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.
VIDEO: PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE (AKA RAM PUMP)
Inspired perhaps by yesterday's relative video success, and the fact that we're about to take our ram pump down and move it, I thought I would do a video on how it works. Again, big thanks to our engineering guru, David Ladnier, for helping us get this thing set up. It's truly a marvel of technology. All machines should aspire to be this ingenious.-Jesse.
WATER: PART ONE.
On Memorial Day Weekend, our friends Sarah and David, with their two lovely kids, came to visit the farm and help with the RAM pump. We had purchased the rest of the pipe required to get it going and needed someone with some expertise in plumbing to help me figure out what in the world I was doing––someone like David who actively wanted to spend his vacation working like crazy.David is not only an engineer professionally, and has been building his own beautiful house, but he possesses a really great mind for these types of projects (if you need an engineer for anything, give him a shout!). I cannot tell you how valuable it was to have him every step of the way. I learned a ridiculous amount.Briefly, to explain how the pump works without electricity, I'm going to adapt an analogy our neighbor's use for their RAM: Pretend you have a room full of water balloons. On one end is a door, on the other is a small, water ballon-sized hole. Now imagine you open that door and quickly add another balloon, slamming the door back before everything falls out (think: closet full of clothing). This new balloon puts enough pressure on the other balloons that it forces a balloon out the other side. Do that seventy times or so a minute and you'll have a fair amount of balloons forced out over time. That's essentially what's going on inside the pump. The water traveling down hill is the person hoarding water balloons. An air tight tank with a check valve is the room. And the water balloon-sized hole is the pipe leading uphill. No electricity required. (If you have a better analogy for how the RAM works, please feel free to tell us!)First we had to clean out the spring and build the dam––which was strangely fun. I even got to carve "J + H" into it––you know, like the pros do. Anyway, in the dam we laid a small bit of PVC which collects water. That water then runs into a 35 gallon reservoir tank we situated a few feet away. From that reservoir tank, there are 77 feet of galvanized pipe that lead downhill to the pump.The water travels down that pipe, gathering the momentum needed to make the pipe function. And really, the first half of the day––from seven to noon––was spent just getting all that ready.(I can write a more detailed rundown of how we did everything if you'd like––and you very well may, who knows––but I'll just give you the gist for now.)I had bought some of the wrong fittings so we ventured back to town to swap them out and finish the project. And by the end of the day, we had the pump working––that is to say, we had the pump pumping water through four hundred feet of pipe, uphill over seventy feet of elevation––all powered by water. Unfortunately, that was as far as we could go, because well, we didn't yet have the holding tank.But we bought one this weekend! So next, all we need is the piping to get it down to the house––thus the "Part One" element of the title––and we will officially have water in the cabin. And it only took two years! Uh, two years so far.But big big thank you to David and Sarah. Couldn't have done it without you! Getting Water: to be continued.... hopefully soon.- Jessehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwGfmrYuXnA
RAINY DAY POTLUCK.
The weather cooperated enough on Sunday for us to host some friends/CSA shareholders at the farm. We had an incredible potluck meal (complete with ginger marinated venison....!), a hay wagon tour of the farm, and the inevitable swim in the creek.Hearing Eric give a tour of his farm, his vision for healing the land, the ram pump...it reminds me of the year I was an intern, of falling in love with the magic of this place. Seeing it through the eyes of visitors allows me to remember how amazing this all is.And how amazing it is that now, a few short years later, we can walk up the road to give a tour of our vision, our land, our growing farm.- Hannah.
