In case you don’t frequent SahaleeOffGrid on Facebook, we wanted to make sure you knew about the wonderfully amazing crowdsource for people pondering a move to off-grid life, currently learning the ropes of living off-grid, or those who have perfected the art (or not) by having many years of off-grid living experience to share…
The So you wanna be an off-gridder group on Facebook’s social network was our attempt at raising a real-talk informational forum that fostered collaboration and knowledge exchange to explore the myriad of challenges and creative solutions to maintaining a self-made livelihood off the traditional utility grid.
Power generation, food production, water and waste management, employment, construction, childcare, legalities, health and safety… Every possible aspect of self-sufficient living was fair game for people to explore from novice to expert.
Well, the notion caught on like wildfire and our little social chat of a couple dozen quickly grew to over 6K in a matter of several weeks!! It was amazing and truly humbling to see the rapid growth and rich conversation that developed with people sharing openly, honestly, and respectfully with another about the possibilities and limitations of off-grid life.
Not being prepared for the demands of moderating such a large group, in addition to some general feelings of discomfort with being on Facebook altogether, we opted to pass the torch in managing the passionate online community to our compatriots whom we know will carry on the same spirit of beneficial dialogue for the greater good. We are thrilled to see the group thrive with an ever deeper encyclopedia of off-grid living, and can’t wait to see more of what folks come up with next! We hope you will enjoy, as well!!
Sahalee is heavenly, and the big deck is our perch over the world. For the past year, we’ve been without a formal staircase and gained access by the lowest point on the uphill corner.
For those of you who have been following us since Florida, you’ve been invited to see our transformation from the conventional corporate climb to our guided-by-the-stars #yurtlife in New Mexico. We’ve tried to be open and honest about the challenges we face in making the transition we instigated, and part of that honest story reveals how we actively redefined our values and expectations from what we thought we ‘should’ be doing to what we really wanted to be doing in this world (like updating our solar power plant).
Since making the move, we’ve found ourselves on an exciting journey of small business ownership and self-employment as part of managing our off-grid finances. Along our way, we’ve had the good fortune to become acquainted with the dear Dina Louie who generously and kindly invited us to share more with her ‘Real HUMAN Resources’ initiative, Yeah, It Sucks, on the topic of making active life choices. Read the Q&A…
The pile is dwindling. It’s probably only a third of the size it used to be. Every load taken away to burn begs the question, ‘will we have enough to make it through?’
I figured I touch each piece at least four times on its journey from its natural state to its final incantation. The tree it belonged to is a character. I want to properly recognize it for what it was, and what it is providing.
Warmth. Security. Connection.
I study the details of grain and bark. The different textures of solid and brittle, dark and light, grooved and smooth, old and older make each section a treasure not like the one before.
The weights, shapes, and features are varied. This directly affects the way the flames behave when they’re set ablaze. Each one hand-selected for a specific purpose stove side.
We aim to start cutting and hauling on July 4th when the breeze is warm and ground is soft. The dust flying from the saw fills our nostrils and lands on our lips. The sounds of cracking wood remind me of impermanence.
I cradle the forest’s gifts for the value they hold and imagine how they started as a mere fleck of green all that time ago. What has passed beside, below, and overhead I will never know.
The work is quiet on the inside. Gathering and couriering across the rising and falling topography. There is assurance in the collection that results. A wide open space marked with chips is where the memories pass through and fade away.
Some split easily, and others twist and shred around hidden knots. You think you know what’s inside until the wood shows you something different. I save the ones that are too rare for civilian duty to remind us of what we can’t make ourselves.
Each season I think I’ll remember where the severed pieces came from when I put them in the hot iron hole. In the end it doesn’t really matter. Some embers glow brighter and fly farther than others. They all turn dark and gather in the low spots.
It is a cycle of cycles. Repeating but different. We change and age like the pine, oak, and juniper. Some will notice but we will all forget. The smoke lifts what was once underground and then itself fades to leave us all wishing for a flight as light and with a cause so noble.
Thirty-one days into the new year and most resolutions have already flown out the window. I’m not really one to make resolutions, but I am one to hold myself to high expectations of achieving. Something. My quandary over the word ‘resolute’ in light of time’s passing, i.e. the new year, has me further reflecting on my decision to achieve in this relatively new off-grid lifestyle. Or more to the point, succeeding at life in general.
According to my dictionary.com app, words like ‘bold,’ ‘courageous,’ and ‘firm’ are acceptably interchangeable for resolute, and actually lead me to further puzzle over my standing in relation the goals I set for myself and the actions I take thereafter. These days, to be honest, I’m not apt to describe myself with any of the aforementioned synonyms. I’ll explain…
We hope that 2017 was a great year for you and we hope that 2018 is even better.
Unfortunately, we have had some shifting priorities and this blog fell to the bottom of a long list for the past few months. For that I apologize and am committed to doing better in this new year. If you are not following our blog, give us a follow. We don’t (and will never) spam and we try to provide useful information with regards to things we are doing, some of them work and some of them are truly disastrous, but we have been and will continue to be as completely open and honest as possible. In full disclosure, we have built relationships with some of the companies that sell the products we use and are Amazon affiliates–so the more links you click and the more things you buy from this blog the more money we will make and the more time we will have for spending time with this. All this being said, we are not in it to make money–we are in it to share our experiences and let you know what works, and more importantly, what doesn’t work for us. We will NEVER recommend something we do not have first hand experience with!
Today I want to talk about what we use for water filtration—It’s important to note that all of our water comes from “trusted sources,” our current sources are a city spigot and water catchment. We aren’t using standing or stagnant water, we also aren’t taking any water out of streams so we don’t have to deal with the potential contaminated water issues that come with those.
