Living the good life!

Have you ever considered living off of the electrical grid?

About 20 years ago, back in my high school days I would read Mother Earth News and dream about living self sustained, up in the mountains with no neighbors to worry about, living on minimal resources in a home that I would design and build myself with all the comforts ( well most anyway ) of a city home but with a lot less expense. Sounds easy huh, well it is far from easy, but what is in this life. Just like building any home there are a lot of decisions to make and a lot of small, medium and large tasks to complete. The difference with an off the grid home is you must choose appliances, lighting, heating, cooling in a much different way to achieve desired results for a family to be comfortable. You also have to be careful where you install your windows and which way to face the house. The electrical system is different in many ways. Yes there are more things to do when you operate your own power plant, but it is a labor of love. Daily chores include getting firewood, starting the fire, running the generator, and maintaining the generator. When you live in the Colorado foothills you may very well end up with 3 to 4 feet of snow. It is beautifully when it snows and a calm and peacefully quietness comes to the Redstone valley. There is nothing like it in the world. But then comes reality, you have to go to town and that means digging to get to the car, cleaning off the car and then chaining up the front tires. Damn I should have done that the night before it snowed, it would have been so much easier. You might even get stuck on the way out so better bring a shovel. These kind of things make it all the sweater when the springtime arrives. When it gets to be about mid April and the sun is shining and everything is turning a pale green you start to think that the firewood might just last. WRONG! Spring snows in April and sometimes all the way until the end of may will catch you off your gaurd. No dry wood my wife screams, what do we do? Well I will go find some. I will just go out and break some of the dead braches off the the Pine trees and pretty son I will have enough to keep us nice and toasty warm for a few days. And I also just so happen to have some wood stashed in the old doghouse keeping nice and dry for just this occasion. You see when you live like this you just learn to make do and try your best be more prepared for the next year.

Sound like a fun life? Stay tuned for more. I have many stories to share.

Disclaimer: These are Semi-true stories. Some things I remember and others I have forgotten. Paraphrase from Jimmy Buffett's Sem-true stories.