TWO YEARS IN.

Good grief, has it really been that long? If you would have told me two years ago that we'd still be without electricity or running water going into 2015, I probably wouldn't have believed you. And yet, here were are. But you know what? It's not really that bad. In fact, at this point, it seems pretty, well, normal.Water. We're going to solve the water situation by the end of the year, by God. Hopefully by summer. Although it's not the worst chore, hauling all of our water every week is definitely a burden in the busy season. Electricity, though. Hm. I guess we could use it, but for almost half the year we spend the majority of our time outside and literally don't need it. We're so tired by the time the sun goes down that we just go right to bed anyway, and wake up when the sun returns. With enough electricity coming from our cars and new solar charger (thanks, Toni-Ann!) to charge our devices, I barely think about getting electricity in the house. In fact, our mentors went ten years without electricity in their cabin––we've got nothing to complain about there.If I've learned anything in these last couple years of living like this, though, it's that you can live with a lot less than you think you can, and live a good life. You can still keep your blog. You can still stay clean. You can still be happy. Very. What changes is how you look at the world. You hear that the average american uses 100 gallons of water a day, and you think "on what?!" You hear someone use the term "Without electricity or running water" as an euphemism for impoverishment and, though it can definitely represent that, you know it's no barometer for wealth. We live without these things and we hardly feel poor. Honestly, it's empowering. It's freedom. You learn to live off the land. You learn to waste less and wear sweaters in the house to conserve firewood. I delight in the fact that living with little has forced me to live my life around nature––sunlight, seasons and weather––instead of, I guess, around myself. And that feels great.So yes, two years in and we still have no electricity or running water. But more importantly, two years in and we're still perfectly happy. Sure we bathe in a creek. We read by candlelight. We drink water from the earth. We poop in a bucket. But you know, if it never changed I don't know if we'd notice. If the world around us suddenly disappeared, Hannah and I wouldn't have any immediate idea. We might wonder where our NPR went, but other than that, we'd just get up and go to work, happy as always.- Jesse.