For my off-grid friends (and those looking to get there), I just came across a
wonderful article in Mother Earth News.The beauty and simplicity of life that it describes is worth the read! The text of the articles follows:
When Sue McKay Miller was 48, she quit her job as a geophysicist in
Calgary, Alberta, and moved to a yurt on a 130-acre chunk of wilderness
on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. She took a radical approach to
simplifying, divesting herself of most possessions while she figured out
what “back to the basics” really means for her.
“I knew that if I hooked up to the grid and started with all the
mod-cons, I'd be unlikely to give anything up,” Sue explains. “So I
decided to go at it the other way around: start out off-grid with only
the bare necessities and discover what I really needed or missed and
what I could easily do without. So, after over five years of 'camping
out' (albeit in a large, luxurious tent!), what have I learned? I love
the simple life!”
Despite being battered by gale-force winds, deluged by rain and
half-buried in snow, Sue’s yurt has provided what she needs to live
simply, without indoor plumbing, for more than five years. She heats
with wood and lights up long winter nights with kerosene lamps and
candles. When the deep snow arrives, she dons snowshoes and hauls goods
up the quarter-mile driveway in an old fish crate. The wood-burning
stove provides heat for cooking, washing, drying damp wood and socks,
and living. “On frigid winter mornings I haul my rocking chair in front
of the open oven, sip on coffee kept warm on the stovetop and write
(with pen and paper, no less!) in my journal,” Sue says.
Sue’s life unfolds naturally in step with the seasons. In winter she
makes stews and casseroles on the wood stove as it heats her yurt. In
summer, she keeps the stove off and eats salads and raw foods. As summer
nights cool down, campfires provide a fine alternative to TV and
computer screens. “There is one power hog I really miss—a refrigerator!”
Sue says. In winter, she places frozen gallon water jugs into a picnic
cooler that she keeps in a cool spot inside. Summer's a challenge.
“Perishables perish all too quickly—and an iced drink or a chilled beer
would be most welcome on a hot day!”
She charges her cell phone, runs her laptop and powers a radio/CD
player using a 30-watt solar PV panel and a 12-volt battery/inverter.
This modest set-up provides ample power in the summer but barely enough
to keep a single battery charged during short, sunless winter days. All
too often, Sue runs out of power just as she’s deeply involved in
writing on her laptop. She’s considering upgrades, and down the road she
hopes to build a small open-plan cabin with indoor plumbing, a
gravity-feed water system and underground cold-food storage. But she
doesn’t want to overdo it.
“Very often I hear off-grid folks declare that 'we haven't changed
our lifestyle one bit!' They buy a humungous [sic] number of solar PV and
water-heating panels and maybe a windmill and large banks of batteries
to run the vast array of appliances and electronic devices common to
modern life,” she says. “Well, that's fine, and maybe a good option for
some people, but is simply unaffordable for many of us.”
Besides, Sue loves her small, one-room home. “I like the simplicity
of stove, pot and kettle rather than a wide array of specialized
appliances, each with a digital clock blinking hurry! hurry! hurry! at
me all the time,” she says. “Once I blow out my bedside candle, the only
light is from the moon and stars. And my home is so quiet! No fridge
whirring on and off, no water pump clunking, no forced air furnace
roaring. That frees up my ears to enjoy nature's music—wind and water,
birds and coyotes, frogs and toads (country life is seldom quiet). There
is no TV or internet here, and that's mostly a good thing—I'm apt to be
easily sidetracked and find it easier to focus without these
distractions. However, I'm quite happy to be distracted by MNTV (Mother
Nature TV), which may feature silvered clouds waltzing around a full
moon, a pair of foxes courting on the frozen pond, or a moose family
meandering around the pond and sampling nature's buffet. I live amongst
great natural wealth and diversity, and I believe being off-grid greatly
enhances my appreciation of it all.”
