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It a very interesting story. I do hope we are kept updated because I would like to know how it turns out. There is no way I could go back to living off the land. I grew up like that back in the 40's and 50's and believe me it is hard work. From the time I can remember I had to get up at 3 am and get the cows to the barn, milk them, which took about 3 hrs. take a shower go to school and come home and start herding cows to the barn again and another 3 hrs. of milking. My brother and I milked between 30 to 35 cows 7 days a week. We had to go out in the rain, sleet, snow, thunder and lighting. It didn't matter the cows still had to be milked twiced a day. My day ended around 6 pm. Then after supper there were dishes to do then homework before bed. In the summer there was always work in the garden to do and tending chickens and other livestock. So no my old bones would not tolerate it. By the way we had an outhouse and my mother cook, canned and heated water for washing clothes on a wood stove. I can remember when we had an icebox and the iceman delivered ice.
Thanks for the replies everyone. I will certainly keep everyone posted along our journey. To answer a few questions: Living “off the grid” can mean living without being tied into an electric company. You can use solar power, wind power, water power, etc for your lights, fridge, stove, power tools and TV. What we are planning to do is to go pretty primitive. We are not going to have any electric or gas from any source.
What we have managed to do this weekend was pretty productive, considering we had rain Friday through Sunday morning. We moved over 200 rocks about the size of a large head of lettuce out of the first culvert and have leveled that out. We will be getting some gravel to put down on that once we build the sides up. We dug the dirt and rocks from around the second culvert and will be getting a 4’ section to add to what we have and put gravel down so we can cross that branch easily as well. We are saving the rocks to build the Spring House.
We staked out the area for the house. It will be 24’x24’ with a 6’x24’ front porch and a 6’x6’ back porch. The front and back doors will face east and west as well as having 3 windows on each of those walls for circulation of air in the summer. The north wall will have a closet on one side and a sink area on the other with only one window, to decrease cold air from coming in during the Winter months. The south wall will have one small window and a closet toilet that will be used during storms or freezing nights and will be emptied into the outhouse the next morning. The wood cook stove will be in the center of the home. It will be one room so there will be equal heat throughout the home. There will be a slant roof with a gutter and this will be attached to a 500-1000 gallon rain barrel with a pump to the kitchen sink. This water will be used for laundry, dishes and baths.
The woodshed will be behind the house and covered. The outhouse will be behind the woodshed. It will be about 60-80 feet from the house. The chicken coop and barn will be up behind that with the barn having a gate opening to the grazing field for the milk cow. The root cellar will be just down the hill about 200 feet and the Spring House (to keep the milk and butter cool) will be about 200 feet from the house as well.
We will light with oil lamps, heat and cook on a wood cook stove, have a summer kitchen (pavilion) where we will cook in the hot months and have a picnic table there to eat at. We will have a well drilled when we can afford it and have a hand pump put on the well. All buildings will have a slant roof with a rain barrel of some size attached to it. The barn will have one like the house at least 500 gallons. We have one field to plant corn, one to gather hay from, one for sugar cane or some other cash crop and one for grazing for the cow. We will have a pig sty, raise two piglets a year and slaughter one each Fall, smoking and curing the meat.
What made us do this? Well I am 46 and for the past 15 years I have lived as self sufficiently as possible. We raise chickens, sell eggs to feed them, use the eggs and put about 30 in the freezer each Fall for meat. We process ourselves about 4-5 deer every year for meat. I bake my own bread every week. We have a garden and can all of our veggies. I can everything from beans to soup, jams, jelly, relishes, pickles, kraut and even spaghetti sauce. We dry foods and even grow and dry our own medicinal and culinary herbs. We went from paying over $100.00 a week for groceries to less than $20 a MONTH! I got rid of the dryer and hang my clothes on the line. We made a home made washer with a plastic 55 gallon barrel and I have a double galvanized wash basin to rinse. I wash most of our clothes with a washboard. We managed to cut our electric bill in half by doing this. We love our life and one thing drive us to the decision to take it a step further.
When we acquired the land, it was done without going hardly at all in debt. I like life this way. I have been told the past few weeks countless times that I need to mortgage and build everything at once and pay almost $12,000 for the septic, electric, well, etc. This is just crazy. In this day and time, going into debt like that is the fastest way to risk losing your land. If you have land, you always have a home. You lose it to the bank and you are just screwed. If I have to live in a tent, I will not owe the bank for my land. When I started making phone calls and saw you have to pay for this permit to get permission to give this place $3200 to tell you to cut down over 50 trees so they can run a temporary power pole so you can build a home that has to be 1000sf (even though you do not need anything that big) and then give them a check every month for electricity, and $5500 at least for a well, plus over $2000 for a septic system....it was more frustrating than my simple life could handle. I work m-f 8am to 330pm. I make about $30,000 a year. I would prefer that my money go into a home for me and my family and not into the hands of the greedy. I have dreamed of being in a position to live even more self sufficiently that I already do. I rent right now and am limited on what I can do with the land. The landlord does not want me to get a milk cow and pigs. This is my chance to not only live the dream I have had for so long, but to experience living the way I desire, to let my grandkids experience this and hope that it will instill an independence in them, independence form TV, video games, computers, electricity…which in my opinion often breeds laziness in children.
