Gathering spring water

A weekly chore of mine is to gather water to take home and pump back up into my water tower.  Not a hard chore just time consuming. Typically I wouldfor employ the use of my flatbed trailer, and fill 4 food grade 55 gallon barrels. Sometimes however i just throw 2 in the back of my truck and just get enough to last us until my next day off work. This is 100% pure and tested Spring water, it flows thru so much limestone that it is virtually iron free, and tastes GREAT!  It is a great privilege to live near this spring, to think a 20 oz bottle retail is about a dollar at most stores...im taking home minimum 110 gallons tonight for free.

Birds eye view

Atop our water tower currently resides our electricity producing windmill. It produces 12vdc (or 24 depending on setup) and charges our batteries. We can run any auto accessories or RV appliances directly this method, but we also run a fairly large power inverter off the harnessed power to use normal everyday stuff like a traditional " NORMAL " house.

cabin for a year

WOW!!  I am terribly sorry, I have meant to keep this updated fairly frequently, and well time slips away so easily...  What is the old saying about the road paved with good intentions? well anyway..
     We have had our cabin, roughly about a year now out here in Sugar Tree, TN.   We have had alot of triumphs (no not motorcycles.grrrr damnit) and we have learned so much in such a short amount of time truthfully.
 

     Why is the simple life named that??? who was ignorant to call it that and have it stick? I d call it work your ass off day in and day out every day..and hope you catch up at some point hahaha.

I still run the generator way too much, but eventually that should diminish .
 currently we do have a water tower erected. We gather water from an artesian well ,  or spring house, however you wish to call it. It is pure clean water straight from the ground. their is a local spot that people flock to from all over to gather water here, so we followed suit.  With the aid of an electric pump from harbor freight and a couple big blue 55 plastic barrels , we fill them up and transport it up to our home, then reversing the fill and eject hoses, I connect to a pvc coupling at the base of my tower and simply fill it up, 300 gallons is what it holds, not alot but for a first tower that is semi permanent...its pretty good... lasts about a week, usually give or take a day.   I could connect to city water at the road...but its very heavily chlorinated and i get sick whenever i drink it without cooking it, and my eyes dont like the chemicals they turn all red and get irritated by it.  people pay sometimes over a dollar a bottle (20 oz) at a gas station or convenience store for something I can get basically free and that just makes more sence.
     It is approx 12 ft high from ground level where it sits,,, in addition it is uphill from the house, so that gives us a little more gravity pressure. it feeds our kitchen sink, and bathtub quiet nicely. eventually some sort of hot water heater will be added , probably solar, down the road. till then, we still use solar showers set in the sun to bake, 3 hrs approx gives us 125 degree water,  cannot take a shower in the sunlight right after getting home from work if they have been out any length of time, very scalding hot. We do heat water on a small propane camp stove or on  the woodstove in the house when its going ,...which also humidifies the air inside.

  In just a year , we went from empty cabin to insulated, heated, flooring, walls up, sink and tubs installed and functional, electrical, and everything else we had to do outside,,some of our chores are daily/ weekly and time consuming..all while still having to goto work, and still setting aside recreational time as much as possible to enjoy with the family.
 We have one large solar panel , and needing many more,  we have one small windmill for electricity, and it works great just wish it were windier....getting into that season soon tho. a few golf cart type batteries linked together,  Just a simple 12vdc setup, so any car/rv accessories work great. but we also have one large power inverter that feeds the house thru separate circuits so most of our stuff is normal everyday everyone has type stuff.. we just tend to watch the power consumption rating of products before we buy them, huge wattage devices don't necessarily mean that they are any better than their smaller rated family members. That is mostly propaganda anyway to say you have the biggest,  and well honestly so the power companies can make more off you while you use them lol .

 It always seems to never get done fast enough, no matter what it may be. I still catch myself saying,, well I wish we coulda got this done and this done and this done...but then I remember and tell myself... We ARE doing it.... WE ARE off grid living, WE ARE getting everything done, and although it seems slow, we've truly                  
accomplished a lot in just a year. TO THINK how much better next year this time will be.

simple life is hard but encouraging

I am so very proud of my family, my wife and kids have been so terrific with this adventure. Well we have been succesfully living the beginning of our dream for the last few weeks, we've had some good times already and of course some minor set backs, but nothing we havn't been able to adapt to and overcome, and certainly nothing major anyway.

