Eric Darby is a “deeply blue-collar” builder, off-grid tinkerer, helicopter pilot, and grandfather who has spent most of his life avoiding normal jobs.
Eric never made much money—his lifetime average income is about $7,500 per year—but he still managed to buy 16 acres in western Colorado and fill it with Earthships, tiny houses, workshops, kinetic sculptures, and other hand-built structures. He describes his pride in being able to weld, wire, plumb, and frame his own buildings, and why waking up with a construction problem to solve feels more meaningful than any paycheck ever could.
Although Eric lives an extraordinarily sustainable life—collecting rainwater, generating his own solar power, charging his electric car at home, and building with salvaged materials—he arrived there through thrift and curiosity, not environmental ideology. As he puts it, his connection to nature is often less about hugging trees and more about “cutting down a tree in my way” or trapping the squirrel that burrowed into one of his tire walls.
We discuss his stint as a teenage garbage collector, the dirtbag motorcycle years, flying helicopters in Vietnam and Alaska, and the freedom that comes from needing very little money. Eric says his strongest sense of purpose comes from building things for his children and grandchildren, not from trying to set an example for the world—though many young visitors leave his property inspired by what they see.
At the heart of Eric’s story is a simple conviction: he would rather be homeless than spend his life in a conventional job fixated on making money. For anyone who suspects there must be another way to live, Eric offers a powerful and deeply practical example.
Full transcript: dirtbagrich.com/eric
Recorded in May 2026.
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript. Typos and mistakes exist!
Blake Boles (00:01)
Eric Darby, welcome to Dirtbag Rich.
Eric (00:04)
Well, thank you, Blake. I’m glad to be here.
Blake Boles (00:08)
What is something that you’ve built that has been really impressive to other people? And what’s something that you’ve built that has been mostly impressive to yourself?
Eric (00:18)
Well, the very first thing that comes to mind that was impressive to other people was when I was asked to do a science fair project in high school as a senior. And I put a fan blade and a driven by a lawnmower engine on a sled, on a snow sled. And I dreamed of being able to propel myself down the street with this thing and it was actually a success. It worked but I entered into the science fair project. I didn’t want to do a science fair project but I entered this in and I won third place prize for my ice sled even though was something I would have built anyway. I didn’t build it for the science fair project but that was something that I was surprised that other people were impressed by because I actually got a prize for it. Something that I have built that I myself, that was a question, that I myself, I would say it was a lamp that I built recently that is, if you look at it, can see it’s clearly something has happened to this lamp. It’s broken and I fixed it. And so the obvious break and the obvious fix are right there in front of you. And I just really, I really like that I have showed that lamp to various people and many of them walk right by it and don’t even comment about it but it’s one of the things that I really am pleased with. really, I myself really like it.
Blake Boles (02:16)
Yesterday I walked up the hill from my friend Dev Carey’s place here in Paonia up to your place. We originally met through Dev a number of years ago and I saw a number of the lamps that you’ve built in recent years and they are all super funky and interesting and they’re like art pieces. Do you consider them art?
Eric (02:37)
I do. I actually do consider them to be art. And I have learned by showing those lamps to a number of people that art is in the eye of the beholder. Some people are just delighted by them and others don’t, almost don’t even see them. They’ll comment about the floor before they’ll say anything about the lamps. So yeah, I consider them to be art. And I really, that’s a hard
That’s a hard case for me to actually say that I’m an artist because I, you know, the artists that I know, I admire because they do stuff I can’t do. In fact, when I started to do lamps in general, I wanted all my lamps to be interesting and artistic, but I put a light bulb on this art piece so that I didn’t, I wasn’t making sculpture.
I didn’t have the courage to go all the way and do an art sculpture. I did an art piece that had a practical application to it. You could at least read your newspaper by it if it wasn’t great art. But I’ve been doing some sculpting lately that is pure sculpture. So I suppose I am an artist to some. Yeah.
Blake Boles (04:03)
There you go. You’re on the record saying it. And for anyone who goes up to your property, I’d say that the sculptures and the, what do you call the things that move with the wind? I mean, they’re massive.
Eric (04:05)
Just kinetic sculptures.
Blake Boles (04:21)
Kinetic sculptures and the lamps are not the first thing that people are going to notice. They’re going to notice the buildings. So can you just quickly walk us through what kind of buildings are up there on your high desert property? The diversity of them, the different sizes, the different methods of construction. I know that’s a lot, but just give us a quick virtual tour, Eric.
Eric (04:42)
Okay, I’ll do that. In fact, you’ve really struck gold here because I love to talk about building. I’ll talk about building with anybody. And one of those people that when I drive by a building site, I’m rubbernecking to see what’s going on and what the framing looks like and all that sort of thing. But I’m not a typical builder. I’ve never been a contractor. And all the buildings that I construct, I do purely for myself or my family.
And the buildings that I have here, I guess it’s probably a good time to mention that the county that I live in here in Colorado has no building code. And that is really to my advantage. I didn’t move here for that reason, but nobody ever comes by and says I need a permit to do what I’m doing. I can build anything I want.
