Todd Ganovski, with Bishop Wayne Boosahda (right)

As of today, Todd Ganovski doesn’t think the world will end anytime soon.

But he does believe that trouble — either a natural disaster or economic crisis — is coming. And he thinks God wants him to help people prepare for it.

Ganovski is co-founder of Emergency Provision, an eBay site based in Tennessee that sells emergency food supplies online and through church networks. He thinks recent disasters like the flood in Nashville, the tsunami in Japan and the earthquake in Washington, D.C., are signs from God that a major disaster is on the way.

“If it does happen, I don’t want to have to jump through FEMA’s hoops to get food,” he said.

Ganovski, who leads the Nashville House of Prayer, which meets at Belmont Church in Nashville, started the company with several friends after the March tsunami in Japan.

They buy dehydrated food from a manufacturer in San Diego and sell it on their website.  Prices range from about $100 for a week’s supply to about $1,200 for six months’ supply.

The company started advertising this month on the Elijah List, an online publication for charismatic and Pentecostal ministers. The ad points to the biblical character of Joseph, who spent seven years preparing for a famine in Egypt.

Brian Hardin, head of the Daily Audio Bible, isn’t worried about a disaster or future apocalypse. But he plans to purchase supplies from Emergency Provision for more mundane events like bad weather.

“If we had a bad snowstorm and everyone bought all the milk and cookies and bread, it would be nice to have some of that in the garage,” he said.

That’s something the American Red Cross stresses. The disaster relief group held a number of disaster preparedness events last month and sells emergency backpacks, including food, online.

“Our whole thing is, have a kit, make a plan,” said Cynthia Kelley, communications and marketing manager for the Red Cross in Nashville.

Faith-based emergency preparedness is nothing new. Mormons have practiced it for decades, as have some Seventh-day Adventists and Christian survivalists. They are motivated by prophecies of doom and a desire to be self-reliant.

A way of life

For Cara Widman, keeping an extra supply of food on hand is a way of life. She’s a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which teaches people to store three months of food.

Widman stores canned corn, meat, tomatoes and other goods, along with staples such as beans and flour, on the second floor of her house in Franklin.

“Our church teaches us to be self-reliant,” she said. “They teach us to be prepared for disasters that come — that could be a natural disaster, it could be losing your job, or it could be being able to help someone in need.”

Widman says her family has never had to rely on their stockpile, but after the flood in 2010, they gave away much of their stored food.

Tim Hemingway, director of Internet sales for Food Insurance, a Utah-based company, said that emergency food storage has become more mainstream. The company advertises with conservative talk show hosts like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and sells emergency backpacks with food along with long term-supplies.

Kathleen Flake, associate professor of American religious history at Vanderbilt Divinity School, isn’t surprised in the growing interest in emergency food storage.

She thinks some of that interest is based on religious predictions of disaster. But it also shows that people have realized how fragile modern society can be, she said. In the past, people kept food supplies at home. Now, they eat out or run to the grocery store on a regular basis for a few things.

“Instead of having a couple of weeks or months of food on hand, they have a few days of food,” Flake said.

As the level of anxiety grows in society, being prepared can help people gain a sense of control.

“They are preparing for disaster,” she said. “And of course the world never disappoints us. It’s not a bad thing to prepare for them.”

Our pre-off-grid life was pretty much like most anyone else, we lived in a regular house, a mobile home actually, in a regular neighborhood in north central Texas. PB owned his own business, taking care of restaurant equipment for several big name companies and a smattering of smaller ones, he was a one-man-band, no employees. I worked 2 jobs, the first as a merchandiser and pricing coordinator for a big box electronics company and the other job was as a trainer in a semi-well known gym for women. We weren’t what you would call well off financially, but we were happy.

We were both empty nesters from previous marriages, in the beginning neither one of us knew the other had a secret desire to live off grid, when we began to explore the idea of actually doing this, it didn’t take us long to find our perfect plot of land in far west Texas, it was just under 6 acres of unimproved, rough, almost inaccessible land on the side of a mountain in the high desert.

I cashed in my stock from my job and had enough to buy the land and had a little left over to buy some building material for the start of the cabin (soon to be renamed the sky castle). In less than 2 weeks, PB had a minimal structure built, it was enough for us to move in. We were able to get some solar panels, a charge controller, a few deep cycle batteries and a few other things we needed to get started. We began to disassemble our current city lives, PB shut down his business, I quit both of my jobs, and on December 22, 2007 we moved all of our remaining belongings to our new life in west Texas.

The first few months were pretty rough, we lived in a most primitive manner, some might even say our first few years were pretty primitive, I suspect some might even say we still live very primitively, that’s OK, it’s quite wonderful to me. We met a great neighbor who gave us some help, it made life a bit easier, things like access to his water well instead of having to go to the community well, access to his washer and dryer instead of washing by hand and hanging to dry, access to his shower instead of taking spit baths… all things we were prepared to do on our own, but having such a great neighbor we were able to do many things a little easier, in return we do most of the maintenance on his house, we do other things for him too, so it’s a fair trade.

