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.

CABIN UPDATE: LET THERE BE LIGHT.

This weekend our dear friends David and Sarah Ladnier are here for their annual (at least we hope it's annual) visit. And with them, they brought their two wonderful boys... and light.You see, a few months back I contacted David about helping us set up a mini solar system, something that could power the Internet. For three years we have relied entirely on going into town to post for our blog, check email, anything. For a while I had 4G, so I could drive up on the hill and stand in the exact right spot to get some internet. But that was obviously not efficient. Nor was driving to town. So we needed a fix.We had a solar fence charger we weren't using and David thought we could convert it to what amounts to a small voltage regulator in a beautiful cigar box, "I couldn't bring a plastic box to this amazing cabin," he told us laughing. He also as a surprise (and a bonus) rigged this box to charge a small LED light that basically illuminates the entire house, no sweat.We have asked David, if he gets the time, to detail how it works as best he can for a blog post and I really hope he does. It is an unbelievably neat, relatively simple system, and maybe an idea other off-grid growers––or anyone, really––might be able to utilize.Words are hardly capable of describing how lucky we are to have such amazing and ingenious friends. We have met so many wonderful people through this blog and they continue to enrich our lives every day. The amount of time spent keeping this site going has definitely made us question whether it was worth doing sometimes. But friends like David and Sarah––who we may not know without the blog––eliminated that question. It has definitely been worth it. They are great company, inspiring people (who built their own amazing house), and we are proud to have them in our lives. So with that said, with Internet and light officially in the cabin––this being the first post ever from the comfort of our home––we just have to say thank you all so much for reading, thank you David and Sarah, let the blog roll on, let there be light.-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.