Teri Page volunteered in an organic garden while her husband , Brian Thomas , participatedin a sustainable animation attainment internship . month of sowing seeds , tearing and weeding and harvest veggie changed Page ’s family relationship with food .
“ We were eating what came out of the garden , ” she says . “ And it was an introduction to a new mode of bread and butter . ”
When the internship cease , the twosome charter a cabin on 35 acres in Oregon ’s Willamette Valley and started growing and raising their own intellectual nourishment . They keep bees and raised laying hens , broilers , goats and copper .
“ I love gardening and grow food , ” Page says . “ It ’s special to make a repast and say , ‘ This is the broccoli we grew and the bitch we raised . ’ ”
Going Big (Small)
A desire to own land and build a home lead them to give up their idyllic rental and move to Missouri in 2012 . Their current homestead admit a tiny 350 - straight - foot solar - powered home on 10 acres .
Page calls it the culmination of taking pocket-size stairs over a number of years until they were ready to take the grown leap .
Goingoff the gridwasn’t necessarily their aspiration . Page wanted to derogate her environmental footmark and recognize that hooking into the power grid meant cutting down trees to run stemma to their home base and relying on coal power .
Solar , she says , was a better option . “ We were so deeply committed to reduce our step on the Earth and require to be intentional about how we were live on . ”
The decision to live off the grid has its challenge . Without any running water , taking a cascade requires hauling weewee from their catchment tanks and heating it over the firing before adding it to their outdoor shower whole .
But Page appreciates the slower , simple-minded way of life , specially for raise her nestling , ages 10 and 7 . Her new book , Family Homesteading , chronicles her experiences .
“ My kids have had the most idyllic childhood , and they already have the science that contract us two decades to acquire , ” she says .
Scaling Back
With their families on diametric coasts , Page determine to scale back the homestead so they could be aside from home more often .
They sold their last moo-cow in the spring and processed the remain stock for the Deepfreeze . Page still has a few set hens and keep a large garden , admit a food woodland filled with native edibles such as plums , pawpaw , mulberry tree , elderberry and serviceberry .
Extras such as protein come from local farms .
“ Just because we scaled back does n’t mean I lose my homesteading badge , ” she tell . “ There are lot of different manner to do this . ”
Operating at “ an utmost level of off - gridness ” might require hard body of work and extra gradation , Page say . But she apprize the lessons that come with the life style .
“ The level of connection to the Earth , the season , the conditions , ground me in a agency that nothing else does , ” she says . “ Homesteading is exciting and wondrous and frustrating . There is a storey of unpredictability , and we ’re always learning . ”
This clause appeared inLiving Off the Grid , a 2018 speciality publishing produced by the editors and writers ofHobby Farmsmagazine . away from this profile , live Off the Gridincludes stories on permaculture , renewable energy , growing plant without seeds and long - terminal figure produce storage . you could purchase this volume , Hobby Farmsback emergence as well as other particular editions such asHealing Herbs , Best of Hobby FarmsandBest of Urban Farmbyfollowing this link .