We quickly learned about the barter system and before long we had enough connections with the community that when anyone had some used, scrap or excess building materials, they would contact us first to see if we could use it. Most of the rest of the sky castle was built using this scrap material that would have otherwise gone to the landfill. PB would go and tear down a building at a friend’s property and we would get to take the material home. Please understand, we aren’t tree huggers, we aren’t doing any of this because it’s “green”, for us it was cheap and expedient, the fact that we were in fact being green was merely a bonus.

Little by little we built up our little place into a home, with running water, eventually installing on demand propane powered water heaters, water tanks for more water storage, we built another room, the first one was 16×16, the addition was 12×12, we built on decks and eventually, my favorite addition, the shower. We also began to work on other things, like the garden, putting up out buildings, sheds and such.

All of this has taken time and lots of sweat, we have spent very little money, mainly because we do everything ourselves, and a lot of experimentation, some of which worked great, some which failed miserably. We have been blessed by good health and only minor accidents, mostly scrapes and splinters. We have grown to really love our little community, I’d say that has been as important as anything we have done. No matter how perfect your place might be, if you aren’t happy with or welcome into your community, that will not end up in a good way.

Now we are living like kings, at least that is my opinion, of course by most people’s standards including the government, we live well under the poverty level, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, I love my life, I love living with the freedom I have, I love working hard for what we have, it really does make me appreciate each and every little thing we have. When we first started out, I was hauling 3 one gallon containers of water up the hill from my neighbor’s house every day, sometimes twice a day, I guarantee you that makes me appreciate my 1550 gallon poly plastic water container with all the plumbing involved, doing dishes and laundry by hand inside my sky castle, getting to shower with hot running water…

I look forward to many more years with PB, improving our lives and the sky castle. The last couple of days has been quite fun for PB, one of our friends and neighbors came by, he had been eyeballing the gravel in our creek bed, he offered a trade for a few trailer loads of gravel, he let us use his Bobcat tractor to do some dirt work, PB achieved in a few hours of work what would have taken him weeks if not months of hard manual work, it cost zero dollars, but was priceless for us. I have to say that life is good.

A big part of my happiness is because of my faith, I found a little church in the neighborhood (we are blessed with 2 of them close by), I joined and quickly became active in the church, now I’m on the board of trustees, working to make things better and better. I have been a Christian for many years, most of my life, but living out here and being part of this church and community has helped me grow in my faith and get closer to God. I’m not saying that is necessary for you, (though for me it is), it’s a choice you have to make, I am saying that going to church is a good way to get closer to your community, and hopefully to God too, I am blessed everyday and in every way, even in the bad times, there is always a lesson to learn, a period of growth, a strengthening. Getting to live in and near nature allows me to personally witness Divinity on a daily basis.

I have many people contact me to ask for my advice on how they should go about moving off grid, how to do it cheaply, how they should do it… it’s difficult to answer because everyone is different, everyone has different standards of how they want to live, everyone has different ideas and circumstances. My biggest advice is to have a dream and set goals, let nothing come between you and your goals, I have found that people will do what they really want to do, and unfortunately there are many who wish but don’t take the action necessary to make their wish a reality. I’m not judging, just stating the facts about what I see.

If you truly want to live off grid, then do it, you don’t have to do it all at once, but start taking the steps necessary to get you to the place where you want to be. Each step you take is a step closer to your dream, don’t let life get in the way, don’t let family, friends, a job, or anything else get in the way, do what is necessary to make yourself happy and the rest of everything will fall into place. I’m not advocating doing anything illegal, I’m assuming that most of my readers are reasonable, law abiding people. I am advocating living your life to the fullest extent, and if that includes living off grid, then do it.

If you want to learn more about our lives living off grid, you can read more of my stories here

http://www.off-grid.net/section/wretha/

you can also read about us in the book Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America by Nick Rosen, we are chapter 9 in the book.

Homesteading, it’s a buzzword that means different things to different people, back in the day, it meant getting land for free as long as you lived on it and improved it for x number of years. It was a way to get people to move west (in the USA), back when travel was slow and painful, even dangerous.

Today it usually refers to someone who is living more like our ancestors did, in a more self sufficient manner, on a plot of land, often raising livestock, growing their own food, living more independently. Most of us are more than one generation removed from those who lived on a farm or homestead, so we don’t benefit from the knowledge of our family members who lived in a more self sufficient manner. I know in my family, it was my great grand parents who had lived on a farm, my grandparents and parents lived in suburban neighborhoods with small yards and animals no bigger than a dog.

Because of this, those of us who want to live closer to the land have to resort to alternative methods of obtaining  knowledge. I continually scour the internet for books about living off grid, gardening and such, I found this book The Ultimate Guide to Homesteading: An Encyclopedia of Independent Living (The Ultimate Guides), actually I didn’t find it, I was offered an opportunity to review it and I jumped at the chance, it was a book I had been looking at previously and was more than happy to review it.

I keep getting distracted from writing because I keep finding more and more interesting things in this book to read, I just read about growing cotton, then picking it, cleaning it, and spinning it. Since I crochet, this is especially appealing to me, and something I think I can do with little trouble. For now, I’m not set up to raise wool bearing animals, but I can grow cotton and process it.