We do have a plumbing code and there is somewhat of an electrical code as well, but not a building code. So when I bought this property, it had one building on it and it was an earthship. The earthships are the buildings that are made with, famously with worn out automobile and truck tires. Basically building a retaining wall. It’s nice if you have a south facing slope and you can dig into the hillside.
And then your building ends up being underground on three sides, east, west, and north. And the south side of the building is all glass. And that’s building that was here when I bought the place. And I didn’t know much about earthships. I knew the term. I’d read the book, but I’d never lived in one. And then I delightfully discovered that the building heated itself all winter long and it was cool in the summer. And I actually installed a wood stove that I eventually took out and used it somewhere else because I didn’t need a wood stove. The sun did all the heating of this building. And so in general, a building like that is called an earth-sheltered building. And so knowing that I could construct a building that didn’t use energy, at least to heat it or cool it,
That seemed to me like a no-brainer, that that’s all I really wanted to build. So I have built several airships since then, modified the design right off the bat because there were aspects of the one that I bought that I didn’t like so I wanted to improve on that. And they have all performed just like they should. I have one now that is earthships generally are insulated in the ceiling, in the attic, and not covered over with dirt. But I did build a sheltered building recently that actually is covered over with dirt. And I had to build a very strong structure to hold up all that weight of all that dirt. And I have yet to see that building through the winter. So I don’t know how well it’s going to perform.
But it’s just like a nurse ship in every other aspect. It’s underground on three sides and all glass on the south side. And these are all small buildings. They’re not big. At least most of my buildings are fairly small because I’m kind of trying to prove the concept. I get an idea and I want to try it and see how it works. I do have…
some parameters I work around. I like to build, you, as I’ve said, a building that’s efficient, that will heat itself and cool itself. I want to build a building that doesn’t use exotic materials, meaning it’s going to be inexpensive to build. I want to build a building that is simple and so that anybody can build it. That’s what I always am striving for, is to make it efficient and and economical at the same time and not extremely difficult to build.
Blake Boles (09:12)
Hmm. There’s a number of tiny houses on your property also. How small do they go?
Eric (09:18)
Well, the smallest one that I’ve ever built was 20 feet long and eight feet wide. And the largest I’ve ever built was 30 feet long and 12 feet wide. what I, I was going to mention that, that’s the other, that’s the other building that I, they obviously are not earth sheltered, but because they’re on wheels, that just gives them a huge advantage. And when I build,
something on wheels, I can move it around my property, put it in a different place, face it more east, more west, more south, whatever I want to do. I can sell it and it can roll away from here. So tiny houses are a good idea. So I have capitalized on that and built several, I think I’ve built four tiny houses so far. ⁓
I built some standard buildings as well. I have a cabin that is not earth sheltered and it’s not on wheels. It has a metal foundation and it’s very well insulated and it doesn’t heat itself entirely so it has wood stove but it’s a pretty efficient little building. that’s in general those are the earth sheltered and the portable or tiny house type buildings are mainly what I concentrate on.
Blake Boles (10:48)
And you have some family members or friends staying in these buildings from time to time. It’s a little bit of a commune you’ve built up there.
Eric (10:57)
Yeah, I guess you could say that. You know, I’ve lived in communities before and I find that to be difficult because I had to ask permission to do things, to build things, and sometimes I got turned down. I’d have an idea and want to do it and I’d even pay for it, but it got nixed. So that was hard to take.
So now I live on this property. own this 16 acres, free and clear. I don’t have a mortgage and I get to do whatever I want here. I just consider this to be my palette really, just my canvas. And buildings is what I like to do. And these art pieces are something that I’ve been moving into lately and I can do that here as well.
When you say family and friends, yes, I do have buildings that like I have one building I call my guest cabin. Mostly when people come to visit, I offer that to them. And I have three children, two boys, and the baby is a girl and she’s 35.
I have offered the one thing that I do have is this piece of property this 16 acres and I Feel like what I’ve done for them. I have not amassed a lot of money. I I fit the dirt bag description in that regard I I have not prioritized money in my life. So I I have enough to get by live I live reasonably comfortably with my Social Security now
That’s actually way more money than I need. And it’s the minimum amount of social security because I have not put a lot of money into that system because I haven’t worked much my whole life, not for money in any case. So because of owning this property and offering it to my kids, my boys have taken advantage of that. And my daughter, she lives more normal life with her husband has a job and they live in suburbia in Denver. ⁓
But it’s been a real game changer for my boys because without a rent or a mortgage, that frees up their lives incredibly. All they need to do is come up with enough money to feed themselves and that doesn’t take a lot. They’ve learned from me and my wife how to live frugally. all three of my kids are really good at squeezing a nickel. They really know how to keep their money in their pocket.
Blake Boles (13:57)
And I imagine they learned from you because you told me that for most of your, your working life, your pre social security life, you were living off something like $7,500 a year. Is that correct? Yeah.
Eric (14:11)
That’s exactly right. I only know that because Social Security people sent me my entire work history when I started mowing grass at age 16 and how much money I earned that summer and all the way up until the very last job I ever had. And there were a lot of zeros in there where I didn’t work at all in a year. Probably the most I ever made was $35,000 one particular year.
