10:42 am - 43 degrees - foggy...
We get
a few comments and questions posted on our blog but for whatever reason we get
way more that are emailed to us. So here
are a few of the questions and comments that we have received lately...
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I recently found your blog
through your Facebook page.
I officially
LOVE your blog and what your family is doing!
I think it’s amazing that you’re building your home yourselves!
I just find your blog fascinating!
You have never really mentioned
the Prepper movement
or whether or not you are part of it. I was wondering if
you consider yourselves
“Preppers”? If so, I would
love to see
you do more posts about it.
Thank
you very much!!! For those of you who
don’t know what a “Prepper” is here’s the web definition: a movement of individuals or groups who are
actively preparing for emergencies, including possible disruptions in social or
political order, on scales from local to international.
“Prepping”
is all the rage right now. There are
websites, articles and even television shows about something called “the
preppers movement”. Personally I think
that you could ask a half-dozen people “what is a prepper?” and get as many different
ideas or views.
We
believe that it simply means people are preparing for emergencies. Prepping doesn’t have to be related to the end
of the world. Instead, I think it’s
about people thinking about how to help themselves, their friends and their
neighbors in case of emergencies – real world emergencies that are happening
today like natural disasters, or even things like losing your job, or getting a
pay cut to where you can’t make ends meet, even preparing to be cut off from
society for a little while.
I
don’t think we have ever really considered ourselves to be “Preppers” but I
guess we do fit into that category.
Living up on a mountain we do have to be prepared for whatever comes our
way. We’ve had our driveway washout
during a rainstorm {click here}. We’ve
been snowed in for three days before Tony was able to get us out. The county has even forewarned us that during
heavy snow it could be 7-10 days before they can clear our road and get us out. So yes, I guess we are Preppers. We have to be, it’s just plain common sense.
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| Feb 2008 - we had 10+ feet of snow that winter |
For
those of you who haven’t seen our Facebook page {click here}.
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I so very much long to live the
kind of life you’re living
right now.
Maybe someday if God allows, we’ll be doing
what you are doing! I’m completely inspired by you.
My question is: did you know a great deal
about
off-the-grid living before you moved off-the-grid?
No we
didn’t. Tony knew what “off-grid” was
but I had never even heard of the term until we came across this property. You don’t have to know everything up front to
be able to successfully make the move to off-grid living. What you do need to have is a real appetite
for learning. There are many things you
can learn best by doing. Experience is
often the best teacher. We have learned
a lot along the way with a lot of shoulda’, coulda’, woulda’s. Although our home is still not finished, we
are still having fun and enjoying this phase of our off-grid adventure, even
though we do hit the occasional speed bump.
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What do you think is holding
back off-grid
living from mass acceptance?
I am
sure there are several reasons for this, but the cost of land, the lack of
self-confidence, and the need for peer approval seem to be the most apparent
obstacles. I know that off-grid living
isn’t for everyone. But I think there
are a lot of people who haven’t ever even considered it. I know we didn’t until we just happened to
run across this property 8 years ago.
They think that they couldn’t possibly live like that, so primitive, so
reclusive. The fact is that this life is
not primitive, and if anything, it is technologically advanced compared to a
city apartment life. Once we get our
power system all hooked up, we’ll be using technologies on a daily basis that
most people have never heard of.
I also
think that most people assume that living off-grid is a fringe lifestyle, like
being a hippie. That may be true for
some people, but not for everyone. I
think some people have a problem with being different, standing out, and doing
what they want because it goes against “society’s norm”.
Some
people imagine our lives as something detached, like out of a movie or a book,
not real and not doable by their standards.
But what they don’t realize is that it is actually very doable, and very
real, but only if they make it so. They
have to take the step forward, just like we did, and make something happen for
themselves. And one day, they might just
be able to sit back on the porch they built, sipping a drink from the fruit of
their gardens, enjoying a breathtaking view, and wondering, just why would
anyone want to live any other way.
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Have you ever had any negative
experiences with wildlife?
Bears
breaking into the shed or the garbage or cougars
threatening the pets, anything
like that? Your blog is
amazing. I look forward to every update.
Our
first year living here, we had problems with raccoons getting into the trash
cans. That didn’t last very long. We haven’t had any problems with them since
and our trash cans are still kept outside.
We
haven’t had any problems with cougars.
Our first winter we had cougar tracks all over the place, but we never
actually saw one (we didn’t have pets at that time either). We haven’t had any sign of them around the
house since then. About two and a half
months ago one of the nearby loggers saw a mom and her cub on the ridge over
from us – so we know there are at least three in the area, and they are
currently keeping their distance from us.
We
occasionally see black bears here and there but they seem to be more scared of
us than we are of them. Same goes for
the bob cats.
Coyotes
on the other had are a bit annoying and have been coming closer to the house
these last few months – thankfully our cats are still all accounted for. They howl, yip, yelp and bark at all hours of
the day and night. They show up and hang
around the mountain ridge several days at a time, then disappear for several
days.
We did
have one incident with a young buck who we think saw his reflection in the truck
window and head butted it, shattering the window. The only other issue we have with the deer is that they eat all the bird food.
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| "Mom, he's watching me!" |
Since
we are living in their space, we have been really lucky and have had very
little problems with the wildlife.
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Keep
the questions and comments coming, we love hearing from you! To
view the first Q&A post {click here}.
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