This book has a lot to offer, it doesn’t go into extreme detail on any one subject, but gives you enough information so that you can decide if that particular thing is something you really want to try.  Nicole Faires (don’t you just love her name?) the author, has certainly lived the life, she is not just spouting theory, she grew up on a hobby farm raising chickens and growing her own food among other things.

While not an exhaustive list of homesteading subjects, I believe it covers the majority of them quite nicely, such as:

• land-buying, communities…
• water-getting it, purifying it and such
• food-finding it, growing it, preserving it…
• animals-livestock, domestic…
• shelter-various home styles, barns, fences…
• financial-making money from your skills…
• health-medicines, herbal medicines,
• and lots more

There is a great  dictionary in the back so you will at least sound like you know what you are talking about when chatting with the old timers at the feed store, LOL, seriously, I have had a good time reading the terminology and their meanings. Such as “butt-up”, before reading this book, I would have said that is how one lands when tripping over a rock and doing a face plant, now I know that is a type of roof ridge made in thatching which forces the straw together from both sides of the roof to form a peak. “Flying change”, I would think it’s what happens when you lose control of your change purse, but it really has to do with horses.

Near the back of the book, just before the index, the author’s bio and several blank pages (perfect for adding your own notes), there is a great bibliography with tons of resources, mostly in the form of internet links. These will send you to more detailed resources for the subjects found in this book. This alone is worth the price of the book.

The book is easy to read, well made, with lots of color photographs and diagrams, nice thick glossy pages ensure this book will last for a long time, that’s a good thing because once you have this book, you will be referring to it over and over again throughout the years.

PB (my hubby) has been trying to steal this book from me ever since I received it, his comment on it was that it is a good all over resource, not detailed on each thing, but a good book and he’s glad we have it, he has also been going on and on about how well this book is physically put together, the binding, the paper quality and the pictures. Now that I’m finished with this review, I can safely give the book to him, I’ll not see it again for a while. :)

See my other book reviews here:
http://www.off-grid.net/tag/book-review/

Honesty disclaimer:
I did receive this book free from the publisher for the expressed intent of giving a review, that in no way influenced my review, all of my reviews are honest and from the heart.

You won't find this on facebook

There’s close-ups of fireplaces, flowers and flooring. There’s design ideas, tech ideas, interior color co-ordination and bottle-reinforced walls. Oh, and did I say, there’s Earthships…galore?

There’s hot springs and bed springs and spring onions. There’s very few people, which means its a bit of a stylie, self-conscious, and commercial page, but nothing wrong with one or two of those in the world, is there?

Self-Doctoring: Chassidy Fitkin

“This is the first time in my life I’ve been excited about being sick. What better way to know if my herbal remedies work than to try them on myself!?

I have a headcold that started with a sore throat but quickly just turned into congestion, runny nose, and cough. I have a recipe I tried that is outstanding and has kept me from resorting back to the common over the counter stuff that always made me feel out of my head. First, I have to say that it’s not likely you will have these herbs on hand because I did order them. But if your looking to grow, make peppermint one of the first herbs you plant!!

The first night with a sore throat, I had tea made of slippery elm bark and honey. The taste was nothing I would ever crave but made my throat feel a lot better. When we make tea, we boil the water first, then pour it on top of the herbs in a glass container, and cover. I have found that only a tsp of the herb works well, as I didn’t want to go overboard. I let mine sit for 15 minutes, then strain it through a very small strainer- the kind that looks like metal mesh (a coffee filter worked just as well). The slippery elm goes from tree bark to a strange texture that reminded me of the gel that comes out of an aloe plant.

I strained that off but I’ve since thought that part may help soothe the throat even more. The next day I added a tsp of peppermint herb to the slippery elm and found that to be the perfect remedy for my cold. It made me sweat a little at first and then I felt ten times better. Sweating is your body’s way of releasing toxins through your pores, so if your finicky about it your going to have to get past it. A tbsp of raw organic honey makes the tea just right. I’ve been making three cups a day, and this has been the best thing for me.

Also, I tried an infusion of rose hips, made basically the same way except I left it all night, and strained it the next morning. Rose hips have a lot more vitamin C than an orange and I wanted to boost my immune system. However, I only had a few rosehips and though the infusion did seem to help, I want to try again when I have more to work with.

My echinacea tincture isn’t finished yet or that would have been the first thing I turned to. Echinacea is known to boost the immune system also, and seems to have a great reputation for it. The tincture takes six weeks at least to complete and mine is two weeks away from being ready, I will write about it when I have been able to try it. Echinacea’s history drew me in as there was a story of a traveling man who sold it after a getting snake-bitten, and surviving. I’m not sure of the truth in that story but that is what brought the herb to attention. After which, there were people claiming that it cured ailments that were unresponsive to other treatments.It may have been the story that really got my attention though, I am fascinated by gypsy type life styles- whith all the traveling. Back to the echinacea, taken at the beginning of the flu is known to help your immune system in getting prepared for it, and who likes the flu? The thing of it is, if your body can fight off a sickness itself, with a little boost to the immune system, that is way to go.

I also want to add that this is my personal view on things and not meant to be taken in place of advice from your doctor. It’s my journey towards what is best for my family that I am sharing, not medical advice. There, that’s my disclaimer.

