Living off the grid

Brief story of my mom here.

I have this dining table, rocking chair and side table in my house now.

Courtney and I were talking about my childhood years living "off the grid" and I had to ask my dad a few important questions. If we didn't have running water did we have a toilet?  What is that phone doing on that side table? Or the elaborate light fixture above it?

A recap as best I know it. Peter grew up in a well to do family in upstate New York. His parents both had college degrees (in the '30s) and came from educated and well to do families.  His dad worked in real estate and his mom was a teacher.  They had a lovely home, two cars, all the latest gadgets and appliances, belonged to a country club and paid for Peter to go to college for a bachelors degree in forestry.  

He signed up for military service instead of waiting to be drafted and ended up stationed in Alaska.  He had no intention of ever going to Vietnam and as luck would have it he tried out for the USA Biathlon team and made it.  Spent his military years training and skiing all over the world and then was honorably discharged.  

After he completed a masters degree in furniture design at the University of Rochester's School of American Craftsmen he and his then-wife Rachel (a social worker) moved to Nova Scotia and bought a big farmhouse with lots of land way out in the country.  Eventually, that relationship ended and Peter met my mom when she was starring in a nearby college play.  She left college and moved in with Peter.  Left him and moved to the city where she lived in the same house as my biological dad, got pregnant, ended up alone and then went back to Peter.  He said he would help take care of me (and my mom!)  It's a big deal to offer to parent someone else's kid - thanks for that Dad! 

And thus I ended up in Peter's magical dreams of living far away from regular society, off the grid, farm animals, lots of gardening, lots of woodworking and no country club for any reason at any time ever! 

We had bees for honey, goats for milk, chickens for eggs and meat.  The farmhouse and some land was sold and we lived in a small trailer for a while on the other half of the land and then Peter built the cute house above.  Passive solar heat (wood stove backup) with no running water or electricity.  

Maybe after my little brother was born my mom convinced my dad that she needed a regular income and grocery stores and next door neighbors.  We lived in the city for a year while Peter got a teaching license and then moved to Liverpool where he taught woodworking at the high school.  I started kindergarten (almost six years old) living in cute little brick craftsman bungalow - most definitely on the grid. And they are there still there. Almost 40 years strong!  

The thing that most surprised me about Peter's response was his plan to add a windmill to the property for electricity.  He had long term plans...  I'm so glad my mom talked him into moving into town.  I love the outdoors but I am a suburban girl who loves people and neighbors and stores and museums and restaurants...

Here are Peter's responses to my questions. 

Jessica,

Yes indeed. A flushable toilet.  Also, the wood stove had a hot water coil in it and in the reservoir room above the stove in the attic was a hot water tank. Water that was heated by the stove thermosiphoned  to the tank . The shower head was very large (about the size of a pie pan)  and was mounted in the ceiling above the tub. When the stove was in use we had hot and cold running water and you could have a warm shower.  In the summer we went up Lay's Lake road and showered under a waterfall, or just went swimming in one of the many swimming holes. 

The house was wired, but only because I hoped to put up a windmill and generate electricity.  It was also wired with 1/4" copper tubing that went to propane lamps.  There were two wall lamps in the house and a chandelier in the kitchen with two globes. We had a small propane fridge and a propane stove.  We were comfortable. The house was passive solar with 4 big windows facing south.  The house was bright and cheery with all that wonderful sun.  

When we switched from oil lamps to propane we appreciated the improvement.  When we moved from our refurbished 8' x 24' trailer that was heated with a tiny wood stove and oil back up stove into our unfinished house we appreciated the improvement. When we sold the trailer and used the money to buy drywall to cover the insulation we appreciated the improvement. We kept debts low or paid off and appreciated every step forward. We owned the house and 20 acres when we sold it, and were only a couple thousand short when we bought the brick house on Payzant street.  When we sold Payzant we had a very small mortgage on the house on Wharf Rocks Road and paid it off while we were finishing it.  When we sold Wharf Rocks we paid off the loan on Meadow Pond, bought a brand new car (still driving it) and used the old one for a work vehicle, and fully equipped my woodworking shop, and had some change left over. 

So, by today's standards we did everything ass backward and came out quite ahead. If we had it all to do over again I think I would want to do it just the same way. It was fun and interesting. 

