Is anyone here familiar with the book, Eating Off the Grid, by Denise Hansen?
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Is anyone here familiar with the book, Eating Off the Grid, by Denise Hansen?
Nope. But I live off grid and eat. What do you want to know?
Welcome to the tree.
I just came across the book and wanted to hear from anyone who has seen/read it. We are planning to relocate and change lifestyle. Going off-grid is a consideration for us. If you don't mind questions, how long have you been off-grid? What are some of your biggest challenges?
P.S. Love your C.S. Lewis quote.
Been off grid for 17 years.Quote:
Originally Posted by BNeel
The biggest challenge--where we live in North Idaho is very dark in the winter so we have to use our generator a lot in winter. Hind sight, I would have bought a place with a year round stream to suppliment with hydro power.
Best advice-- set up your house and life style to be electricity free but use electricity as a luxury for quality of life. If our solar panels and generator disappeared tomorrow, we could still have a great life.
We have a pitcher pump back up for water. Wood cook stove for heating and cooking. Propane, kerosene, candles for light.
Though I do appreciate electricity for our computer, movies, lights, water pump, freezers, etc. It is not a necessity.
Propane is your friend. I LOVE our propane fridge, instant on demand water heater and cookstove--especially for cooking in summer. We also have some wall mounted propane cabin lights--though, when our kiddos came along we switched to electric lights.
True sine wave inverters are worth the money if you can afford it.
Honda generators are also worth the money. Those little 2,000 watt generator where you can hook them together to make 4,000 watts are great.
Root cellars are wonderful--six months of a walk-in refrigerator up here in North Idaho.
It's a great lifestyle and I still enjoy it after all these years.
Thanks for the info. I may have more questions later if you don't mind.
After doing some thinking recently, I realized we could go off grid just as soon as I clear some food out of the freezer. That said, we don't have solar or wind set ups for power, just generators.
If we get some working capital, we could set up and go off grid in an easier, less propane reliant fashion.
I am rapidly achieving my goal to get most of our food dehydrated or canned, and much less frozen.
Propane is definitely a luxury. But oh, how I love it.
When we first moved to our place, a friend let us borrow some freezer space in town. Traveling 40 minutes round trip for a bowl of ice cream isn't much fun.
Before we moved to our place, I made a list of modern items in order of their quality of life value. In other words, I would have the first one before the others if I had to choose.
1) Truck--hauling and transportation
2) Chainsaw--cutting a year supply of firewood by hand is too time consuming.
3) Refrigeration, propane--saves money and some things just taste better fresh or frozen.
4) DC water pump--we used a pitcher pump for 5 years. I love my running water.
5) Instant on-demand propane water heater--definitely a luxury but I love it.
6) Washing machine--hauling a family worth of clothes to the laundromat sucks. Washing in the bathtub by hand is even worse.
7) Phone--we didn't have one for a couple years. After my daughter caught meningitis and we were borrowing a phone to play phone tag with the doctor's office we realized what an important tool it is.
8. Computer and internet
9) Battery operated drill driver--almost a necessity
10) Hand mixer--must have for our families favorite frosting--Seven Minute Icing and easier to use for making whip cream.
Yeah, these are all luxuries and we lived without many of these for years. But they sure make life easier.