The next time I can write I will tell you about the home-made flea spray I put on my dog and by then I should be able to work on the arthritus oil/rub I’ve been wanting to get to.

Amber and her first pair of Moccasins

Ask a farmer if he enjoys his work and he will probably tell you he’s tired. If you press him, you’ll learn he takes great pride in what he does, and that of course he’s tired — he’s actually working.
Many people today have never even been given the opportunity to enjoy eating things they planted. Nor enjoyed the warmth of a fire they lit themselves, nor taught their children how to stack firewood.
There are lessons to be learned in basic living and rewards to be earned, if we can just get back to it.

Does that mean I want dirt floors like my great grandmother? No. Not really.
But I do know that heating marble floors is a bitch.
So what’s the answer?

Admittedly, I’ve been unsure about the idea of living off the grid or homesteading as an option for myself.
I’m a woman with thick hair that grows to the middle of my back, and I like to blow dry it in the mornings. I enjoy hot showers and at one point in my life, I even owned a dishwasher.
You could say that I’ve been spoiled by the frills of modern society.
That said, I come from a Native American family, so the idea of off the grid living isn’t completely foreign to me.
Native Americans are off the grid by design, and I’ve always felt really connected to that — its where I come from.
My great grandmother lived in what can only be described as a hut, with dirt floors and a coal “stove” in which she cooked. Rainwater bathing was commonplace. I remember visiting her as a child and my father explained we wore our moccasins as to not disturb her floor. I was young and confused, since the floors he was speaking of were completely made of dirt anyway.
But what I understand now that I didn’t then, is that dirt can be disturbed. And sometimes shouldn’t be. For instance, if it’s part of your home.
And so I wore my moccasins.
My childhood aside, and forgoing the fact that some of my close friends are into sustainable living and even off the grid living, I think it would be amazing if I could take the entire city I live (OK, it’s not that many people) in Havre de Grace, Md off the grid, or perhaps we go “homesteading.”
Since the economy has tanked and everyone is putting their McMansions up for sale, many families are downsizing into a third (or less) of the space they had grown accustomed to living.
So the question is, could most people go even farther? Live with even less space? Less energy? Less frills?
Hell yes they could.
I realize this is hypothetical, but wouldn’t it be interesting to see how people held up?
We’re talking about something that most of you are already used to (or at least you’re toying with the idea, since you’re on this website. And if not, then perhaps you’re fascinated by us freaks who are) so wouldn’t growing and canning your own foods, dealing with your own wastewater management systems, creating homemade power and practicing frugality really bring back the “survival of the fittest” mentality?
You know it.
Anyway, since a dear friend of mine is looking forward to constructing an off the grid community (or if that doesn’t take off the ground, a homestead experience for he and his family) the idea has been rolling around in my head without avail.
It’s fascinating to me.
It could be because I’m revolting against Baltimore Gas and Electric (BG&E) or maybe because Nick Rosen reached out to me at the height of my frustration with the cost of modern “conveniences” or maybe just because I’ve been doing a lot of research about options, or maybe it’s that my ancestors are subliminally calling to me from the reservation.
Either way, I’ve been thinking of ways to propose the idea of off grid living to others, since I will likely be helping my friend “pitch” his communal idea.
Sure, at first it sounds off-the-wall, and it is undoubtedly different from the way many are used to living now, but like introducing people to all “new” things, we must teach them to crawl before we teach them to run.
If you’ve ever taken a non-sushi-eating friend to dinner at a great japanese place, then you’ve probably helped introduce them to the world of raw saline by ordering something cooked and wrapped in rice that sort of looks like sushi. And then when they’re really into it, you sneak in the good stuff.
I think that’s just how we have to approach a lot of unconventional things in life (not that sushi is all that unconventional.)
When it comes to introducing your friends and family to off the grid living or homesteading or even just sustainable or renewable options for their homes, I think it’s important to give them the cooked sushi first.
Talk to them about recycling, and see how they feel. Unless they’ve been living in a closet for the past 20 years or they’re from another planet, chances are, they’re on the recycling bandwagon by now. Ask them about organic foods and if they shop at farmers markets, given the chance. Ask them lots of questions.
I say this because I think it’s important we go backward in order to go forward.
The basics of life are food, shelter, water, sleep and sex.
I think if we consider our ancestors and where we came from, the answers to the future have already been given to us.
It’s not a magical formula written amongst the stars.
There is no mathematical equation to figure this out.
We still have the same basic needs, we have just fluffed them up into something that is nearly impossible to obtain or maintain.
And for those who are maintaining such lifestyles, they are working their asses off with little personal reward for themselves and their family.
What’s the way of life for those of us who are survivors? And for our future generations?
We have to look at what we came from.
The caves, the huts, the cabins, the farm.
And then we have to dust off our moccasins and get to work.

Chassidy collecting cures

“The seed of this idea was blown through my life in the beginning by lack of time. It was like I was in a daze created by the rush of daily “life”. Only if your not living it, really why is it called life?

It weighed on me every morning when I was pushing my kids to finish breakfast quickly so we could get to school on time, so that I could, in turn, speed to work- praying I wouldn’t get a ticket that I couldn’t afford. That thought would snowball into what bills were due & how I could arrange them to be paid on certain days…. This giving you a headache yet?

