Off Grid Livin'

In the recent past we have been frequently asked the question, “how do you actually live without electricity?” In response to those who asked and to any of you who may be also wondering, here is our answer.
  We have been off grid for about 17 years now. For 7 of those years we had our water hand pumped {from a spring} on the back porch {summer kitchen} and had an out house too.  We now, with gravity flow spring water, have a wonderful in-house bathroom! Most of the time we use kerosene lamps for light  and of course the natural sunlight in the day. The nearest power lines are about 4 miles away! Our wood cook stove is for heating {our only source for heating} and of course cooking, heating water and more. We have learned that we don’t really need all the gadgets that we are condition to believe we need. Also, that electric meter {like we used to have} is running {charging you money by the second} whether any appliance is being used or not! Big wheels keep on turning! The bill you pay, pays for more that just the energy you use. Think about it- better yet do research on it! We prefer alternative energy- water, wind, solar etc.,but we don’t have or use all these sources. We learned at first that a good wood cook stove, gravity flow water, and a few oil lamps will get you going. We do juice a lot and use a vita mix. These do take power- in the last few years we attained 3 small solar panels and a few batteries to run these useful tools. We also have a generator that we use only at certain times if we need to. It’s nice, but we are not dependent on it, good thing with the price of fuel these days! We sew totally on foot powered, treadle sewing machines. We wash our dishes by hand and we have a James Washer to wash clothes that we use in nice weather {you can find these in Lehman’s Catalog}. We do use a wonderful old wringer washer {a Speed Queen} let me tell you, those machines were made to last, folks! We use it when it is very cold, it’s powered by our generator for now, but we are looking forward to adding a few batteries to our little solar system and getting our wringer washer going without using gas! We grind our wheat with a Country Living hand-cranked grain mill. We had a neighbor attach it to an old exercise bike so now we can all take turns peddling our grain mill! It works great and you can get great exercise! Before you know it you have beautiful, fresh ground whole wheat flour ready to bake with! For the few things that we do freeze, we rent a freezer space about 4 miles down the road at a neighbors house {where they have electricity hook up}. But we mostly can and dry our store of food and of course harvest fresh right out of the garden in season. We love to work and make things with our hands and use our heads when we go about using energy. We are for tools of all kinds, and we are learning to be good stewards of what resources we have been blessed with! Hope this had been helpful to y’all!
                                                           Vicki at Homestead Blessings