It will be a simple life, but not an easy life and I know that. But I have lived that life before. We got indoor plumbing when I was about 16 years old, a telephone when I was about 10, we carried water from the creek daily! It was certainly NOT easy, but with what little I do now, baking my own bread, growing our food, making butter and cheese, quilting, processing our own meat…I crave more…and more to me is going back in time. Modern conveniences have never been a craving of mine.
So we are off on this journey. This weekend we salvaged the oil lamp, but we also got 2 rolls of fencing, a roll of tar paper, a pot belly stove, a porcelain sink for the outhouse, a single basin stainless steel sink for the kitchen, and…someone has offered us the wood from a small 2 story building (lots of 2x4’s and 2x6’s in there!), we just have to tear it down and haul it to our place. I got the concrete blocks for the foundation. I bartered a computer for someone to level off the building site, dig the outhouse and root cellar and give me a new milk bucket. That was certainly a fair trade for me.
Our goal is to build with the least amount of money possible. Chris currently works at home. He makes a little money on the internet, but it is money we do not count on each week. He does much more than that by not having a 9-5 job. We make it fine on my income. This frees him up to babysit our 2 ½ year old grandson (which saves my daughter $100 a week for daycare and we KNOW who is taking care of him). He is there to do dishes, help with laundry, take care of the animals and do the many things that need to be done at home. We are fortunate that this works out so well for us and it will remain the same when we move. I have a good job and will keep it, he will continue to run the home while I am away.
One other questions was about the 2 branches. There are some seasonal branches (small creeks) on the property that generally go dry in the summer. The 2 I was speaking of run year round with no problem. Even in our drought last year, they never did dry up. The Spring handled the drought also and is a good source of water.
I will keep updating as things happen. We are hoping to me moved in by August at the latest. If anyone has any non electric items they want to barter for electric ones….let me know!
Forest Breath,
I wish you all the best, I really do. Though I know this isn't a choice I would make, I do admire you for doing it and I am very interested in how it goes for you. I appreciate the long detailed reply and I'm going to rep you for it.
Thanks for sharing,
Pam
You are welcome. I am so excited about it and am getting mixed reviews for sure. Some people, mostly here at work, think I have lost my mind and cannot begin to understand my need or desire to do this. Other people in my life are thrilled and are so excited to follow me on this journey.
I will post pics and update as needed. Here is a link to picture we have taken of the 22 acres.
Location: The land of erternal summer to Murfreesboro, TN
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I am reading your posts as if I was reading a story book. It's all so interesting and I really admire you. As I read, the impression I get is one of peace. If you pull this off, it would be so cool. Total independence! We are the same age, yet I know I would never be able to do this. I wouldn't even have a clue how. I was raised in cities and suburbia all my life.
I really wish you and your family lots of luck. I hope you realize all your dreams.
Interesting thread and ideas. 24' x 24' is a good size, and is the size of the summer house we will build when the other priorities have been met. I can certainly relate to the power company issues. I had to dig my own trench, supply the conduit, install the mains cable in the conduit in the 300' long trench, buy the meter box, and pay the power company a few thousand to hook us up.
Rain catchment - for down and dirty, Freds has 500 gal swimming pools for about $35, and 1000 gal pools for about $80. An 1100 gal poly tank at tractor supply will run about $450, but keep the critters and bugs out, last a lot longer, and not add plasticizers to your water. The black tanks are better at preventing algae growth, but you'll still need about a mason jar full of bleach per 500 gal to make the water relatively safe. I highly recommend a Berkey filter for your drinking water. The price is higher than some other filters, but with it you can safely drink standing pond water, and you essentially NEVER have to replace the filter elements. I'm sure you don't want to deal with typhoid or giardia or the other water-born diseases. Death and disease can slow down construction. You do realize you won't have enough catchment water during the dry times? For waste solutions, you might want to download the humanure handbook.
I'm dubious about your idea of having no power at all. There were a couple weeks of 105 degree weather last summer in North Alabama when I was glad we had AC. Going completely without electricity doesn't make much sense to me for a number of reasons, and I think you'll realize that soon enough when you get on the land. As a simple example, a power saw can turn three days worth of work into a three hour job, leveraging effort and time. A sump or landscape pump and a hose can get water from your branch and fill your tanks or irrigate your garden.
We spent a month or two without any connection to the mains, living in a travel trailer. The setup for basic minimal power is pretty cheap and easy, and gives you a lot of flexibility you won't have otherwise. LED lights are much safer and cooler and brighter than oil lamps. You really should have a weather radio for your own safety, and I haven't seen any oil-fired ones for sale. A laptop takes minimal power, and there are little fans that can operate on either 110 or 12 volts. One of those kept us comfortable at night until mid-July and could be a lifesaver for you in the hottest months. There are flame powered fans, but they are high priced and antiques.
Northern Tools and other stores often have 800 watt two cycle generators for sale for less than $150. They sip gas, are relatively quiet, and provide power and can help keep a battery or two charged for overnight use. That and a couple of golf cart batteries wired in series could serve you well at a minimal expense. A larger contractors generator can power tools and compressors and larger items, including a room air conditioner if needed.
Anyway, good luck on your venture.
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