Work on Rental property #5 is coming right along. The electrician dropped by and gave me a few more pointers. I think the old house will be completely rewired by the end of the week. Debbie helped today pulling wires, and she plans to help tomorrow.  It sure makes things easier having somebody to help fish wires. 

 When the wires are done I can start making some improvements and patching the walls and ceilings I have cut holes in fishing wires.  Right now it is quite the mess. 

Love, Dad

Jessica:

We asked for a phone service many times, but  Bell ignored our request.  I had seen a device that lays cable underground mounted on the back of a bulldozer that had laid cable in the area. The soil was deep clay and only small rocks. It crawls along and feeds off a big spool on the back of the dozer.

I had developed a writing relationship with our member of parliament, Mike Forestall (Federal).  I had made a couple recommendations by letter of money saving ideas I thought the government should implement, and they did.  So, I wrote to Mike Forestall and told him I was a self-employed carpenter in Meaghers Grant, and that I really needed a telephone so that customers could get hold of me and vice-versa. I emphasized that it was essential to my livelihood.   I told him that Bell Canada was ignoring my request for a phone. 

Very soon after sending that letter, Debbie and I were in our living room on a Sunday afternoon and behold, a bulldozer was laying a phone cable up the field to the house.  I think Mike must have given somebody at Bell an idea that helping people make a living who are trying would be a good idea.  

On the wall above the phone is a two mantle propane light fixture.  There were two other propane lights in the house connected with copper tubing to the propane cylinder outside.  There was one over the island in the kitchen that was ceiling mounted and was very nice. 

The Y shaped log holding up the beam was a maple log that I hunted through the woods for until I found the right one. I cut it and carried it out and peeled off the bark.  The support beam was a spruce trunk.. Mackey Sibley owned a lot of forest land. He had one stand of spruce where the trees were very tall and straight and had very little taper. They were close enough together that the lower branches were so shaded that they died. As a result, the trunk had very few limbs.  Debbie and I helped Mackey every year with getting the hay into the barn, by throwing the bales onto the hay wagon, then helping to offload onto the conveyor to the hayloft.  I asked Mackey for a nice straight log for a center beam for our new house and he and Johnny Wilson felled one and delivered a pole about 30' long. I peeled it and hewed a flat edge on the top and it became the center beam for the house.  There was a concrete post in the ground under the house to give support.  I don't remember how I got that beam up where it went,  but it must have involved a lot of people.  Mackey came with a tractor and hay wagon and hauled all the lumber up the hill that I used to build with. We had no lane so he came up the field.  The lumber was all rough sawed from Taylor Lumber in Middle Musquodoboit. I helped one of the Taylors to build a house in Middle Musquodoboit. 

Johnny Wilson (cute story here) wanted me to build a piece onto their house, so, I got Johnny to help me build ours. Since we had no electricity, all the wood was cut with a hand saw.  I had Johnny cut some of the wood for me where there were repeat cuts. I would make him a pattern and he would cut wood. When our house was done, then I went to work for the Wilsons and built on the master bedroom. It had a back window that looked out towards an apple tree down the hill near their spring.  Once a year after that, on a full moon in October or November, Johnny would get his deer from that bedroom window.  I would hear a bang in the middle of the night and the next day I would drop in and say, "Johhny, I hear you had a busy night last night".  He would grin and take me out to the woodshed and inside hanging by the hind legs would be a deer skinned and gutted. After it cured a bit, he would take it over to Mackey's abattoir and they would cut it up and get it ready for the freezer.  Johnny worked for Mackey in the winter driving a team of horses pulling the logs out of the woods. They logged all winter. Johnny got paid in firewood and beef.  In payment for helping with hay, I could drop into the abattoir and get beef hearts and tongues,  kidneys and liver.  There wasn't much demand for the organs so he gave them to us. We liked them, and they were a good source of cheap protein. 

I loved it in Meagher's Grant. However, Debbie finally helped me see how fragile our existence was and how things would be in the future. She convinced me to go back to school and get into teaching.  I could see the wisdom, but it took time for my heart to be in it. I have never regretted having made the move, and am glad Debbie pushed me a bit.  I look back with fondness for the place and the characters who were our neighbors that I learned so much from and learned to love. They were incredible and very accepting of me after they got over their initial doubts.  They are all dead now. 

Love, Dad