I lived off the grid as a child

[sahmof2girls]

When I was 5 my parents and of course me and my sib moved into the country on 75 acres. We had no power, but we had a spring for water. We grew our own food. We used an outhouse.....whick sucked at 2am in the middle of winter!!!!! We loved it. We didn't have many friends that would come over cause we were "wierd". But it was a great. Many of my ways of thinking goes back to that. We always had stray animals that we would fix up and let go. We had a baby racoon "coony" Who was so cute. And we helped a fawn. But he couldn't go back into nature cause he was too use to people, so he is currentley a huge buck in a deer sanctuary. The list goes on and on. My mom still lives there but she now has power and modern convieneces. And also come to find out it was all my dads idea. Mom hated it. But she is now a country girl. the one thing about living like that was we were real kids. We never watched tv, and we were out all day everyday exploring. I hope to instill some of that in my girls.

Megan

[farmer mama]

What a great story. My own was pretty similar, my parents built their log cabin themselves and when we moved in we only had tarps for a roof. I thought it was completely normal. I have such great memories of growing up wild, and I relate to what you are saying about being able to be a kid, and that it is really important my kids have that experience. My parents now have all the modern conviences, solar hot water, propane heat and even satelite TV (gasp!). I feel that growing up this way gave me confidence and I felt good about being different.

[oneotamama]

sigh.,,,,i want to hear more.........

[sahmof2girls]

Well we had a little shower set up from the spring where we would shower. Cold water though..that sucked. We had chickens for eggs. goats too, but I hated goat milk.YUCK!!! We had a wood stove for heat. It gets really cold here in winter. I was talking to my mom about this yesterday actually and asked her if it was really that hard. And she said it wass alot of work but not hard. We would fight over who got to get the eggs in the morning. It was really fun. Although my mom would say that I would ask everybody who came over if they had a sidewalk, and if they did i would ask to live with them. It's so funny, I oved living that way but I still wanted normal. ya know. I had a friend who had like pepsi and a snack drawer. and I would go there and pig out on junk and sit in front of the tv the whole time. I really thought I was missing out, but actually my friends were. My dad built us the best tree house. We had a pully that you could go across the lawn on...really fun. and we had a big pong that we would swim in in the summer and skate on in the winter. Plus living on top of a mountain we had great sled riding. I;m trying to remember more.....hmmmmmmm.... The old man we bought the cabin from moved right down the lane. he ws great. except he had animals and everything in the house. and the animals came with the house, so that was hard for mom and dad to get them out of the habbit of just waltzing in and helping themselves to stuff. It was rather dirty when we bought it. It is also funny that people would freek out when we had storms and power would go out, it was no different for us.......

[indie]

When I was six we moved to a 240 acre ranch with no electricity or running water. We had to bathe in a trough that caught cold spring water and later my dad built an outdoor shower. The outdoor shower had no roof and small planes would fly over and I know that they could see me but my parents always told me to get over it. Eventually, my grandpa helped us lay pipes so that we had an indoor shower, toilet and kitchen sink.

When we first moved there, the house was only partially done and had been left for around 8 years unoccupied after the previous owner died. The floor was covered an inch thick in mouse droppings and there were all kinds of creatures living in there. Because my dad was always working at least one other job (often two or even three), it took us a long time to get it in livable condition. So we lived in a tiny camper. My mom, brother, and I shared a bed and my dad slept by himself and watched TV all night. Since we had no electricity, he would take the car battery out every night and run the TV on that. Sometimes the car wouldn't start in the morning and we would have to jump it with the other car.

My mom, brother and I had to drive an hour each way six or seven times a week for work and school. I kept a flashlight in the car and spent my time reading, but my poor brother got carsick and bored.

Everyone except my dad hated it all 8 years that we lived there. It really sucked to never be able to invite friends over. I loved to read and be by myself a lot. But it was absolute hell on my brother who really needed people to play with. The summers were better than other times because we didn't have to travel as much to get to school. But we spent a lot of time working with the cattle and stuff which we weren't into. It was my dad's dream, but like everything else he always persued his dreams in a half-assed way and forced them on the rest of us.

In retrospect, I think my experience has made me more understanding of different lifestyles that people lead. I think I have less of a sense of entitlement and I know how to get along without things that others consider to be necessities. But also knowing that my dad selfishly put my mom through that when she hated it and was working so hard on the ranch, at her job, and raising my db and I (my dad did almost none of the childrearing) makes me have less respect for my dad.

I think the experience could be much better for a family that was all onboard with the idea.

[yogagirl]

Thank you for sharing these experiences! We are currently figuring out how to build on the land we purchased a couple of years ago and we like to keep it simple and intentional. I'm wondering how it would be like for my Edie to grow up like that. Thanks everyone!

[loftmama]

sahmof2girls - wow, i could be you! what you are describing almost perfectly describes MY childhood. It was fun. Yet I do remember wanting sooo much to be "normal" too. Even today I am torn between living differently and living normally. DH wants to be off the grid in upstate NY (where you are, I see) and I do and I don't. Yes, it sounds fun and exciting, but it can also be difficult and hard. Where are you, if you don't mind me asking?

[sahmof2girls]

Cambridge,NY. 10 minutes from VT an hr from Albany

[loftmama]

cambridge ny, eh? are you freezing? is it cold? i'm such a wienie and dh wants to move there so so so bad. his family has a place about 1.5 hours north of albany. he once tried to talk me into amsterdam, but i think he's let that one go...



are you on the grid now?