But most years, much, much less than that, and many years, no money at all. And when I added all that money up and divided it by the total number of years I’d worked, it came out to $7,500 per year.
Blake Boles (14:56)
So even if we adjust that for inflation, that is not a lot of money. so clearly, Eric, anyone who visits you, they see your 16 acres, all these buildings. You reveal that you don’t work that much. You clearly come from generational wealth and some great inheritance, some family dynasty. Just go on, tell us that that’s true.
Eric (15:03)
Yeah.
Well, no, it’s not. Now, full disclosure, to me this is an interesting story. was a point at which I was caretaking on a piece of property here in the valley and I’d done so and raised my family there. I’d been there for 20 years. I took care of this orchard in trade for being able to live there and the owner lived in California. And we eventually wanted to buy this property so we saved our money so that could buy it. And when it came down to the wire, and I had in fact built a shop and was halfway finished with constructing a house on this property, and the owner changed his mind and said, I’ve decided not to sell it to you. And so because of that, I didn’t fret over it very long. mean, it was really quite a shock to have invested that much effort into this property, but I just regrouped and took the money that we had saved and it eventually ended up buying the property that I’m on currently. And it turns out this is really a much better piece of property. It was a point at which several years after this, I saw the owner and told him, said, you know, you did me a favor really. He was kind of sheepish and a little ashamed that he’d done that to me and my family. But I said, you know, I live in a beautiful place. Now I own this 16 acres on a dead end road and it’s off the grid. It has no water. has, I have to make my own electricity. And I just love living there. It’s a way better fit for me than it would have been had he sold me that original property.
Blake Boles (17:15)
When you said full disclosure, I thought you were about to reveal some, some hidden source of, of money, but no, you, you worked, even though you say you haven’t worked that much and earned that much money, you worked and saved and bought this, these 16 acres that don’t have electricity or, water, you know, normal utilities. And so this is a life that you have more or less created for yourself.
Eric (17:39)
Yes, yeah that’s right. You know, what I meant by full disclosure is that when we were trying to save up the money to buy this place, it cost $150,000, this piece of property, which is a lot of money to us, but even with our meager income, we were still able to put money aside. Of course, we lived on this place for free, this orchard, and so we didn’t have a lot of expenses.
And I was very careful to save as much money as we could and my parents knew I was doing that and so every once in a while my folks would send some money in the form of maybe ten thousand dollars and One time I remember my mom had a CD that came due and it was Fifteen thousand dollars something like that. We just added that to the pot, and so with that help and a lot of savings, I had $150,000 and not anything more than that. And when the fellow said that that’s what he wanted for this property, I said sold and gave him all my money. I didn’t have anything left after, but I was happy to do that. Just happy to own my own place and start building my own buildings and figuring out how to make electricity and how is it going to deal with the water. And that’s been a really fun and wonderful journey for me to figure all this stuff out.
Blake Boles (19:16)
I want to circle back to the water and power and the sustainability aspects in a moment. But first, I’d like to hear how you’ve made money over the years. And if I remember correctly, Eric, you have never held a normal job for that long. So tell us a bit about your employment history. And you can even start in college if you’d like. I think that’s an interesting part of your story.
Eric (19:41)
Okay, okay, I will. Yeah, I like talking about that, you know, because every job, pretty much, you’ll hear where this isn’t quite ring true, but every job I’ve ever had, I took a job for the experience of it, not the money. It wasn’t like I needed money, so I went looking for a job. When I was, in fact, my very first job, as I mentioned, I was cutting grass at an airport. my dad, he was in aviation and he knew some people and he helped me get this job. And I didn’t even see that money. That money went straight to my parents and they put it away for my college. So they’d give me a few dollars to put gas on my motorcycle or buy a hamburger now and then.
But mostly that money just went into savings. And then I got a job which I’m most, most proud of. The next summer after I cut grass, busy between semesters in college, I got a job as a garbage man, collecting garbage. And this is back in the old days when you had a big plastic barrel that you rolled down the street and you would go behind a person’s house and there were no plastic bags or anything like that that you just pulled out of their trash can you took the lid off their trash can dumped their loose trash into your big barrel. You could put about three almost four trash cans in this one big barrel you drag it to the street then and Heft it up onto this garbage truck and pour it into the garbage truck and then you get back down on the ground and go to the next house and that was the hardest job I’ve ever had. And of course, it’s the summer, it’s hot, it’s humid, which is back east. And I was good at it. I mean, I was good at it. I was really strong. I had met a guy in college who lifted weights for fun and he invited me to come lift weights with him. So I did and I got really strong. And that summer, I…
Eric (22:07)
I was, the guys that, on a garbage truck there were, there’s one fellow who knows the route, he’s a driver, he’s the older person, and there’s two younger people that ride in the back and they work either side of the street. They call those the humpers, the driver and the humper. And at the end of the summer, I was one of the first people that a driver would select because you got, at the beginning in the morning, and we’d start at four o’clock in the morning, they, ⁓
the drivers got to choose their humpers. And I was…
Blake Boles (22:42)
I can hear the pride oozing from you, Eric, as the top, top humper, top sweaty garbage slinger. Okay, so tell us about college, that phase of your life, and then give us an overview of what you’ve done to make money as a working adult.
