Love led Teri Page to her off - grid liveliness . “ I was n’t really on a track to be a homesteader at all , ” she read . “ And then I meet my ( now ) husband … some of his experiences had led him to be concerned in farming and homesteading , and he was extend to Aprovecho , a sustainable - living acquisition education marrow in Oregon . They needed a gardener , and I wanted to populate with him , ” she enunciate .
“ It add up down to what you ’ll do when you ’re young and in love . ”
More than two decades , two minor and three states after , Page has embraced all aspects of dwell off the grid .
In Oregon , the distich rented a cabin that , while rustic , was connected to the power power system and afford them running weewee and electric index . Page , a trained nautical biologist with little experience growing or raising intellectual nourishment , fell in love with homesteading .
She established garden fill with brisk fruits and vegetable , build up a greenhouse and a livestock shed , and raise chickens , pig and milk goats . She also larn how to preserve food and Captain Cook from scratch — skills she never developed in her ego - described “ established suburban ” upbringing .
“ I run low to Aprovecho and was immersed in this whole homesteading life style , ” she say . “ By the end , I was completely dependant . It just kept going and going and going , because that ’s the thing about homesteading : Once you find oneself one thing , it naturally lead you into the next .
“ You produce a cluster of food so you have to learn how to cook it and preserve it . And then you have vegetables so it makessense to have eggs , too . Then you … need to face at how your substance is raise and so it cascaded into this full - blown life style . ”
Page begin blogging about her homesteading experience atHomestead Honey , covering topics cast from ready in a solar oven to living without running water supply and composting toilets . She cover fun hooey like crap beeswax candles , choosing the best orchard apple tree for tough cider and forage . She also published several book of account on the subject , includingCreating Your Off - Grid HomesteadandBuilding a Homestead Root Cellar .
In 2012 , 13 years after moving to Oregon , the couple made the decision to take on a fresh project in a unexampled place . “ It really was sort of heartbreaking . The fruit of our toil were just starting to bear when we were leaving , ” she say . “ We had these like vast cerise trees that were just starting to produce . We had a beautiful Capricorn the Goat ruck that we ’d construct up to the correct size of it [ and ] a accurate milking agenda . And we left all that behind in Oregon . ”
Rather than dwell on the work that choke into make her first homestead , Page focused on the new opportunity that laid ahead . “ I have a really unique capacity to continue moving forward and not dwell on the past , ” she articulate . “ Maybe it ’s just part of like the karmic forget me drug . Someday , I will lastly get to enjoy the fruits off of my own yield tree . But in the meantime , other people are getting to enjoy the thing that I ’ve plant along the way .
“ That feels good . ”
The couple purchased land in Missouri and built a menage that was n’t associate to the major power grid . The conclusion to go off - grid was practical . There was electric service in the area , but accessing it on their land was expensive . Living off the grid also aligned with Page ’s value .
“ Solar off - grid living was something we were always interested in . It became more possible because the restrictions of that particular man of land , ” she says . “ And a portion of the energy [ in Missouri ] is not what I would consider clean energy . So we had this opportunity to [ make a financially healthy ] and practical decision that match our values and how we wanted to live .
“ At the remainder of the day , to be able to go through a tempest and not lose superpower and have your own electricity and never have an electric vizor — those are matter about being off power grid that I really , really love . ”
Growing Pains
Despite perfect her homesteading skill in Oregon ( and being married to a carpenter ) , Page allow in that she underestimated what it would take to start a unexampled homestead .
“ We had a distorted sense of our abilities and how long it would take to do everything , ” she says .
The couple lived in a tent , and afterwards , a come out - up trailer , while building a 350 - straight - fundament home . Page cooked in an improvised out-of-door kitchen with a propane stove and solar oven ; she used water from a catchment system and worked out an arrangement with a neighbor to freeze ice jugs that she put in coolers to store food because there was no refrigerator . And she juggle those job with homeschooling her nipper , restore gardens , plan fruit tree and building a barn .
While Page eff how to garden , the conditions and clime in Missouri were much dissimilar from what she was used to in Oregon . And the learning curve ball made prove extra thought-provoking .