Welcome to what has become life for so many..including me. Days fly by as I try to hold on to the moments with this amazing family I was blessed with, but I find that more of my time and energy goes toward my job…there’s something wrong with that. Not being able to enjoy a their smiles or a walk because we’re constantly preparing for the next day.

As these thoughts crowded my mind more and more, something else happened…our family of five started coming down with something, we each had some sort of sickness. It started with an infection from a root canal I had done that ended up bruising the tissues in my face which landed me on two antibiotics, then turned into sinus infections, colds, and a stomach bug running rampid through our family for almost two weeks. At this point I started researching herbal medicine because all the different medicine we “needed” to get better came with it’s own 20 side effects.. That breeze blowing the seeds of new ideas turned into a gale force wind. Where all I can think about is being with my family and finding the resources to stop being dependent on a system.

It occurred to me during my research… We could take care of ourselves! Feed ourselves and be our own doctor, starting with a healthier life style that promotes good health. Then I ordered a kit offline to get me started making and understanding herbal remedies and started my research on what herbs can do for us. I was hooked. God had guided me right into a calling I have a true passion for by using my greatest love; my family.

My first project was a recipe for a healing salve. I slow cooked herbs for an hour in olive oil, mixed them with some beeswax, and WaLa! With the smell of herbs cooking through my house and the independent feeling of making a natural “medicine” for my family, my mind was made up that this is the way for us. No preservatives or additives, just healing. I like the way that sounds! On a funny side note, as I was making the healing salve, I burned myself. Ironic? I was straining the herbs and grabbed (with my bare hand) the rag I was using and squeezed…not a good idea. Plus side? The salve works! The burn went right away! One of the herbs in the salve is Calendula. I’ll be doing a lot more research on this one as it is thought to have regenerative action on the skin, helping new tissue to grow to heal a wound. An interesting thing I’ve noticed using the salve that it has a slightly numbing effect, making it great for sunburns.

Happy healing, Chassidy

Its for their own good

Delightful new book by Susan Maushart describes how she unplugged her teenagers and gave them back their lives.

For six months, she took away the Internet, TV, iPods, cellphones and video games. iPhones  no longer chirped through the night like “evil crickets.” And she stopped them carrying their gadgets  into the bathroom.

Like so many teens, they couldn’t do their homework without simultaneously listening to music, updating Facebook and trading instant messages. If they were amused, instead of laughing, they actually said “LOL” aloud. Her girls had become mere “accessories of their own social-networking profile, as if real life were simply a dress rehearsal (or more accurately, a photo op) for the next status update.”

As Maushart explains in a book released in the U.S. this week called “The Winter of Our Disconnect” (Penguin, $16.95), she and her kids rediscovered small pleasures when they went off grid together  – like board games, books, lazy Sundays, old photos, family meals and listening to music together instead of everyone plugging into their own iPods.

Her son Bill, a videogame and TV addict, filled his newfound spare time playing saxophone. “He swapped Grand Theft Auto for the Charlie Parker songbook,” Maushart wrote. Bill says The Experiment was merely a “trigger” and he would have found his way back to music eventually. Either way, he got so serious playing sax that when the gadget ban ended, he sold his game console and is now studying music in college.

Maushart’s eldest, Anni, was less wired and more bookish than the others, so her transition in and out of The Experiment was the least dramatic. Her friends thought the ban was “cool.” If she needed computers for schoolwork, she went to the library. Even now, she swears off Facebook from time to time, just for the heck of it.

The Winter of Our Disconnect: How Three Totally Wired Teenagers (and a Mother Who Slept with Her iPhone)Pulled the Plug on Their Technology and Lived to Tell the Tale

Maushart’s youngest daughter, Sussy, had the hardest time going off the grid. Maushart had decided to allow use of the Internet, TV and other electronics outside the home, and Sussy immediately took that option, taking her laptop and moving in with her dad — Maushart’s ex-husband — for six weeks. Even after she returned to Maushart’s home, she spent hours on a landline phone as a substitute for texts and Facebook.

But the electronic deprivation had an impact anyway: Sussy’s grades improved substantially. Maushart wrote that her kids “awoke slowly from the state of cognitus interruptus that had characterized many of their waking hours to become more focused logical thinkers.”

Maushart decided to unplug the family because the kids — ages 14, 15 and 18 when she started The Experiment — didn’t just “use media,” as she put it. They “inhabited” media. “They don’t remember a time before e-mail, or instant messaging, or Google,” she wrote.

Maushart admits to being as addicted as the kids. A native New Yorker, she was living in Perth, Australia, near her ex-husband, while medicating her homesickness with podcasts from National Public Radio and The New York Times online. Her biggest challenge during The Experiment was “relinquishing the ostrichlike delusion that burying my head in information and entertainment from home was just as good as actually being there.”

Maushart began The Experiment with a drastic measure: She turned off the electricity completely for a few weeks — candles instead of electric lights, no hot showers, food stored in a cooler of ice. When blackout boot camp ended, Maushart hoped the “electricity is awesome!” reaction would soften the kids’ transition to life without Google and cell phones.

