Vermicompost Utopia: 50 years building off-grid Tea Homestead 🪱

David Lee Hoffman has spent 50 years building a composting compound where waste – whether grey water from the kitchen or sanitation – is cleaned by worms, plants, and filters, then reused in the personal garden. Water flows through ponds, moats, and even a boat (which hides a 30-foot column that taps into groundwater), and everything is powered by solar, using a series of 12-volt pumps. Most of Hoffman’s system isn’t legal, according to his local county (Marin, California), and Hoffman has spent decades fighting the local government. TIMELINE: — David’s compound, The Last Resort, his home and tea production: 00:10 — Original property value: David paid $38K for it: 00:25 — Visiting the chicken coop: 01:15 — Boat pond reservoir, early structure in a property relying on circular water management: 02:00 — 30 feet well with solar-pumped water: 02:20 — Property’s motto, as explained by David Lee Hoffman in 3 Eastern characters (he lived abroad for years at a