Eric (22:44)
Yeah, yeah, no, it’s true. really, I really, I really felt that. Yeah.
Okay. I went to college at 18. I was 18 years old when I started my freshman year. And I was, I just was following what people told me to do. The counselors told me I I should go to college. My dad told me I should be an aeronautical engineer.
And so I did not have much agency for myself. And so I just did what I was told. And I went to college at the University of Delaware and was studying to be an aeronautical engineer. There was a lot of mathematics and physics and thermodynamics and just stuff that just didn’t interest me at all. And I struggled. I enjoyed.
college for the friends I made there, living by myself and lifting weights, that’s where I learned to do that. But academically I was sorrowful. And I ended up actually flunking out of school in my second year and barely passed the first as a freshman to go on to being a sophomore.
And then I flunked out. I went to summer school to try to get back in. And this was during the Vietnam era and the war was going on. And a lot of us, just, you we wanted to stay in college to avoid the army. But when I was there for my third year, I flunked out big time. There was no way I could ever make up what I did that year. So I got a…
I got a notice from the draft board and they said, please report. And so I did. And once again, you know, without much agency, I mean, I didn’t consider Canada. didn’t consider being a conscientious objector. I went and spoke to the draft board and they said, you’re going to, you know, you’re required to go, go into the military. You can enlist if you like. So I.
looked at my enlistment possibilities and since my dad had been in aviation and I also by that time had gotten my private pilot’s license, I decided well I’ll just fly, I’ll fly in the Air Force. So I talked to the Air Force recruiter, they didn’t want me because they didn’t have a college education and the Navy didn’t want me as a pilot because they didn’t have a college education. Nobody wanted me.
But the Army said, no problem, we’ll send you to flight school because the Army needs helicopter pilots. And we’ll be happy to have you without a college degree. So I signed up and I went away to flight school and that took a year. And I just figured, okay, the war will be over by the time I get to flight school, but that was not true. So right after flight school.
I got orders to go to Vietnam and I did that. I flew helicopters in Vietnam for a year. I came back to the States for another year of military service and the Army had produced so many helicopter pilots they didn’t, they were giving people the opportunity to get out if they wanted to. And so even though I owed the Army two years after Vietnam, I only served one year and then I was able to get out.
And that was money. You know, I made, I made money. I remember when I left the army, had $9,000 in savings. And that was, that was quite a little bit of money back in 1973. And then I did the closest thing to dirtbagging that I’ve ever done. And that is I bought a motorcycle and I traveled around the United States for the next three years. And just coast to coast, I drive all the way to the coast and turn around and go the other way. One time I did the trip in three weeks and another time it took me 11 months to do the trip. And I stopped and set up my tent in people’s backyards and people would invite me in and I’d stay in their house. had, my motorcycle was a BMW and there’s this club.
Blake Boles (27:28)
Wow.
Eric (27:49)
If you belong to the BMW club they have this thing called a blue book and you just look in the blue book and you find other members and you go and Stay with them and They will put you up and and I learned something interesting doing that It’s very easy to be the person on the motorcycle who needs a place to sleep If you are a BMW owner and you own a house, you don’t get to do that a lot. So when I would show up at these, at a BMW owner’s house and start telling stories of my adventures out on the road, they just love to hear that because they were stable. They had a bed they could offer me, but they couldn’t get out on their motorcycle except for a couple of weeks every year and take a trip. Whereas this was my lifestyle. I lived out of my motorcycle for…
Blake Boles (28:33)
And as you know, this resonates a lot with me and couch surfing and being a bicycle tourist and, being the person who kind of brings the outside world to those who have more rooted, domestic lifestyles. It has always felt not like I’m, I’m being a mooch or a parasite, but it really has felt like a nice symbiotic exchange. And, and especially nice when you get to sleep in a nice bed instead of camping out or someone feeds you a meal.
Eric (28:48)
All those years.
Blake Boles (29:18)
It sounds like you enjoyed that in your own BMW way.
Eric (29:22)
Absolutely, I feel exactly the same. I didn’t feel like a mooch at all because when I would leave they would thank me just again and again, you know, for just taking the time to stop and bring my stories to them and, you know, kind of could live through me vicariously. A lot of these people just love the idea. Maybe they wouldn’t even have done it if they’d had the opportunity, but they’d love the stories.
And they’d like to see that somebody was doing it. Somebody had figured out their life with enough freedom in it so that they could actually make a lifestyle out of motorcycle touring.
Blake Boles (30:01)
So tell me about the most normal job you held in the post army, post motorcycle dirt bag part of your life. I assume we’re in your mid to late 20s now.
Eric (30:05)
That’s right. Well, the most normal job I ever had was when I got married and I was in my late twenties when I met my wife and we got married. I had already gone as a helicopter pilot, a licensed helicopter pilot, I had gone where most of the Vietnam veterans that I knew had gone before me, which was to Louisiana, where there are lots and lots of helicopters. And the reason for that is they’re the taxis that carry the oil rig workers to work. And you work seven days on an oil rig and then you’re off for seven days. And the helicopter is the way you get from the oil rig back to land. there was a company there that I went in and got interviewed and they said to me how many hours did I had. I had 1500 hours of flight time. I had accrued most of that in Vietnam. And they required 1600 or 1700 something to that effect and I didn’t have enough.
