamboo-building course at a farm outside the city. She had not previously grown bamboo but wanted to learn a construction method that could be used during travel in tropical countries.

Highfield Farms in Calgary

The conversation was recorded from Highfield Farms, a 17-acre regenerative farm project within Calgary. The farm had provided space for Lindsay’s bus while work was being completed.

Lindsay described a large greenhouse, a compost club, strawberry growing, a possible mycology project, rainwater capture and extensive areas of mulch produced from locally collected wood.

The site had also hosted gatherings, DJs, soup competitions, roller skating, children’s activities, seed exchanges and activities run by the Permaculture Calgary Guild.

At the time of the recording, Highfield Farms was preparing to close because the City of Calgary intended to use the land for bus parking and associated storage. Materials, including mulch, were being given away before the site was cleared.

Closing

In this episode, we discussed Lindsay Brandon’s transition from a rented house in Calgary to an off-grid school bus in Golden, British Columbia.

The conversation covered downsizing, preparing the bus, solar power, refrigeration, water, composting toilets, shared gardens, animals, sociocratic decision-making, creative work, mobile recording, camper retrofits, upcoming travel and the closure of Highfield Farms.

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