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Lord Alucard Ere Casanova
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 Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 8:36 pm
I know nobody reading this, or at least most people who read this, won't be "off the grid" which at least in this conversation means "away from civilization to the extent at which water is free, there is no plumbing, electricity only exists from nature generators (solar panels, water mill, wind, etc), food must be gathered or hunted, and jobs are not necessary due to the lack of need for money."
We are in a bit of a bind at the moment, my family and I. We're staying with a friend and relying on her. Our own cash savings are running dry and we have few possibilities of replenishing it. My mother-in-law has the possibility of getting a job that will pay $12 an hour (pray she gets it) and I have been offered a job as a friend's house and computer maintenance man. If this works out we should be fine.
If it does not another pair of friends who live off the grid up in the mountains has offered us a place to stay up there. Natural spring water, wind mills and solar panels, etc. I have some ideas to fix things up and make life a little easier, but it still won't be modern living.
Regardless of all that, I want to know others opinions of living off the grid. Many people, especially prophets, would live away from civilization where it was easier to connect to God. So what is your opinion of living off the grid? Do you know anyone who lives in such a way?
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Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 10:08 pm
My husband and I have discussed it for our family a few times over the last few years, and a couple of times we came pretty close to off the grid with the way we had to make do...
The house that we bought has been a monster in disguise. The people we bought it from stripped it clean of working appliances and utilities after we closed, and we walked into a house that where the new appliances we thought we were supposed to get were replaced with old broken , busted and rusted out ones. The water pump and water heater were trash, and the gas company wouldn't even turn the gas on to the house because of the state they were in... So, we went for year and a half with only basic electric, and water, not even heated water, and for about six months of that time we were actually hauling water, because we couldn't afford a new pump...or water softener (our water is so hard here it is off of the actual table they measure by, on a scale of 1-10 ours would effectively rate an 18.9)...All-in-all, the hardest part about living that way was the frustration of knowing that if we had the money to fix things right, we could have had all the amenities of modern convenience, but in actuality, if our place wasn't supplied with water heater, water pump, and electric for us to fix, we probably would have been just fine to do without. sweatdrop
Besides, I grew up in a family that supplied most of the meat by hunting and raising animals for meat... I am a pretty crack shot with a rifle if I say so myself, and my husband has turned out to be a natural now that my dad and brothers have him shooting. mrgreen I like working outside, when I have good ground to work with. I really could see us living on our own pretty simply... We don't watch TV, I don't like it's influence on my kids, we don't have to keep up with Jones' when it comes to anything, allot of technology we have just kind of goes to waste in our home anymore so I am pretty sure we could do without (as long as we still had internet access xp )
Anyway, living simply has really made our household tightly knit together, because we had to work to keep things going... Even now, the appliances we finally bought to replace the crappy ones we were left with are breaking down due to the water situation,(the oldest is 3 years) so we are slowly reverting back to the simpler lifestyle. My only complaint is that jeans are hard to wash in the bath-tub... sweatdrop
My husband and I hope that we can build a house and we plan on being as independent as possible, since we know we can survive that way. I actually found plans to making your own solar panels and even have access to instructions on making cells (although it is a bit more complicated from what I saw) It would actually be rather enjoyable to see just how far we could take our independence from society when compared to trying to fix up a ramshackle house while staying on top of utilities...
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Lord Alucard Ere Casanova
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 12:48 am
I'll look up how to make our own solar panels. Even with the conveniences of city life, when the ammo you get food with is called cash it is much easier to have a nice meal when you don't have to worry about bills.
At the moment it looks like we won't be moving up to the mountains after all, however we will be digging an underground home up there as an emergency shelter. There are a number of good reasons for putting in that much work.
1: Anything takes out our home on lower ground, we have a place to go that we already call our own.
2: It's a good place to go to relax and the scenery really inspires the imagination.
3: The two old ladies who own the land and offered us that patch can use our home when the winters get really harsh. Their own homes are above ground and not well isolated.