It was a strategy that would have made Maushart’s muse, Henry David Thoreau, proud. She is a lifelong devotee of Thoreau’s classic book “Walden,” which chronicled Thoreau’s sojourn in solitude and self-sufficiency in a small cabin on a pond in the mid-1800s. “Simplify, simplify!” Thoreau admonished himself and his readers, a sentiment Maushart echoes throughout the book.

As a result of The Experiment, Maushart made a major change in her own life. In December, she moved from Australia with Sussy to Mattituck, on Long Island. Of course, the move merely perpetuated Maushart’s need to live in two places at once: She kept her job as a columnist for an Australian newspaper and is “living on Skype” because her older children stayed Down Under to attend university. Ironically, the Internet eased the transition to America for Sussy, who used Facebook to befriend kids in her new high school before arriving.

Another change for Maushart: She’s no longer reluctant to impose blackouts on Sussy’s screentime. “Instead of angsting, ‘Don’t you think you’re spending too much time on the computer? Don’t you think you should do something else like reading?’ I now just take the computer away when I think she’s had enough,” Maushart said in a phone interview. “And now that she’s been on the other side and remembers what it’s like, it’s less of an issue.”

El Cosmico has no rooms — only yurts, tepees and trailers.  There is a shower block,and wireless internet in the lobby.  With incredibly low start-up costs, no wonder yurts go for $60  a night.

Powers: "more time doing nothing"

William Powers, author of “Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin Off the Grid & Beyond the American Dream,” did an interview recently with Mother Nature Network.

Here are some extracts:

“There’s no instruction manual for living in a 12-by-12-foot cabin.  It was strange to be at the heart of the world’s richest country and living with no electricity.  There was this sense of nature pressing in around me. At first I felt quite alone out there, but soon I began to think, wow, there is another way.

While I was out there, I got rid of the car and rode a $26 bike. It was a beautiful thing, all that simplicity, because there was this whole new freedom. In my simplicity there was actually expansion because if you take away the clutter, you’re left with this wide-open canvas of creativity and possibility. Those are times where you can find your own inspiration, your own purpose and authenticity, and express yourself from there. And it may be for other people that they would go into that situation and think about it completely differently than I did. But I think that once you’ve gone into this well of solitude and silence, it’s hard to just live a superficial life. You’d maybe continue in the same path but do things a little differently.

I was surprised to find so many people living off the grid, and not just off the electricity grid, but also off the grid culturally. That’s not to say that tomorrow it’s going to become the mainstream culture, but this is the way that social change happens, by these small pockets growing slowly. People start to feel meaning and purpose within, and then they just go gangbusters at a certain point and the movement really explodes. That’s what I’m hoping, that there will be a tipping point, almost like in the 1960s when the counterculture became the culture. Suddenly there were millions of people rejecting consumerism and war and a superficial life and trying to explore other ways of doing things.

Life is not just about increasing its speed and efficiency. I think that the economy should be for creating happiness and well-being, not endless economic growth just the for sake of it. If you can live very well at a lower level, then why not do that?

(Friedman’s) flat world is creating a flat taste. We don’t want to have this OneWorld Uniplanet where everything is the same. There’s a monoculture developing and it’s dangerous not just to the planet but also to our own individuality and our souls and spirits. I’m hoping that the book will be one of the little sparks that helps bring us back to humanity.

One way is to set aside an hour a day where you do absolutely nothing, whether it’s idling in the forest or staring up at the stars. Just try to get out of your brain and feel the energy in your body. We’re too hyperanalytical. It’s kind of a craziness. And there’s no doubt it can lead to economic success and building all kinds of wonderful things, but I think the reason why there isn’t a lot of happiness in America is because we are too much in our own heads. If we’re rich in mind then we’re poor in time. Just try to find that space in your life in different ways. After all, what could be more eco than doing nothing? At least you’re not burning fossil fuels!”

A gentle life

Angela Long is a poet and writer who has lived off the grid for the past three years. Visit her blog.

“I wrote Notes from Off the Grid here, last summer, in the cabin where I’m sitting right now. We live in an area of Naikoon Provincial Park that’s off-the-grid. There aren’t many of us here–about a dozen others officially off-grid. We’re not an intentional community–just a bunch of people who ended up out here (some have been here since the 70s), who like this lifestyle (and living in a forest along a magnificent beach). There’s a wind turbine on the property where I live that provides enough power to fuel my laptop, internet connection, and a few other low-voltage luxuries.”

Notes from Off the Grid

i.) The road

First there’s a sign:

Proceed with Caution: Narrow, Winding Road.

Then there’s a line to cross,

where tarmac turns to gravel,

where electrical poles stop and cedars

creep back to the edge.

The forest thickens. On bare branches

moss grows in mufflers,

hangs in gossamer veils.

Tamped pathways rusty with leaf mulch

all lead towards the Pacific.

There are cabins here,

built from driftwood and salvaged glass.

There are people who chop wood,

collect rainwater in barrels.

They light candles or propane lanterns,

tune to CBC on battery-operated radio.

Or they listen to silence.

ii.) Silence

It has a sound, a fullness.

It’s heavy with sigh of tree,

and space between breath.

It’s ripe with pause between birdsong

and crash of surf.

It’s golden, they say.

