by Tiffany Rich
(dimondale, michigan)
We have talked about going of grid for some time. We live in mid Michigan, and there is only one power company that powers our area. After struggles with job losses keeping the power on became a huge
worry and constant struggle. They have no compassion and won’t even work with people. Their answer is pay the bill or we turn you of simple. So, in the last week of Feb, 2013, they made me mad enough, i said pull the meter! What was i thinking. Our winter was very cold, with the coldest yet to come. We have cows that we milk for a herd share program as well. Suddenly we are hit with many factors. No lights, frozen tanks, no fans to circulate our heat. No stove no fridge… No problem i said.. :/
So i spent 4 weeks cooking in our wood fire. Not horrible, i called them fireside meals.
We bough a 1950s magic aire magic chef oven, and in the spring we found Marilyn, my 1930s serval fridge. My husband had to restore her. We do have the generator. We purchased and installed gas lights. I love them. Charging cell phones and laptops are done with a car battery and inverter type things. Mike built a fan out of a car fan and it to runs on a car battery. It’s now August. We are saving money. We have purchased our turbine, and working on the inverter and charge controller as well as looking for a deal on a forklift battery. So that is where we sit now. We are quite comfortable and have adjusted our lives. I.am happy i found this site/forum. Wet to have to worry about keeping water thawed this winter which has NE a little worried. But we are survivors. We live on a small farmstead, 7 cows, 5 full time breeder American Guinea hogs, chickens, Turkeys raised for food as well as garden.
We have the herd share program, i do cheese workshops, sell our honey and professionally made socks from our livestock (sheep, llama, alpaca, mohair and Angora).we call them Boon Dock Soxz. We also host Farm Dayz, a growing festival of teaching, as well as a place for vendors to come and sell their goods. This year we moved it of our farm to a park due to popular demand. Our goal next year us a second day of classes, including of grid living. Teaching others that they don’t need to be dependent on others and take the scary out of it is my goal.
I have been writing all our story, hoping to publish it later on.
That is our story to date. Excited i found you
Sincerely
Tiffany Rich
WoodSpryte Farm
https://woodsprytefarm.weebly.com/
Can also find me on facebook under woodspryte farm