PLUS: It's free as far as money is concerned and can help save money since I can legally hunt on their land with their permission. There's some kind of elk up there with hoof prints larger than my feet, that's gotta be allot of meat.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 3:50 am
Lord Kilo Von Mortenson I'll look up how to make our own solar panels. Even with the conveniences of city life, when the ammo you get food with is called cash it is much easier to have a nice meal when you don't have to worry about bills. At the moment it looks like we won't be moving up to the mountains after all, however we will be digging an underground home up there as an emergency shelter. There are a number of good reasons for putting in that much work. 1: Anything takes out our home on lower ground, we have a place to go that we already call our own. 2: It's a good place to go to relax and the scenery really inspires the imagination. 3: The two old ladies who own the land and offered us that patch can use our home when the winters get really harsh. Their own homes are above ground and not well isolated. PLUS: It's free as far as money is concerned and can help save money since I can legally hunt on their land with their permission. There's some kind of elk up there with hoof prints larger than my feet, that's gotta be allot of meat. That sounds great! And I LOVE Venison! whee but even the white tails around here (which are pretty small by comparison) can be a job to clean. xp Hope you have freezer space.
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Lord Alucard Ere Casanova
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 4:11 am
I would actually build an underground icebox to store food supplies in. Right now they use coolers.
The white tails hopefully aren't as small as the deer in Alaska. My pop went hunting up there and until a native told him the deer he was seeing were full grown, he refused to shoot because he thought he was seeing herds of babies. He's from Texas. The deer there are small enough you can kill four, sling them all over your shoulders (two on each side) and carry them home. That'll be about a month of meat depending on whether or not you're feeding more than one person.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 8:43 am
I never lived "off the grid" and don't personally know anyone who does; in fact I live very much on the grid in the Big Apple, but I have always been fascinated with the lifestyle.
I like the peace of mind nature provides, and love camping, and the indepedence such a lifestyle demands. In a way I straddle the line between camping, hiking, and tuning into nature in CT and living a metropolitan life.
One thing that both lifestyles have taught me is simpler living. In the city there's so little floor space so you can't own much (well, technically you can own as much as you want, but I like clear floor space). My wardrobe is primarily semi casual office attire and jeggings. Lots of cotton knit tops and flats, which are perfect in and out of the office.
In CT, I feel it's easier to accumulate so much junk stuff simply because you get more square footage for your money. Everyone I know there has a house that could literally tell their life story from birth to present. I'm sometimes chided by my mother for being too eager to rid my living space of things. She really freaked out when I disassembled a spare bed and tossed its tatty old mattress out to the dump. sweatdrop
But I'm still in the process of making the best of both worlds--city and rural. I get outside as much as possible because office jobs are too often a chore, and I know that whatever career I pursue must be as far away from a computer monitor as possible--a real challenge given our now tech-driven society.
Currently, I've no cable "grace a l'internet", only the bare necessities for furnishings, and try to meditate whenever I can. I've also gotten back into reading, which I forgot how captivating it can be. The stories are just more memorable.
But, I think simple living is only a stone's throw away from officially being off the grid--paring back modern life's flashy distractions and finding happiness in relationships and joint efforts. rolleyes
Happy hunting. I wouldn't do it, being veggie and all, but it's a useful skill nonetheless!
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 9:56 am
Now THAT'S something our family gets into... reading...
Our dining area wall is converted into a floor to ceiling bookshelf, and each room of the house has another bookshelf overflowing with more books, and I am needing another bookshelf besides...
Reading is one of those things that people look at us and judge us as strange for... I actually had one of my son's friend's moms say that I was to hard on him because I didn't let him watch TV and I made him read books all of the time... stare ... her criticism started when he told her he wasn't allowed to watch Spongebob at home. scream
I don't MAKE him read books, he learned to love reading by watching his father and me read. I don't ban him from watching TV, I just limited his TV time, and barred certain shows, you know, the ones that kill braincells just by watching them...
I could honestly live in a world without television... Sure, I would miss anime, Dr. Who, and Star Trek, but not so much that my life would be lessened by it. rolleyes
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