I didn’t have enough flight time to be hired. My friends later told me, well, you didn’t tell them the truth, did you? And actually, naively, I did. But so I said, what about mechanics? You guys need mechanics? my goodness, do we ever. And if you had your mechanics license and your pilot’s license, we could really use you. I said, OK, I’ll go get my mechanics license. So I immediately went and
signed up for aircraft and to get my aircraft and power plant license, airframe and power plant. And I went to school in Florida for half of it and in North Dakota for the other half. And as a pilot mechanic, I went back to that company and they hired me and they put me to work in the hangar. They wanted me to work for six months in the hangar before I started flying. And that was the most normal job I ever had and it was difficult. was not fun. But I was a brand new dad. I had a little baby to take care of. really just changed my dirtbag existence pretty quickly when we decided to have children. so it turns out that
I never saw that through and this is why. It’s an unfortunate thing, but I’m the oldest of four boys and my baby brother, the youngest in our family, was killed in an automobile accident a week after my son was born. And we decided to go back to my parents’ place and support them because it’s quite a blow to our whole family that that happened. So we uprooted and went back to Delaware to be with my parents. And while I was there, so you can see that I never did really ever fly offshore like I had planned to do. I would have had my brother not been killed, I would have gone on to be a pilot mechanic for this company. While I went back to Delaware, I was not there long, maybe four or five months and I got a call from a friend of mine, Army friend who was also a pilot, and he was in Alaska. And he said, there’s a job up here waiting for you. We need a pilot to fly National Geographic photographers around the interior of Alaska. And if you want to come up here and do that, the job is yours. So I did. I went up there ahead of my wife and my newborn son, and they came up later and I spent a year in Alaska flying. normally you don’t spend a year, you’re only there for the summer, but I wanted to experience the winter in Fairbanks and so I did. That’s a story into itself.
Blake Boles (34:52)
And Eric, let me just jump in there and ask, why didn’t you go back to the organization in Louisiana and become the offshore pilot? Would they have had you back if you wanted to?
Eric (35:04)
Well, you know, that’s a very good question because in general they said, if you quit, you cannot come back. And when I told them the circumstances, they said, in your case, you may come back if you want to because of this death in your family. But, you know, I never even gave that another thought to go back to that job because I really did not like it.
It might have been a different situation actually flying, but as a mechanic, I just had bosses that, you know, put me on these menial tasks that were a waste of time, in my opinion. I wasn’t setting the world on fire with regard to my paycheck either. So it never even crossed my mind to go back to Louisiana. I just went to Alaska and never look back, never look back at that kind of job.
Blake Boles (36:06)
Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like if there’s a pattern to your working existence, it’s that you’ll easily feel frustrated or alienated by working for a larger company, a larger corporation where there’s more layers of bureaucracy and maybe people cannot explain why they’re giving you a specific task. But if you’re working for a friend or a very small, a more family-like organization, maybe like the job up in Alaska, then all of the sudden it feels much more palatable. And of course, the far end of that is working for yourself.
Eric (36:40)
Yeah, you know, that’s very true. I got a very small taste of that working in Louisiana as this mechanic, but that was plenty. I didn’t repeat, I never repeated that. And you’re right, the job in Alaska was very different. There were only six people in the whole company. there were mechanics and there were pilots. And it was like,
Yeah, I knew everybody and it was, it was actually a corporation, but we were an offshoot from a larger helicopter company in California. So we operated, of did our own thing up there in Alaska and they didn’t come check on us very often. So we just, yeah, we had a great team up there. was a sweet little company that I worked for and I really enjoyed the, I really enjoyed.
And of course I was a mechanic now too, so that’s the reason they kept me on all winter, because you don’t fly much in the winter. I worked as a mechanic in the winter.
Blake Boles (37:45)
Yeah. So it sounds like you thrive more in situations where you have very high autonomy. There’s very low oversight. There might still be oversight, but it’s not like bosses are peeking over your shoulders all the time and where you get to use your hands. And is that a good like general description of where you thrive?
Eric (38:07)
Yeah, it definitely is. Lately I’ve come to realize just how deeply blue collar I am. When I went to college to be an aeronautical engineer, I was thinking I was going to really raise my station in life to do so, but I love working with my hands. I really like that and I’m proud to know how to do the things that I know how to do. And it’s all blue collar stuff. I needed help. My son had to help me get this computer set up so I could talk to you because I know nothing about this sort of stuff. But when it comes to plumbing or electrical work or drywall or woodworking or welding, then I’m all in. I really like that sort of thing. So I’ve been able to take to develop those skills and to use them to support myself, but directly. mean, it’s a rare thing for a person to build a house and then get to live in that same house. That’s actually not a very common thing that happens to people. They generally either buy a house that’s already been built or they hire someone else to build it, but it’s such a thrill to be able to cobble together something that will keep you warm and keep the rain off and do that yourself and then go live in that building. So that’s the thing that’s kept me going. just really like that. And a lot of skills are required there. You know, got to know plumbing and electrical work and even welding and cabinet making and all sorts of things come into play. And if I was deficient in any of those arenas, would… I’d just study, study up, know. Back in the day, it was either books or I’d go work with somebody for a while, learn basically how to do what I wanted to do. And nowadays, you can go on the computer and learn anything you want to learn, so.