[sahmof2girls]

We are an hr North of Albany. It has not been too cold at all. We only had a couple weeks of below zero weather. We are supposedly going to get a couple of feet of snow the next couple of days, but i'll beleive it when i see it. We have had hardly any snow this winter. Yes I am on the grid now. I don't think dh could handle being off the grid, although he says he could, I would end up doing all the dirty work But there are A couple cabins p by my moms that are still completley off the grid. And they are BEUATIFUL!!!! The people who have lived in them for 4 years decided to go and modernize, so they just sit there. Dh and I want to get are hands on them. But my brother Really wants them bad. So it would be a major conflict if we got them. :
My brother is in NH at school now, and is currently switching all thier buses to fry oil. He is such a handy kid. But after he graduates he wants to get the cabins and go off the grid completley. So good for him. Anyway I am just rambling on.....

Megan

[Annie]

We lived off the grid for a couple of years when I was a kid

We had wind power generators for florescent lights, as well as a gas generator and propain for the clothes washer. Mom hung clothes on a line. Cant remember what we did for refridgeoration.Also I think the propain was for the water heater for the shower/bath. The water came from a deep underground stream that came to surface up hill, so we didnt need a pump and had some good natural water pressure. Best water ever, I remember my parents saying it came from so deep down it would forever be the most pure water you could ever drink.

I'm not sure if my experience really qualifies as we had almost all the luxuries of the modern life we left for it, except tv.we had a tiny black and white tv that the gas genorator would occassionaly be used to power but would run out in the middle of a movie we were watching full of static, so we didnt watch much tv. Not that we missed tv, we had all kidns of farm aniamls and a garden to take care of. Plus we had to go to bed at sundown as the power for lights had to be saved for morning.To get to the buss on time we had to get up before dawn and would need the power then. My all time favorite childhood memory is watching mom make biscuites and gravey on the gorgious wood stove in the mornings. And nothings' better than stew on a wood stove Yummy

The house we lived in during this time had been a civil war hospital. There was even a ladder build into the wall to get to the kids bed room ala little house on the prairie. My brother and I still talk about buying that land back from our school principle (he brought it after my parents' divorce and they had to sell) Unfortunately the house burnt down Also I heard that they did finally run power lines out to that line, to the top of the mountain where we lived. When we were there obviously there were no power lines for miles. OTOH that land was the best and I'd love to have that underground stream water again

Sorry if I'm hijacking the thread, this brought back so many happy childhood memories. I really feel it was the best experience ever for kids. I have to admit there's a huge part of me that would love to go back to living like this, but maybe wihtout quite so many luxuries

[opally]

Thanks, Annie, for resurrecting this thread and sharing your experiences ! I love hearing of everyone's tales, and hope everyone keeps them coming.

[sweet tea]

wow, this is so cool..I just now noticed mdc had an off grid forum..lol!

When my dd was about 18m old we sold our 5 bedroom house in colorado and moved into a schoolbus in Wyoming in the middle of winter. We hand washed our clothes (and diapers) and had a big wood stove for heat...used the front of the bus as a fridge. The three of us slept on a futon and read books and we had oil lamps and about 160 acres of rolling hills. We had a solar panel and inverter for small appliances and radio.
It was dh's dream, but I was not so into it. looking back, it wasn't that bad, but I missed my 'home' ..we sold it all...I didnt like wyoming.

sometimes when the world of credit card debt and modern technology feels toxic..the stress of working more hours to buy more stuff to buy bigger houses to buy more...gah..some days I just want to go back to the bus

ok... *rambling*
I hope to hear more stories too.. (we are trying to figure out how we got here and how we can get back to where we want to be...)

[~Megan~]

I wouldn't mind living way out but have become so used to my cushy life with electricity and running water. I could do without the TV though and the phone most of the time.

[sahmof2girls]

Sunfairy~*~*~*~*~*~ That sounds so GREAT!!! I bet it was alot of fun. I wish I could just pick up and go. But man it takes so much time to get things going..... Hopefully soon. But who knows...(My dh just finished painting our house after 3 yrs) So it takes a little fire under his butt to get him going :LOL :LOL :LOL

[sweet tea]

it was fun..an adventure...it seems like me and dh always have the urge to up and go....sell off everything and head out in the wild yonder.

right now we are fed up with everything..we hate arizona..and now is the worst time to hate it cuz its 110 degrees...I have 2 years left til my degree...but I wonder if its worth it..my dd will be 8 by then..gah.. 8!

we really want to build an earthship, shoot even an old farmhouse..something..and the next place we move to will hopefully be our last...i LONg, LONG LONG...to plant roots....more than anything I want to have a piece of something and build on it. and we can't seem to do that now and it sucks.

I struggle daily with go now and plant roots..put off school...or stay do school and then go off where ever we want to with my nursing degree...

sorry, prolly TMI...but whatever..I felt like sharing

[elfie]

Not me - but my first love grew up in Maine, w/outhouse, pump for water, 1 woodstove for cooking, one for heating, no electric and could only drive your car until about 1/4 mile close to the house. His dad designed and built the house. They did get electric when my then bf was about 15. His folks got divorced and his mom still lives there by herself. Her sons come home in the fall to help her split wood for the winter. I stay in touch w/her as she is an amazing woman!
I remeber first going to the house. We got there in the middle of the night, since we had been travelling for a few months. It was such a peaceful sleep. When we awoke his mom had made eggs w/fresh pesto , toast on the wood stove with cherry preserves. It was heavenly and to this day (I was 19 then, now 35) I make that breakfast all the time and it instantly cheers me up.
Since that time I have wanted to live like that..in Maine. I'm taking baby steps but I will get there for sure!

[sahmof2girls]

That sounds so nice elfie. It does take baby steps to do a move like thta. Especially with children! We are still trying to get the cabins in order. but it is a long long uphill battle :LOL