Introduction To Who We Are

Hello our names are Ryan and Addie. We live 100% off grid on our 10 acre homestead with 2 dogs Ralf and Kyle and 4 cats and lots of chickens.

Kyle Dog

Ralf Von WowWow

We use wind and solar to power our home. We compost everything to include humanure using a compost toilet and multiprocessing station. Our water comes from one of multiple springs and 2 creeks found right on our own property. We recycle as much as possible. Our cabin is 12×20 and 2 stories that we hope to soon have an additional 12×20 bedroom added to. We heat our home with wood and do all our cooking with wood and even heat our water for showers etc… with wood.

We do not have any utility connections what so ever. Our only connection to the rest of the world is our DSL line for internet and phone.

We are working on growing a large garden becoming less and less reliant on the grocery store. Our chickens provide daily eggs for us and occasionally we eat one of the birds.

Daily chores are not very difficult as people may think. The hardest part is getting built and established. Once that is done it is pretty much smooth sailing from there on out. The hardest thing throughout the year is keeping up with the firewood but that is done a little bit each week all year long and therefore not a big chore. Everything else pretty much runs itself with little work from us periodically. The garden gets planted in a day or two in spring and then left alone except when we go to pick food from it once a week. It is all automated with solar powered watering pumps, timers, and a rain catch setup. In the fall we spend a day or two clearing it out and prepping it for the following spring. The composting toilet gets emptied once every 3 weeks roughly and takes about 10 minutes tops to care for. We turn the various compost bins as needed once a week or so. This takes only a few minutes. Water is pumped to the cabin by means of a ram pump which uses no electricity and runs constant year around into what we call an overflow tank system then back to the creek. We build a fire in the evening to cook dinner on and make hot water for getting showers, cleaning dishes, and such.

Daily chores consist of letting the chickens out at sunrise, feeding the dogs, cats, and chickens, and then in the evening collecting the eggs and securing the chickens and feeding the animals again. Most of our days are free for whatever we want to do.

Of course we are still building our homestead and working on getting to the point of not having to rely on much of anything else. We don’t have a lot of income so the building process is slow. We get done what we can as we can and so far are on schedule as per what we set out to do within a timeline we set up for ourselves. Feel free to come along and watch us we progress to near complete self reliance…

Ryan

I enjoy camping, hiking, backpacking, and outdoor survival.
I hold a bachelors degree in Community Health Education and a second one in Outdoor Recreation Leadership and Management.
I spent several years in the Army first as a Communications Spc. then finished as a Combat Medical Spc.
I was injured during active duty. The Army has declared me 60% disabled currently and gives me a nice retirement pension. My retirement pensions more than cover our cost of living and allow us freedom to have fun.
Currently I do not work and enjoy long distance backpacking. I just finished a 2500 mile backpack trip from GA to ME along the Appalachian Trail.

Addie

Addie holds a bachelors degree in Zoology and a second one in Outdoor Recreation Leadership and Management as well.
She loves animals and knows tons about them. She enjoys the outdoors almost as much as I do.
Addie currently works part time so she doesn't get bored.

Hope you enjoyed this introduction :)