Blake Boles (40:12)
In those years between flying helicopters in Alaska and then the modern era living here in Peonia, you said that sometimes you reported $0 income for the year. Uh, how is that possible? Uh, you mentioned already you were, you were house sitting and helping work on an orchard and exchange for, for housing, but were you still, um, making some money on the side? Were you doing stuff under the table? Uh, especially if you had kids to support him. I’m curious how that added up.
Eric (40:52)
Yeah, that’s a good question. I never really thought about it, but I’m thinking about it now. when the kids were on scene, there were very few zero dollar years. I was making a little bit of money every year. One of the things that now I am recalling is when we had finished our year in Alaska and moved down to Washington state, we lived in Olympia, Washington, I bought a house there. We bought a house and we had saved $22,000 while we were in Alaska and this house cost $20,000. And it was the worst house in the best neighborhood, in a nice neighborhood. And so we bought that house. I worked on it for three years, fixed it up, sold it for twice what we paid for it and then carried the contract. So we got interest paid to people that bought it, were friends of ours, and they sent us a check every month. And that’s some of the money that we lived on. I remember that was $350 a month that we got. And so that’s one of the things. That was when had children then, so that was nice to know that we were going to get that every month. The zeros came when I was riding a motorcycle around. that, any money I needed there, I didn’t need much of course, any money I needed, it was, as you say, under the table. That didn’t show up on my Social Security work.
Blake Boles (42:42)
You’re also now on the record saying that publicly on a podcast. Sorry to tell you that, Eric.
Eric (42:45)
I realize that’s case, yeah. Okay.
Blake Boles (42:51)
When we spoke recently, Eric, told me that you, read my book and you don’t consider yourself dirtbag rich because you’re not in love with climbing or backpacking or international travel. You haven’t even done that much travel in your life. and to that I responded, but you are outside using your body every day. You’re, you’re very connected to the outdoors and connected to nature and physical person. And to me, that’s at least adjacent to the dirtbag rich ideal of being able to spend your time, having a lot of free time to spend as you’d like. And this was even before you received social security. I know this was true. And to especially focus on doing stuff outdoors and using your body and having this like physical direct relationship with the out of doors instead of being stuck inside in front of some form of a glowing screen. So do you accept my categorizing you as dirtbag rich or at least dirtbag rich adjacent?
Eric (44:03)
I do. I would definitely say adjacent because when you said I’m out in nature, I thought to myself, yeah, there’s a tree in my way for my next building. So I’m going to cut this tree down. That’s that sort of thing. said, but close as I get to nature or or maybe trapping a squirrel that’s been burrowing into one of my tires that I filled with dirt. That’s that’s my my interface with nature. But yeah, I do take your point and I am outside a lot and because you know that’s where you go to build and although you know once you got the roof on you’re inside and you do a lot of I do use my body a lot but the main theme here is freedom that’s what we share when you get up in the morning nobody’s gonna tell you what to do you may want to get on your bicycle or go rock climbing or something in that effect. When I get up in the morning, I have a project that I’m excited about doing. And that’s the place where we, it’s the freedom to have that choice. That’s a rare thing, Blake, it really is. When I look around at people that I know, I mean, I’ve been accused of having a trust fund because people think that, How can I not have a normal job? But I’ve done it through hook and crook, mostly just by being careful with money. I’m not a big money fan. Money’s not something I ever really wanted to chase very much. If I’ve saved some money, the best thing I can spend it on is a new tool, something that I can use to continue doing what I love to do, which is to build.
Blake Boles (46:06)
You told me that you will dream about building projects at night and maybe wake up in the middle of the night and have this, this vision. And then in the following morning, being able to enact that vision or solve a complicated problem is this like deeply purposeful, important experience for you. Like, like that is your act of creation.
Eric (46:29)
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I I took it for granted for a while, but, you know, to be able to lie in bed and close my eyes and imagine making something and then 24 hours later, laying in bed, having made that something, you you just bring it to life. You know, a lot of things take longer than a day to make, but it’s all broken down into smaller bits. You know, when I’m building a new building, don’t imagine the building being done the next day, but I know what the next step is, so I’ll think about that at night and plan that out and try to think of the most efficient way to go about doing that.
Blake Boles (47:14)
So we’ve talked about time and money. Let’s dwell a bit more on purpose here. So being able to not be under someone else’s thumb, to have a dream and to do your best to bring it to life, to make your physical and mechanical creations is a big one. You’ve also told me that your grandkids are a big source of meaning for you. And then finally, and maybe we can start by discussing this, is just you show the world how you can build sustainably and that’s a very loaded word, but you know, in a way that uses rainwater, uses solar electricity, uses passive heating instead of bringing in utilities from some distant grid that you don’t even know how it works. And you do it spending very little money and you have a lot of fun doing it at the same time. So maybe talk a bit about why that feels like a good use of your time and how you share this with other people.
