Spirit Archives - Page 13 of 26 - Living Off the Grid: Free Yourself

Community

Should homeowners with solar panels pay to maintain electrical grid?

The costs of solar energy are plummeting, and now are about on par with the electricity generated at big power plants. This new reality intensifies a long-running business and regulatory battle, between the mainline electric utility companies and newer firms that provide solar systems for homeowners’ rooftops. Sometimes the rivalry looks more like hardball politics than marketplace economics.…

December 14, 2014 No Comments

Community

Homesteading, the good, the bad and the ugly

Or, what could possibly go wrong?

I found this posted on a homesteading FaceBook page, this is probably one of the most honest assessments of the reality of a young family jumping in with both feet on a homesteading venture that I have seen. When you first start out, you have all these grand ideas about what you are going to do and how to do it, then as time goes by, reality sets in and quite frankly it’s hard, and that’s if nothing goes wrong, and believe me, things go wrong.…

December 13, 2014 4 Comments

Community

In the beginning, the first night

Winter 2007
The wind was blowing a gale, harder than any wind I have even been in before. The walls were shaking and rattling, threatening to blow over any moment.

“I’m going to bed.” I announced, “This place will stand or fall whether I’m asleep or not.”

I crawled into the tent that was set up inside the one room cabin, I was wearing thick quilted coveralls to stave off the cold, I found out the following day that it got down to 14 degrees F overnight. Much of our canned food was inside the tent to take advantage of our body heat to keep it from freezing. I’ll explain why there was a tent inside the cabin a little further down.…

November 24, 2014 No Comments

Community

Make a wish, believe in it

As the end of summer slides past us, the days are getting shorter and cooler. Our rainy season has all but ended, the last few days has been almost dreamy, with low hanging clouds and ground fog rolling through, cool and damp, the smell of wood smoke in the air from the first warming fires of the season tickle my nose, we settle into the end of our 7th year living off-grid, this December will start our 8th year, time has flown by so quickly, sometimes I have a hard time remembering my life before moving off-grid, and that is just fine with me.…

September 14, 2014 2 Comments

Community

Yes, Texas has mountains…

…and other random thoughts. :) One of the questions I get asked when I tell people where I live (on a mountain side, in the high desert, of far western Texas), they ask “Texas has mountains?” or “I didn’t know there were mountains in Texas…”. Well I’m here to tell you that Texas DOES have mountains, I live a mile high, in the Davis Mountains, which used to be called the Apache Mountains, fitting for me because I am part Apache (as well as Comanche), not enough to claim any benefits, but enough to give me some physical features and a wonderful heritage.

I can say that I feel so much at home here, like I have come home, I always wanted to live in the mountains and in the desert, I get to do both.…

August 30, 2014 No Comments

Community

Permaculture in Moretown, Vermont

Ben Falk is a permaculture designer based in Moretown, Vermont. In this video, he speaks about different aspects of homesteading and cold weather, notably his wood cook-stove which also heats water, and his compost-powered greenhouse heating system. He also talks about the importance of being engaged with the land around us, and how gardening is just basically awesome!…

July 30, 2014 No Comments

A new doc in town

I think I am in love, and it’s with another man, but it’s not what you might think :) About a month ago, I took my friend to a nearby town to see a new doctor, there is a very long story that goes with why she wanted a new doctor, one I’ll not bore you with… the first time I saw/met this doctor, my first impression was I like him. He is about as unpretentious as you can get, he wears jeans with the cuffs rolled up, cowboy boots, t-shirts with vintage cars on them, he drives an old beater pickup truck, yes my first impression was he wasn’t like most other doctors I have met.…

July 26, 2014 No Comments

Community

Happy Father’s Day

My Dad is much of the reason why I am getting to live my dream, he gave me a sense of adventure from a young age, as a family we would watch nature and science shows on PBS, we also watch Grizzly Adams, now THAT was how I wanted to live, in a small hand built cabin, on a mountain side, with few neighbors, a few good friends and independent.…

June 15, 2014 3 Comments

Community

Choices, we all have them….

goal

For those of you who have followed my writing for a while, you will notice I am frequently trying to get people to go beyond just dreaming about their dreams and actually DOING something about it. Dreams are nice to have, but take the steps to turn that dream into a goal and start working toward that goal.

I saw this article today, at first I thought, oh brother, another post about “10 things”, but once I began reading these 10 things, it really made sense, for everyone’s life, including those who want to go off-grid or live more independently.

Personally I think numbers 2, 5, 9 and 10 are very important, all of them are good… read them over and begin applying them to your life, whether you wish to live off-grid or not, these are great ‘ism’s.…

May 18, 2014 4 Comments

Community

Pioneer couple

I grew up watching Texas Country Reporter, back in the day it was called 4 Country Reporter, that’s when there were only a few TV stations to choose from, channel 4 was a Dallas TV station thus the name was born. This show began back in the early 70s and showcased Texans living simple yet interesting lives, TCR gave us a glimpse into the window of those wonderful people.…

March 22, 2014 6 Comments

Spring renewal

Spring is on its way, we have had some warm days, t-shirt and shorts kind of warm, living in far west Texas, we are pretty spoilt (not spoiled but spoilt). There is a cold front coming through though, a little while ago, just after dark, I could hear PB out by the wood pile giving the chainsaw a short workout.

Living in the high desert, we can have snow in May and have had, a couple of years back we had a blizzard on May 1. I have noticed our oak trees turning colors, our trees don’t lose their leaves in fall, but remain green all winter, they turn color, fall off and grow back in a matter of a few weeks usually just before the rainy season hits. This year it seems to be happening early, that either means our trees are confused, or we are going to have an early wet spring, I am hoping for the latter.…

March 2, 2014 No Comments

Spirit

Mountain retreat from 100 Euros a night

The North-West of Majorca is one of the most beautiful spots on earth, and that is why I bought a shepherds hut there almost 15 years ago and learned to live off-grid.

I found it was a place where the cares and stresses of modern life would simply vanish – a chance to replenish my spiritual batteries, and think clearly about the problems of work or life confronting me at home.

Since then I bought the neighboring plot of land and houses. Now I want to share the beautiful places that are only available when you spend time off the grid. Its 700 metres above sea level up a tiny mountain road, in the famous Tramuntana range, where walkers and cyclists come from all over the world. Its surrounded by Pines and Olive trees, with views over the Ocean below and the sound of sheep bells jingling the hills.…

February 26, 2014 1 Comment

All you need to go off-grid

Spirit

Should homeowners with solar panels pay to maintain electrical grid?

Homesteading, the good, the bad and the ugly

In the beginning, the first night

Make a wish, believe in it

Yes, Texas has mountains…

Permaculture in Moretown, Vermont

A new doc in town

Happy Father’s Day

Choices, we all have them….

Pioneer couple

Spring renewal

Mountain retreat from 100 Euros a night

OFF-GRID.NET

PUBLICATIONS

CODE OF CONDUCT

REGISTER AND MANAGE ACCOUNT

ORDERING

PRIVACY POLICY

LINKS DIRECTORY

LANGUAGES

ADVERTISERS

POWER MANAGEMENT

POWER MANAGEMENT LANGUAGES

WORK FOR US

Sign-up to our newsletter

Spirit

OFF-GRID.NET

For films about individuals and technologies for living off the grid

PUBLICATIONS

REGISTER AND MANAGE ACCOUNT

ORDERING

LANGUAGES

ADVERTISERS

POWER MANAGEMENT LANGUAGES

WORK FOR US

Sign-up to our newsletter