Getting Off The Grid - No One Said It`s Easy

The last week of March, the sun is shining and we are getting the right amounts of rain to make everything flourish.

Wednesday I tried to get the riding mower to run, it turns over but would not crank, I will check the spark plug tomorrow before I move on to the next thing to check.

I got absolutely nothing accomplished on the homestead. I had planned to get the biggest part done, mowing, and then work on the food plots that will not be a part of the garden in the field.

I would like to plant on Good Friday but I am not sure I will make it. I don`t know why but all the old timers always planted that Friday, I tend to listen to my elders when it comes to the crops, maybe its the moon phases because one year I planted according to that cycle and had the best garden ever. 

Learning to do for yourself, growing and canning your own food, it not easy, And its even harder to give up all the electric appliances. 

And it is even harder when you work and try to do this alone.

Getting off the grid is nothing like the t.v. shows we sit and watch, after  all we see is 30 minutes of their life and that is only what the producers tell them to do that interest them.

You never see them mowing down the grass or breaking the ground to make a garden.

You never see them sneeze five hundred times because the pollen is bad while you are trying to set up food plots, you can`t hang out clothes because they turn yellow before they are dry.

You never see them talk about solar power and how they use it, well once on the last frontier they used solar power to electrify a fence to keep the cows in, but not how they are using it to make life better in their homes.

You never see how many home canned foods they have, just when they make a five 1/2 pint batch, you need to can thousands of jars of food to have it all year and its an everyday canning thing to keep up with the garden and freshness of the food.

Where do these people work? They have to have a job to pay property taxes because those are not cheap, to buy jars to home can with and to buy the supplies like flour, oil, coffee and sugar. The crops don`t always make each year and you don`t always get to kill animals for pelts, so no food to sell or trade and no animal pelts to sell..... Leaves me with the thoughts "where do they work?"

So before you "think" you want to live off the grid, try it for a while and see how hard this life is.

My point of getting off the grid is to lessen the time I have to work for others out in the world because I will require less money to live, Grow my food so that its healthier and all my money won`t go to a grocery store. To know if something bad happened I could make it without all the power and all the stores.

No one said it`s easy.

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By Andria Perry

Photos By Andria Perry