I don't miss many creature comforts, so far, I think i miss cooking elaboratly the most of everything, keeping the cooking selections to a minimum and everything is getting sort of old, but hey just gotta be creative and whip up something old , new again style.lol..

Here is a picture of our little slice of blueberry pie heaven, we have tons of blueberry bushes we've found out,, we've attempted to create a name using it, "blueberry hill" very popular and most everyone wants to begin to sing the classic song associated with it..hehe,, but its not sticking... so maybe something else, hrrmmmm its kinda like our little peice of heaven, blue heaven, blue haven? maybe ..maybe not..lol but either case this photo taken from behind us a long ways back at our almost nearest neighbor, the only neighbor we can see from our hilltop, we visited them and took a picture of our creation of a home from their.. the little white speck is our camper, surrounded by a vast landscape of rolling hills, lucious treetops, and so much of nothing that its , well , everything. not shown, recent upgrades to our front porch canopy, rugged and efficiant outdoor solar shower setup in our backyard (from the camper), recent upgraded super efficiant laundry drying apparatus, and chicken coop beginnings. more to come of course bug me about it ill post more often .lol

Starting from here?

Hello, Tony here, Theresa and I wanted to get a blog started just to document, comment, put our ideas and emotions and just every day turn of events onto an online diary of sorts. You as a reader are encouraged to reply to our posts, share your ideas, concerns , opinions, questions , or whatever else your interest sparks up along the way.

I'm sick of running around like a chicken with my head cut off, going to work to earn a decent wage, but seeming to never amount to anything with it because the dang bills keep piling up. I have dreams, but they always seem just out of reach, and then disappointment sets in. How does anyone in similar situations like ours, get that monkey off their backs? hmmm lol my backs sore from carrying it, and my pistol is loaded ..its varmint season dang it.



I know we will probably encounter some set backs, and shortfalls along the way, as Theresa stated already "Life is an Adventure " I couldn't agree more, and she's right this is the beginning of our adventure, I'd like to say its a new one, but honestly it is more of a better chapter to our existing one. Let me ask this of you, Who just LOVES to go on vacation, lets say camping, can you remember at any point in your life that you went camping maybe with family or friends or maybe just by yourself, did you camp in a tent? or a camper? did you fish? hunt? have story time around a campfire? share a GREAT morning breakfast with those around you? what might be the BEST part of that trip? or did you simply enjoy the entire thing and dread going back to your typical daily life? Didn't you always wish that ohhh man I wish this didn't have to end so soon, or wish I could just do this all the time? Why can't we ? why can't you ? whats really holding any of us back?


I remember camping , tent, fishing, camp fires (bon fires) , story times tho usually ghostly..lol I loved all of the aspects of it, even on those times it had rained. I enjoyed most of it so much that , and maybe like you as well, I carried on some of those attributes at other times when not necessarily camping.. like bon fires at night behind our house, or fishing on the East branch of Augres River in Tawas Mich. , finding a nice looking stream creek or river and just jumping in to get wet lol. We have all done similar I'm sure, and why not, it's a blast, have a great time doing it!


Theresa and I have managed to take our kids camping on numerous occasions now , loved every minute I do believe, most of which now were the non glamorous "roughing" it style and tradition. For those of you that choose the RV life, or the campers with amenities , good for you, its the same but different I suppose, but WE have always enjoyed going out their with no reservations, no restrictions, going just a bit beyond those roads that the pavement ends and motor homes wouldn't dare to tread to.. almost a state of " Living Free " or " a true simple life " being that next step closer to nature, it hits that nerve for us that makes us long for more. Pulling ourselves off a couch, away from a tv, enjoying the family , hiking , fishing, swimming, canoeing, boating, riding bikes, etc etc.. you get the picture here.. I guess it's just time to take a stand, get out their and choose your own adventure!!!


How cool would it be , to just have a decent sized piece of land someplace your comfortable with, to camp out on, permanently ? where maybe that was your daily life, and you didn't have to go back to anything away from it. To make that your "homestead".

hmmm sounds delightful !

keep checking back for more on how we plan to get their