Going Off-Grid – Jump, Run or Walk
By Dovely from cherrylovefarmm.com
Figuring out how to get from where you are to that sustainable garden of Eden can be daunting. We would all like to have the money to jump. Most of us don’t. When blocked, many run into a situation and find themselves ill equipped to cope.
I’m walking.
There’s an old saying in sales. Plan your work and work your plan. Be open to the fact that the picture of your end goal may change as you move forward. We all want to find 300 acres for $50.00 an acre. I hope that you do. I didn’t. What I thought I needed and what I now have are very different. Yet, my tiny half acre has and has the potential for all of the elements I want to live a sustainable life off-grid.
As I read the Landbuddy post I see many of you are searching for others to create a community. I have found that you can have a community and they don’t have to live in your back yard. Networking and bartering with others in my rural town has given me access to things I can’t produce on my tiny urban farm. I help a friend with his fences and then we harvest dead trees from his woods for my stove. My two dairy goats need about 40 bales of hay a year. I help a farmer get his hay up in exchange for the bales I need. If I had those ten acres, I would have had to plow, plant, cut and bale an acre by myself. And I’d have to have the equipment or do it all by hand.
I came to North Carolina with the intention of using my $25,000.00 to buy more land and less house in the country. I did my reserach and had my lists. You can’t fight Mother Nature. I wanted enough winter cold to help kill bugs and chill the apple trees but not the New England snow drifts I grew up with. I wanted to be at least 150 miles from the ocean and away from river flood zones. I have seen first hand the damage from earth quakes, hurricanes and tornadoes I wanted a place where they don’t often happen. Because of the danger posed by natural disasters and human error and my aversion to nuculear power I did not want to live near or in the path of prevailing winds of a nuclear power plant. I KNEW what I was looking for…..Then I saw what is now my house… no basement or attic. No out buildings. No 10 acres and it was in town. What was I thinking even looking at this place? Well ….she is an Italian brick beauty built in 1888. All that is left of the old farm is the heart beat more than the half acre she sits …