The shorter time of year meant learning how to lick with insensate frames and adjusting planting times to fit different frost dates in a novel growing zona . varlet buy seeds from local party that already tested plants in the Missouri mood and call for questions of friends and neighbour .
“ Learning how to garden in a new growing geographical zone is definitely a magnanimous endeavour , ” she says . “ You have to take a lot of questions and be uncoerced to make a few mistakes and get better as you go . ”
Despite their best efforts , thing did n’t always go as design . The goats ate vicious plants and die . Page rent an galvanizing car but worried about the solar gore preserve the batteries point in the wintertime so she shuttle back and forth to public charging stations before trading the electric car for a hybrid . And their end of build a large home for their growing , active family never materialized .
show more : Curious about solar ? Here are some sun - power basics .
Cultivating Knowledge
One of the biggest deterrent example Page has learned about homesteading is the importance of not thinking about off - storage-battery grid living in terms of absolute and continue flexible and set when things were n’t working . It ’s a deterrent example that dish out her well when she and Brian pack up their menage and incite again , this clip to Vermont in 2018 .
Several factors prompted the move . friend were lead Missouri . Their minor were growing up and wanted to live in a less rural localisation to accommodate more societal activities . And there was a unadulterated bit of land for sale in The Green Mountain State .
“ It ’s off - grid living 2.0 , ” she says . “ We ’re starting again from scratch and building and doing it all again . We ’re older and mayhap a lot wiser . ”
The family is presently living in an off - grid yurt and build up a home . Instead of a pale yellow bale , cob or earth - ship home often favour for off - control grid living , the twain is building a conventional stick - built home with a concrete foundation garment and timber framing . They ’re still being paying attention about the material , though , sourcing lumber from local , family - owned mills and looking for opportunities to reduce barren and minimise their environmental footprint .
Since go to the grid , Page has considered connect to the power system . Most of the electricity in Vermont is generated from renewable informant , making it a more attractive decision to connect to municipal power sources . But the decision came down to the budget .
Instead of spending $ 20,000 to connect to the power grid , Page plans to expand their current solar raiment and remain off the power grid .
“ Off control grid is such an interesting term because you could have an off - grid mansion that has a $ 50,000 photovoltaic system with wind backup . And nothing about the house would face different than a conventional business firm , ” she says . “ Or you could go in the middle of nowhere with a few solar board and dribble water from a creek . There ’s such a immense spectrum of what it can depend like . ”
Changing Seasons
Moving to Vermont has also enabled Page to make unlike decisions about what she rise and raises at home . She still has a garden and put forward place hen , but she admits that it ’s more commodious ( and sometimes not that much more expensive ) to buy from local farmers .
“ In Missouri , I actually had a lot more motivation to do some things like raise our own meat because I could n’t get those things topically at all , ” she enjoin . “ Vermont is an agrarian state and has such a mellow level of quality local nutrient that you could get virtually anything you postulate here . ”
Page found farmers that specialize in sure product . Her aim : to find a balance of what she can source from local , constitutional farms and what she wants to get in her own garden . She had a milk cow in Missouri but now sources in the buff milk from a dairy she passes on her path to work . She grows few Daucus carota sativa , turnips , beets , potatoes and other theme vegetables and supplements provision with bulk purchases from a local grower . And she source pith chickens from a neighboring homestead .
“ I ’m gardening by hand , ” she says . “ I do n’t have machinery or help . It ’s just me and a bunch of weeds . So I ’m doing a deal of manual labor . If I had many more time of day in the day and some mass to help me , I would plausibly produce everything myself . But I ’m not there and probably wo n’t ever be there , [ so ] I ’m definitely doing a cost - benefit depth psychology all the time . ”
Just because her homestead has changed does n’t intend that Page has lost her passion for off - storage-battery grid living . “ I dream big , and I have a lot of crazy ideas , ” she says . “ I palpate like having years and year of experience and a foundational and skill stage set has tolerate us to spring into homesteading .
“ This is more than just like a hobby . I mean , this is kind of the defining lifestyle … . Every part of my adult life has been living this homesteading modus vivendi . ”
This article originally appear in the September / October 2022 issue ofHobby Farmsmagazine .