We researched many ways, some cheap and some expensive, some intricate and some simple. I’m a big fan of the KISS method, so I went with the cheap(er) and simpler way. For us, that was using Ceramic Dome filters and two (food grade) five gallon buckets. We started with a kit similar to this that included a Dome filter and a spigot. We used these food grade buckets, now I don’t know what the difference is between food grade and non-food grade but, in my mind, some things just aren’t worth questioning and this was one.
We started with two ceramic filters, I have a link above for the kit that included the spigot and here is one that goes to the individual ceramic filters.
Lesson learned with regards to Ceramic Water Filters: Make sure to get the ones that have a “pre-filter” or “sock” to cover them–we made the mistake of buying one without the pre-filter and immediately regretted it. The pre-filter really helps to keep the actual filter clean and helps to lengthen the time in between cleaning the filters. A quick fix for us when we realized that we really needed that sock was just to use some ground or garden cloth to fashion a sock that fit over it and used rubber bands to hold it on.
We bought two food grade buckets, with lids. The first step was to install the filters in the bucket.
The Ceramic Filters have a shaft that extends down an inch or two with a nut and washer that you can use to secure it—all we had to do was drill a hole the size of the shaft, we did start with a pilot hole. The hole went through the bottom of what would be the top bucket and through the lid of what would be the bottom bucket. So now the two filters are locking the top bucket and the lid for the bottom bucket together.
Alternative configurations: We decided to just use two ceramic dome filters, however with the buckets that we used we could have used anywhere from 1-4 filters. The more filters you use the faster your water will filter and the more water you can filter before having to replace your filters. When it is time to replace the filters we have we will go to the four filter configuration.
Once that was done, it was as easy as drilling a hole in the lower section of what would be the bottom bucket and fitting the spigot in.
Spigot tip: We recommend installing the spigot a couple inches (give or take) from the bottom of the bottom bucket. This will give any debris or sediment that may get in the water a chance to settle to the bottom.
We clean the whole system–just washing the buckets and using a green scrubby on the filters ever month or so—it is readily apparent to us when they need to be cleaned–depending on the amount of water you are filtering and the cleanliness of water you are filtering you may need to clean it more or less. The filtration rate certainly slows down when the filters get dirty which is an indicator that you need to clean your filters.
In short, this system works great for us. There are two “what I could’ve done better” lessons for me on this one. 1. I should have just invested in the extra filters and set it up as a 4 filter system. 2. I should have bought a filter that came with a sock or pre-filter for our second ceramic filter. As soon as it is time to change the two filters out I will be rectifying both of those deficiencies.
Take a look at the slide show we made, let us know your thoughts in the comments–if you have any questions or tips or better ideas, please let us know. We are always looking for ways to help but are also always looking for better ways.
No, I am not talking about the Lady Gaga variety, albeit with MAD respect. We have inadvertently coached a hoard of hummingbirds to swarm the grounds with hangry Jetson car-like chirping in demand of more sugar water. They have been so keen on the new eatery that one brazen bird actually entered the open doors of the yurt to coax me into serving more!!
The little buggers are becoming more intrepid as they get to know us better, often hovering at eye level and sharing little chirps. One silly bird even flew into the outhouse and couldn’t find its way out, so I had to sneak in and put a soft hand around it to send it back outside. I feel like I am back teaching Pre-K with all the needy little critters!
According to HummingBirdWorld.com, the Aztecs came to believe that every warrior slain in battle rose to the sky and orbited the sun for four years. Then they became hummingbirds. Some of them seem oh-so familiar.
It’s been fun watching the R2D2-sounding antics around the handful of new feeders, and we look forward to plenty of cheap entertainment on the yurtdeck for years to come.
Hummingbirds are native species of the New World and are not found outside of the Western Hemisphere except in a few zoos or aviaries. There are no hummingbirds found in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia or Antarctica.
Many hummingbird species, including Anna’s, black-chinned, Allen’s, Costa’s, rufous, calliope and broad-tailed hummingbirds, can breed together to create hybrid species. This is one factor that makes identifying hummingbirds very challenging.
Despite their small size, hummingbirds are one of the most aggressive bird species. They will regularly attack jays, crows and hawks that infringe on their territory. Backyard birders often have one dominant hummingbird that guards all the feeders, chasing intruders away.
The rufous hummingbird has the longest migration of any hummingbird species. These hummers fly more than 3,000 miles from their nesting grounds in Alaska and Canada to their winter habitat in Mexico.
A hummingbird must consume approximately 1/2 of its weight in sugar daily, and the average hummingbird feeds 5-8 times per hour. In addition to nectar, these birds also eat many small insects and spiders, and may also sip tree sap or juice from broken fruits.
A hummingbird’s maximum forward flight speed is 30 miles per hour. These birds can reach up to 60 miles per hour in a dive, and hummingbirds have many adaptations for unique flight.
A hummingbird’s brilliant throat color is not caused by feather pigmentation, but rather by iridescence in the arrangement of the feathers. Light level, moisture, angle of viewing, wear and tear and other factors all influence just how bright and colorful the throat may appear.
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We’ve had a couple of weeks to settle in now to the new routine upon the big deck. It’s been longtime in coming since we endured a mud-laden summer, fall, winter, and spring in our old roughed-out location buoyed on cinder blocks down the hill. (Quite literally, we have had to shake off our sea legs from walking upon our very poorly platform for the past 12 months.)
The big deck came a year after the yurt, but the “yurtdeck” was always part of the master plan. We didn’t have time to build before we moved in last June, so we got cracking just as soon as we could earlier this spring.
