CONVERSATIONS: SEASONAL LIFE ON SOLAR

Hello all,

Not much poetry with this post. But for all you who follow, I am going to be doing a seasonal post on living with solar. When we tell people that we live off the grid, we get a lot of interest and a lot of questions. So for all you curious, here is what it is like.

First off… just so ya know… what we are not:

• We are not what most would call hippies

• We are not what most would call apocolyptic survivalists

• We are not what anybody would call electricians or engineers

But

We are what many would consider to be an average middle-class, U.S. family, but a little more “hipster” than “hippie”.

We are a family who after decades of hearing all this dialog about living more environmentally friendly, thought that instead of just being friendly with the earth, we wanted to LIVE WITH THE EARTH.

We are like roommates with Sky & Earth instead of pen pals. (Oy! Can I tell you? After living with them for 8 years I understand why most are happy to be pen pals!)

If Sky doesn’t feel like giving electricity. we don’t get electricity. So we have to store up electricity for when that happens. If the Earth doesn’t feel like giving water, we don’t get water. So we store up water for when THAT happens. When storage runs dry on either, we have to generate. which is expensive and gross, so we try to avoid that. We live on a flexing seasonal budget, understanding that in some seasons the earth gives plenty of electricity, but limited water. In other seasons the earth gives plenty of water, but limited electricity.

Interestingly enough, both water and electricity follow similar processes from gathering to using. Check out the drawing below. I will go into greater detail to explain things, and how the seasons affect things in future posts.

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