Eric (48:15)
Well, just about everything that I do in terms of building things is done with the purpose of… It supports my lifestyle. So I would have said that my purpose doesn’t extend much past my family when I think, I’ve got to do this, know, build this thing for Lucy or fix this thing for my son, or make this thing for my daughter and then I’ll deliver it to her when I get to Denver. So that’s a lot of how I think in terms of making the things that I do purposeful. I have certainly found that a lot of people come to visit me and they want a tour of my place and I especially enjoy being able to give tours to young people because more than just this building and it heats itself and here’s just my welding shop and that sort of cursory little tour of the place, I always try to interject the idea that I’m not a person who had a lot of money. I never made a lot of money and yet this is still a possibility.
And I love my lifestyle. I love the freedom that knowing how to do these things that I do, I know the freedom that that brings. And so it’s all sort of in support of that. I mean, it’s nice to know that my kids have a piece of land that they can always come and build a house on and live rent-free, mortgage-free. And so pretty much everything that I do here on this little 16 acres has that in mind. It’s just, the next thing that I build is just something that’s just nice to have. I’m currently working on a greenhouse, which I’ve never had before. I usually leave the growing things up to somebody else who’s got a greener thumb than I do. My love is hammers and saws, and I want to build something. So I’ll take care of that end of things. So that’s basically what I’ve done. But, you know, there’s always something that can be done to make life a little nicer, a little easier, make things a little smoother. You know, when we first moved here, there were a lot of things that needed to be worked on. I had to install the photovoltaic system to make electricity. And I had to make a lot of electricity because I have 240 volt welders and a big table saw and that requires a lot of energy. And the water, how do we deal with water? And so I got busy and built gutters for all my roofs so I can collect water and store it. And then of course, how do you store it? So I’d figure that out. So yeah, all those things are just, they just happen to be exciting to me. When I first moved here, I actually called up the power company and said, know, I’m gonna need power up here and They said okay okay, you just dig the ditch and buy the wire and and I said well, what’s that cost? It’ll be about fifty thousand dollars to bring the power to you. I’m about a mile from the last power pole and I said, okay. Well, I don’t have fifty thousand dollars. That’s for sure. But I’d like to have electricity, so I started looking into being off-grid. And I didn’t even know you could run a welder off the grid. But after I studied it a while, talked to some people, I learned that that could be done quite easily. So I was able to install a solar system with a lot of used equipment, but nevertheless, I was able to do it for less than $8,000. And so, yeah, in fact, the inverters that I bought 18 years ago are still going strong. These old school inverters. I’ve had to replace my batteries once, anyway, all that is, I love to go in and look at the condition of my batteries. I do it every day just to look at it. The sun is doing that. The sun is giving me all this electricity. And also the sun in summertime is what heats my water. I know that I’ll have a hot shower tonight because the sun is shining so beautifully today.
Blake Boles (53:13)
Eric, it sounds like you didn’t start with any strong environmental ideals or like this desire that a lot of people have to have less of an impact on the earth or be more sustainable in this kind of pretty typical green fashion, but that you just enjoy the challenge of living off grid on this piece of property that you kind of stumbled onto and solving problems and just as a byproduct you are living this incredibly ecologically sustainable existence. Is that right?
Eric (53:49)
That’s absolutely true, yes. The example that I use is that when I first wanted to, building being the thing that I really was crazy about doing, I needed material and I did not have money for material. So I would have to tear down a house so that I could repurpose all that material that I got out of the house to build another house. And I was fine with that. I had the energy to do that.
I still do that to some extent today. And I was doing it purely for economical reasons because I couldn’t afford to buy lumber at the lumber yard. I’d pull nails out of a bunch of lumber and make my own lumber that way. And I’ve got a lot of tricks when it comes to saving money on construction material. And it was only a few years ago that I realized that my emphasis on thrift was actually hip because folks that are trying to be more responsible with resources, they try to reuse material and recycle material. And this is what I try to do right here. I have, I figured out a lot of really great ways. You know, when people say they need $150,000 to build a house, I can hardly believe that because I have built buildings here, none as big as a gigantic drywall palace or anything, but I’ve built some pretty formidable buildings here and I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than $15,000 to $20,000 in material on the building. Now, of course, that’s a lot of labor. That’s what maybe makes up a lot of that difference but as far as material goes I can just walk you through a building and point to all the stuff that’s second, third time around lumber and ways that I’ve little tricks that I’ve used to be able to save money on I mean again I did it originally out of a need for to save money but now it’s actually pretty cool to be so green. I discovered that I’m really quite a live with that ethic in mind, not to reuse a lot of material. And I actually, I see that now. And one of my big bugaboos in my life is, has always been gasoline. As much as I wanted to figure out a way not to use gasoline, I never figured out a way to make it. I don’t have a way to produce gasoline, but I can produce electricity. only recently I completely got rid of all my over-the-road transportation that used fossil fuel. And I drive an electric car, and I feel so good about doing that. I really like the fact that I am not making things worse. That’s the way I feel. I am able to charge my car here at home completely for free, don’t have to burn any coal to charge my car. And that’s what moves me around. That’s how I get to town and back.