But no one tells us it’s addictive.

My ear seeks it as a musician’s

seeks a Bach Partita or an Ellington Suite.

I crave its harmonious overtures,

and well-timed rests.

Crunch of foot on leaves. Knock

on wooden door. Creak of rusty hinge.

Steaming kettle and clanking teacup,

rat-a-tat-tat of conversation.

This is why, I think,

all the while holding up my end of the conversation,

this is why people become hermits.

iii.) Conversation

It’s about firewood¾too wet, too knotty.

About driving past Rose Spit,

all the way to East Beach,

chainsaw ready for bucking

logs washed up from the world.

Yellow cedar, mahogany, even yew.

It’s about storm reports from Thailand,

catching waves that have travelled

thousands of miles.

It’s about huckleberries

ready to pick, salal berries ripening soon,

about staying up all night canning Coho,

or glasswort, or bottling elderflower wine.

It’s about the price of gas, the size

of engines, the durability of tires

(on these roads). It’s about freight charges

and air mail, about Okanagan peaches

five times the price.

It’s about Sarah

pregnant for the first time,

Juliana for the third.

About how everyone

seems to be having babies.

“There’s something in the water,” they warn.

iv.) Water

We collect it in rain barrels,

two, blue plastic, 84-litre garbage pails.

It hits cedar shingles,

drips into a trough,

runs its thin, steady stream.

It’s the colour of pale urine.

They say it softens skin, brightens eyes.

We boil it, drink Earl Grey,

Rooibos, Apple Cinnamon.

We bathe in a basin

just big enough to crouch.

We wash each other’s backs,

feel it trickle down our spines,

penetrate membranes.

We feel it seep into those parts of ourselves

we never knew existed.

It’s as though we have roots,

always thirsty,

always reaching for the trees.

v.) Trees

I’m sure it’s been noted before,

how when the sky is grey

they’re greener than usual.

Totem poles, bark baskets,

homestead fence posts, fighter planes.

Everything’s written in their rings.

I’ve heard they’re sentient and scream when cut.

I’ve been told to lean into bark grooves to heal myself.

I’ve been watching them,

trunks as solid as rock, wider

than my embrace.

I’ve watched them bend

like grass blades in the wind,

like dancers warming up.

I’ve been watching the dead ones,

noted how ferns sprout from their innards,

how saplings take root

where their hearts must have been.

vi.) Logs

We’re surrounded by eighty of them,

roughly hewn. Knots, burls, grooves,

bark as mottled as aged skin,

the colour of fine ash, of sand,

of dulled silver.

I’ve noted when the sky darkens,

and the fire burns strong,

they transform.

They glow with the embers,

a burnished gold, a bloody red.

They glow as though something in the cambium

has been waiting for this moment,

for this night.

Couple

In a post TEOTWAWKI or SHTF world, having a loving partner will make live much more enjoyable as well as safer. You know the old saying, many hands make light work, it’s very true, and having someone that you can completely trust with your life just may be what saves your life. Having someone at the homestead most of the time makes the homestead a more secure place, while one of you is out hunting or doing what needs to be done, the other can be at home, taking care of things there and being security. You can also take care of the other if one of you gets sick or hurt.

Life will probably change quite a bit for most of us in the post TEOTWAWKI and/or SHTF world, it’s probably not going to be the time to be looking for a partner, so if you already have someone in your life, or you are looking, now is the time to improve your and your (future) partner’s life, no matter how great your relationship is, it can always be better, and conversely, if you are struggling with your relationship, it’s quite possible that with a little effort you can not only salvage your relationship, you can make it even better than it was before, this is especially important if you have kids together.

Living in such a small place, and with both of us home much of the time, even in the best of times, it’s all too easy to get on each others nerves. PB and I actively work to maintain a healthy relationship. Here are some of the things we do (and don’t do) to keep our love alive and fresh.

The number one thing we both have is the ultimate trust in each other. We have both been in (previous) relationships that turned sour, fortunately we both learned from our experiences and brought our best to the table for this one.

I have complete trust in him, and he has complete trust in me. Home is our sanctuary, it is the place where we both want to be, it’s the place where we both want to go after being away, or even after being home for a long time, it’s exactly the place where we both want to be, and with each other.

That means making “home” the superior place to be, better than anyone elses’ house, better than any bar or club, better than any other place period. How do I do that? It has nothing to do with any amenities that may or may not be part of our home, it has everything to do with how we treat each other. First I never nag, yes ladies, I said it, sometimes we girls can become nags, (guys, stop nodding your heads, you are capable of nagging too), when my man has been out working somewhere else, and he comes home, I make sure that he comes home to a loving, nurturing woman (me), I don’t start complaining about things, no matter what it is. Think about this, if you are out, and it’s time to go home, and you knew that you were probably going to come home to an angry, fussy person, would YOU be in any hurry to go home? Now, turn that around, if you knew you were coming home to a loving, nurturing, relaxing partner, wouldn’t you want to hurry up and get home?

