Eating Off the Grid, book

[BNeel]

Is anyone here familiar with the book, Eating Off the Grid, by Denise Hansen?

[Homesteader]

Nope. But I live off grid and eat. What do you want to know?

Welcome to the tree.

[BNeel]

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.

[Homesteader]

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.

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.

[BNeel]

Thanks for the info. I may have more questions later if you don't mind.

[ChristieAcres]

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.