Blake Boles (57:23)
And you told me you tried to build your own electric vehicle at some point, but that did not work as you hoped.
Eric (57:27)
Yeah, years ago. Well, it worked, but it was awkward and it was almost dangerous. it was, yeah, I’ve had several forays into electric vehicles, trying to get an electric. In fact, when electric vehicles became viable some years ago, a decade ago, I wanted one then, but they were too expensive. So I’ve had to wait a while to find a good used one and when I was finally able to do it it was just a huge game-changer for me to be driving a car that I produce the electricity for my transportation. I’m no longer beholding to the petrochemical folks.
Blake Boles (58:10)
I have one final question for you, Eric. You mentioned that you really enjoy giving tours of your property to young people. And I’m sure you’ve heard a number of stories about the situations that young people find themselves in, feeling like maybe they can’t afford to buy land or to even, you know, begin dreaming of doing something like you did. You might hear about student loan debt, or just feeling like they’re totally lost. When you are talking with young people and they’re expressing a lot of, yeah, dismay at their future prospects, where does that lead you? Do you give advice? Do you have any like meaningful suggestions for young people who are in that situation? I know that your own kids have been someone in that boat too. Or do you feel like you really lived a life that is really unique to your own circumstance, your own personality, your aptitudes, your handyman skills, and there’s not really many transferable lessons to be offered.
Eric (59:32)
Well, the way I would answer that is I think it’s a matter of motivation. If you see a lifestyle that you want, you really are bothered by having to sign up and do that 40 hours a week until you get your gold watch, if you really don’t want to do that there, it’s possible to not do that. It’s possible to get around that. That’s really the only thing that I can offer because, you know, even when I say I bought this acreage for $150,000, I’m sure a lot of people going, my God, that’s cheap. Well, that was long enough ago so that that happened, Real estate prices have really gone through the roof and I make no bones about it. It’s tougher to do these days. mean, people making, not making wage-wise any much more than it did 20 30 years ago in terms of buying power so And yet things are more expensive. So it’s it’s it’s a different climate out there, but it’s not an impossibility. It’s If you really want it bad enough you can do it and I think it’s I feel like my biggest reasoning behind taking the time and and energy to do what I do is my distaste for the alternative. I just did not want to get a normal job and have my life, my time, my life be sucked up in making money. That was the bottom line for me. I just refused to do it. I would rather be homeless and live that way. If I had to, then I would, and I would go to do a job, go to work, do a job that I didn’t like. And it’s nice if you can find a job you really like, but even then, still that’s where most of your life goes. It goes into your work, goes into making money. So if a person feels strongly enough about not wanting that to happen to their life, if a young person sees their future going in that direction and decide they don’t want that, there are alternatives. That’s not one size fits all situation. Not everybody has to do that. I’m just an example and there are many like yourself who are examples of people who have chosen to go a different path. And a lot of young people don’t even realize that there is another path. They’ve been told that they gotta get a go to a good college, get an education, make a lot of money and buy a house and you know just do it all the way it’s always been done and that there are no other ways to do it but there are other ways to do it and you and I are here to say so. I think that’s the best message that we could give to young people is that they don’t have to go that way. There are other ways and they are wonderful. They really are. To have a life that is your own, that you get to say what you do and how you do it, that’s wonderful.
Blake Boles (1:03:05)
Yeah, really well said, Eric. Normally I ask my guests, how can people learn more about you or find you online? But I know that you’re notoriously offline, so I’m curious how you’re going to answer this one.
Eric (1:03:21)
You asking me how to get a hold of me? Yeah, I don’t know. I have a little bit of reticence about being particularly public. You know, I don’t know what that is. Anybody who walks onto my property and wants a tour, I am happy to give it. Happy to talk to people. I don’t feel like I’m overwhelmed in that regard. I don’t have people coming every day. I don’t have a lot of emails to have to respond to or anything like that. I’m not out there in the cloud, I guess that’s what it’s called. So yeah, I don’t know. I am enthusiastic about talking about this, don’t proselytize about it, but it’s fun to talk to people, especially when they’re really interested. know, when people bring groups up here, if it’s young people, say a dozen young people come, and I’m giving them a little tour, I can look out into that crowd and I can tell who is really listening. And sometimes, you know, kids, they don’t get it, they don’t… It’s not interesting to them particularly, but there are some that are just riveted on what I’m saying. And I know that they’re looking for an alternative. so I don’t know how to increase the number of those folks I talk to, but I recognize them when I say them.
Blake Boles (1:05:05)
I’ll make you an offer, I’ll act as a conduit as long as you don’t totally blow up and get super popular. And so if anyone wants to get an introduction to you, please email me, blakeboles at gmail.com, and I will vet all inquiries and send reasonable ones your way, Eric.
Eric (1:05:26)
That sounds perfectly reasonable. I’d be happy to have you do that, Blake. That’d be great.
Blake Boles (1:05:32)
Eric, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.
Eric (1:05:35)
You’re quite welcome.