OFF AGAIN. ON AGAIN.
For those of you who don't know Hannah and my story, we lived off-grid for many years. But as Hannah pointed out the other day, "off-grid" is a misleading description: we were basically feral.For several years we hauled all of our drinking water. We didn't have electricity until the very end, and even then it was only enough to run the Internet for a little while. We did eventually get water to our house , but we had to heat it on the stove or in the greenhouse for bathing. During the summer, we just bathed in the creek. All of our heat came from a wood stove and we grew the vast majority of our own food, cooking almost every meal at home, on a small grill (summer), or the stovetop (winter).And we loved it.As hard as it was, honestly none of that was the reason we moved. We loved our neighbors––LOVED our neighbors––loved our market, and loved our lifestyle. But when Further was born, things changed. Specifically, what we loved had to make sense for our child, too. And for us, hard as it was to leave Bugtussle, that meant being closer to family.So we moved. And it was hard for many reasons - not the least of which was adjusting to having electricity and running water at our fingertips, and the expense that came along with that convenience. I am growing used to it––to not having to charge our phones in the car; to the light switch; to the hot water heater; to refrigeration. They are amazing inventions and I appreciate them with every ounce of my soul. That said, I cannot truly love them until they are something––like the water in our old cabin, like the heat from our wood stove––that we get to control, and that come from renewable resources.So, to any friends and followers who may have perhaps been bummed to see us depart from that lifestyle, I feel ya. But I also want to say that we are not officially back on-grid as much as we are firmly in-between. Both Hannah and I long to return to wood heat and solar power. It will just take some time (and really, by time, I mean money––we have to put a tin roof over our house before we can even install the stove). So for those of you who watched us and helped us build up that beautiful off-grid cabin, bear with us. The story has changed but the goal of self-sufficiency is as alive as ever.Only now, we're going the other way––from on-grid to off––and we hope you will come along with us as work to make it happen. Perhaps it will present a more realistic approach for those who want the lifestyle we had but can't live in the middle of nowhere where no one cares if you spend a few years without electricity or running water. Either way, you can bet it's gonna be a journey. As always, thanks for reading, and we hope you'll enjoy the new story.-Jesse.
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.
POWER STRUGGLES.
I do the majority of my writing––for this blog, for my book, for the poetry I promise to never force you to read––on an iPad I received as an extremely generous gift a couple years ago. I'm not a gadget guy by any means, but this device, with its exceptional battery power, has been an incomparable tool here on the farm where we don't have electricity. I love my typewriter and notebooks, but with this device, I can write a post (like this one) at home, and upload it to the blog quickly, saving us on the (very valuable) amount of time we have to spend away from the farm. Though even with the respectable battery life, this device still needs charging.As I write this, our truck sits in the shop getting the battery checked (among other non-related fixes). Our car battery is starting to show signs of exhaustion as well. Essentially, we have worn our car batteries down charging our phones and this writing tool, using our vehicles as giant, gas-eating generators. Like it or not, if I want to continue powering this device, I have to face the fact that this device needs power.Since the building of our cabin, electricity has been extremely, perhaps even surprisingly, low on our list of amenities. But it is not within our holistic goals to rely upon, and ultimately waste, loads of batteries either––be they for flashlights, cars, radios or otherwise. For that matter, we truly love the blog and love keeping it up and have no intention of letting up any time soon, but––whether we're talking the wasted car batteries or the time and gas required to take us to town to keep it up every week––we've got to make it sustainable also.Ultimately, our issues with energy have got us thinking a lot more about alternative energy systems––thermal, wind, solar, human––and have perhaps moved electricity up the list a little. We have no intention of hooking into the grid, but we are definitely growing increasingly interested in the idea of employing the wind that hammers our house, the heat that we lose to the sky through our stovepipe, our bodies, the sun or some combination of the four to help us with our literal power struggles, and to utilize these renewable resources to their full potential. There's way too much free energy floating around out there for us, or anyone else, to be at a lack of it.- Jesse.
A LITTLE MORE PROGRESS.
I got to make another trip back to the farm this Wednesday. Unfortunately, Hannah had to work, so once again she didn't get to come. It's a bummer––truly. It's not just that we're one of those obnoxious couples who suck at being apart––though we totally are––it's also that she hasn't been back to the farm since December and she misses it, the Smiths, the animals, the work. I am, however, excited for the next time she does get to go for her to see all the progress we've made. We've just about got a threshold for me to carry her through!––we just need to build some stairs to get to it...My goals for this trip were to cut some cedar logs to bring back and turn into shakes here in Nashville (check); finish the wiring (nearly check––ran out of wire again); put up some insulation (check––though still a lot left to do there). And although mulching a third of the high tunnel was not on the agenda, I ended up getting that done, too. It was bitterly cold working in the cabin, so when I would get a chill––which seemed embarrassingly often––I would go work in the high tunnel to warm up. It happened so much that I eventually accomplished an enormous task: mulching enough area for our early tomatoes. Starting early tomatoes, however, is a whole other issue. But more on that another time.
This week, our goal is to get a wood stove. We don't need a big one for our tiny cabin. Just something like the Smith's that we can cook buckwheat pancakes on, perhaps!- Jesse.