We both want to spend the rest of our lives together and nothing, absolutely nothing will come between us. All too often couples have antagonistic relationships, they have competitive natures and tend to want to be right at the others expense. That only works for so long, because for one to be “right” at the expense of the other being “wrong”, the one that has to always be “right” just might end up being “right” and alone. Think of it like playing tug-o-war, if a couple are on each end of the rope, ok, now what? One will win, the other will lose, or you might end up in a stalemate. Now, instead of each being on opposite ends, pulling against the other, this couple needs to be a team, with both on one end, pulling together against whatever may be working against them.

Each day, PB actively looks for something to compliment me about, no matter how messy the sky castle may be, if I even do one thing in the house, he notices and tells me, he doesn’t complain about what I don’t do or didn’t do, he exclaims what a good job I did with what I did do. He praises my cooking, at every meal, I remember shortly after we became a couple, I brought my mother over to our house for dinner (for the first time). All during the meal, PB was animatedly exclaiming about how good the meal was, he was really going on about it. At some point toward the end of the meal, PB excused himself for a few minutes. My mother leaned over to me and said “THAT won’t last for long…”, she was sure he was putting on a show for her benefit and surely he didn’t act that way all of the time. Well, he DOES act that way all of the time, that was almost 10 years ago, and I can assure you that PB still compliments my cooking, at every meal.

Does that mean I am a super cook and every meal is spectacular? No, of course not, tonight we had homemade pizza, I don’t follow a recipe, so each time the pizza comes out a little different. PB said that he thought this was the best pizza I have ever made, and yes, this one was pretty good. He also said that in the past it wasn’t always easy to compliment all of the pizzas I have made. PB is always honest with me though, if he really doesn’t care for something I made, he is understanding that I can’t be at 100% on every meal, but he also says that I make enough great meals to make up for the few less than meals. He never makes me feel bad about anything that I do, he goes out of his way to make me feel good.

Guess what that does for me? It makes me want to try even harder to please him, so in turn, I try to remember to compliment him as often as I can, I must admit that I’m not as proficient as PB is about this, but I try none the less. I leave him little notes telling him how much I love him and how special he is to me. It really works.

One place where I have received a lot of good advice is from Dr Laura. If you don’t know who she is, she does a radio talk show, it’s mostly about relationships. I don’t agree with 100% of what she teaches, but I do agree with most of what she teaches. Here are a few great books by Dr Laura, if you are in a relationship or want to be in one, I highly recommend these.

If you are lucky enough to get to listen to her show, I think you might learn something even if you don’t agree with all of it.

I will have more to say about having and maintaining a good relationship with your partner in future messages, stay tuned!

When I visited he told me he had wanted to leave his glitzy fashion photographer world behind, a world of “mounting debt and an overwhelming feeling of being trapped in the life you have chosen.” He was looking for a simple life but a comfortable one

Now John has a temple devoted to cabin living, container storage,  low-energy cooling and heating - and very good photography

Juliet Schor - mapping a new kind of lifestyle

Many, including writer Juliet Schor,question the underlying assumptions of the consumerist mentality. She has just written a new book about it – Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth.
Once most Americans could meet basic biological needs, spending took on a heightened social meaning. Spending has become a social phenomenon, consumerism now builds on our fear of failure. That fear has costs. Schor’s question: Is the high cost of all the stuff we’re accumulating worth the escalating costs to our families, communities and the planet?

The crash of 2008-09 put the nail in the coffin of capitalist business-as-usual. Now the scramble is on as the world searches for a sustainable, green way of living that doesn’t wreck the planet.

Well, that’s the direction Juliet Schor would like to see, anyway. The Boston College sociology professor and best-selling author, Schor has written Plenitude
as a road map for lightening our carbon footprints over the next few years, as the human community adjusts to the unfolding green revolution.

Idealistic? Better make that essential, if the planet is to survive. The US electric power industry registered US$22.2 billion in profits in 2004. But factor in liabilities associated with three kinds of emissions (carbon dioxide, sulfur oxides, and nitrogen oxides) and that profit became a net loss of US$28.2 billion, Schor writes in one of many telling examples.

Plenitude is in the spirit of “small is beautiful” and the sustainability movement of the 1990s, but in a practical, plugged-in way rich in anecdotes and inspiring examples of how to live sustainably and change our values.

The four principles of plenitude are: working fewer hours at “normal” jobs; learning to provide for yourself much of the food and consumer goods you’re used to buying; keeping your consumer life low-cost, low-impact and yet highly satisfying; and revitalising community and social connections.

Schor has plenty of clout when it comes to discussing the human cost of the consumer economy, as the author of the best-selling Born to Buy, The Overworked American and The Overspent American.

This time she takes us to parts of the world where the plenitude vision is emerging. Urban farmers, do-it-yourself renovators, job-sharers, post-carbon visionaries, off-the-grid solar techies and others who are spending less time making money, using what they have more frugally, and making more room for other aspects of their lives, such as learning, nature and community.

These are not the back-to-the-landers of the 1970s – low-tech disciples of Thoreau whose epics of wood chopping were “hopelessly romantic”, Schor writes. “Self-providing is great, but it needs advanced technology to be liberating.”

Brains, not brawn, will drive Schor’s brave new world.

Plenitude is refreshingly free of jargon and new-age generalisations. Schor does like to use the phrase “one-planet living” – as in, this is the only orb we have to live on. Maybe it’s time we all did.