Going Off Grid in East Tennessee; The Story and Chat Thread (Adamsville: beach, plumbing)

[Rach1966]

we always do a big garden, but I love the idea of a smaller one, the square foot one would be great out in the back yard
but how would I keep my chickens out of it is the next que

great progress in your house so far

[ylisa7]

Originally Posted by Katsmeeyow

Hey you two! Just wondering, how did you like your fireplace - as far as heat/realistic looking, etc....?

We love our fireplace. It looks really nice and realistic. We don't have a blower(because we are solar) but it heats up great.

Your driveway - what are you going to do to it? Just wondering if all you need to do is pave it to make it easy and safe in the winter/rainy weather?

We are going to pave it. Hopefully we can at least to our steepest part this spring.

Just wondering, do you have any problems with moisture/mildew? Or any type of a "musty" smell? I know at our lake house, sometimes it will have a little musty type odor, but usually if we have had it closed up for a while. I guess I am wondering because I imagine your house is so "tight" and insulated.

That is something we didn't know. We had no idea that propane emits a lot of moisture into the air. On very cold days when we use the fireplace more we will get moisture on our doors so we crack the door while the fireplace is on. For now this works. Eventually we will add that air vent to the FP and we also may add a wood burner as a back up dry heat. No smell or odor because the FP is at the front of the house my the doors.

Ode- I would love to see pictures of your garden. You should post them on the gardening thread.

Rach- There is actually a cover that you can make and cover your SFG to keep the chickens out.


For those of you getting that "spring fever and gardening bug" there is a thread I started about Square Foot Gardening. There is one man from Raleigh who has posted pics of his garden. I told him he must have read my story, ha ha. Check it out.

//www.city-data.com/forum/garde...ng-anyone.html

[Encee]

OMG! You have so much adventure! Us city dwellers can only realize what it is like by seeing your fabulous pictures and reading the posts!
Thank you very much, Lisa. Please keep us informed. I can relate to the damage to your wind turbine as we had several 150 mph plus wind storms in Alaska that blew away roofs and chimneys during those 19 years we lived there. I'm sure we moved south simply because of those windy winters and have not missed any of them.
More information, and more pics, please!
Have a super summer!
Encee

[ylisa7]

Encee

Thank you for posting and you are very welcome. Keep watching. I'm hoping by the 2nd or 3rd week in March we should be in full work and picture mode.

[SammieS]

Hi Lisa,

I found the link to your story this past Friday and have been reading it whenever I could. It has made for really interesting reading and your photos of your property and the mountains are gorgeous. You and Mike have done a terrific job with your berm house and going off the grid. Kudos to you two!
I had a friend on Long Island, Mount Sinai to be exact, that had a berm house. It wasn't off the grid but the three sides of the house were bermed. The front had a deck with an in-ground pool. It really was an attention getter, especially since this was in 1991.
When we lived on Long Island (we moved to Guntersville, AL at the end of 2007), we had bamboo. It was supposedly a non-invasive kind, and it was planted in a bucket underground. It did keep contained for about 8 years but then it started to spread out. We had to pull out the creepers.
Anyway, just wanted to let you know that I have read your fantastic adventure and have enjoyed every minute of it. Your properties are gorgeous! We live a block from Lake Guntersville and can see hills from our home, not mountains like you, but to us coming from Long Island, these are mountains. LOL
Good luck and please keep on posting your story. Cannot wait until the next chapter.
Karen

[JEANNE61]

Hi lisa and mike .. .another great installment .. My brother got interested in the bamboo after reading about it on your blog .. . Any ideas where t o buy it .. 'if' he still wants to after i just sent him the posts about how invasive it is ... We're in w/tenn .

That question about the f/p is one iv'e been meaning to ask also .. I envy you that you dont' have to pay the elect bill that it would have c ost to run it .. .s mart mike !!!

Well, we got 4" of snow and that was enough for me . .my first snow in 14 yrs. . Ho pe it takes another 14 before i see it again .. tho my 13 y.0 niece sure loved it .. Having been born and raised in fla .. She's never seen it before. . She loved it .. )

take care and look forward to your next post. . . God bless . .
Jeanne

[JEANNE61]

Lisa , sorry to bother you here about this , but does anyone know what happened to
forestbreath's blog .. .couldn't find it . .????

[ylisa7]

Originally Posted by JEANNE61

Lisa , sorry to bother you here about this , but does anyone know what happened to
forestbreath's blog .. .couldn't find it . .????

Here is her link.

//www.city-data.com/forum/tenne...nn-county.html

I would imagine she will be writing in soon.

[ylisa7]

Good morning everyone. I hope you all didn't get too much snow yesterday. For those of you who didn't we have plenty up on our mountain to share.


Monday 2-23

While Mike and I were eating breakfast we heard a crash and then another crash. Crashes are never good. It was coming from the kitchen so I started opening doors in the kitchen. I opened up the pantry door and sure enough two of the shelves with all my cans collapsed from all the weight, lol. We were hoping that the brackets that came with the pantry would be sufficient but I guess the cabinet company never planned on a lunatic like me stocking their pantry's.

Well on the plus side it gave us something to do and this time we did it right. First Mike and I went up to the building to get supplies to do the pantry right. It's amazing how much stuff you need for one little project. Once we got back down to the house I emptied the cans out of the pantry putting some in a big container and the rest all over the counter.

While I was doing that Mike started cutting strips of wood to use as side rails for the pantry. The side rails will hold up the shelves. We should have done this in the first place.

After the side rails were cut Mike put glue on them.


Then he glued and screwed them inside the pantry.


After he puts the 6 side rails in then the shelves can go back in.


Now I have a nice sturdy pantry.



I just have to wait 24 hours for the glue to dry and than I can put the cans back in.


Tuesday 2-24
We are still waiting for the glue to dry so we decide to make a dump run. Mike hooks up our old trailer to the jeep and we load up. Next we head over to our other property and we completely empty out all of our trash from the other building. We loaded up a combo washer/dryer which was originally from the coach and also the original mattress from the coach. Now the building is completely empty and ready to move. Now if we could just get the land to dry out.

At the dump Mike tells the guys about the washer/dryer and they want it which is good because we don't have to pay to dump it. They are getting a deal because inside the w/d is the instruction manual and it still works good.
It's just another thing off of our list and it will make someone happy.

When we get home I can finally re-organize my pantry, woo hoo. Everything is all nice and neat and I have a little room for more food. I better go shopping. If you haven't figured it out I am a food hoarder. At least Mike and I will never starve, lol.


Thursday 2-26
I went to town for another Dentist check in and also did a little running around. Poor Mike is stuck in the house with nothing to do.


Saturday 2-28
It's the last day of February we are very happy about it. We are supposed to get snow tomorrow so we head to town to pick up some of the basics in case we get snowed in.

Sunday 3-1
Happy March. Woo hoo only 3 more weeks until Spring. Unfortunately our welcome to March is mot a friendly one.

It is starting to snow.


By the afternoon it is almost a whiteout. We are now supposed to get 5-10 inches of snow. Oh no, we will never get down our driveway.

As much as we don't want to see anymore snow it really is beautiful. Here is the snow in the tree branches. I love this.


And looking out the front.


And the hill to our right.


As beautiful as this looks we will be very happy if we don't see snow again until next winter. It's funny we have these little black birds that only come out when it snows. We haven't seen them in a couple of weeks or so. As soon as it started snowing they swarmed our birdhouse. They learned very fast where to come for the food in bad weather.

We did have to use the generator today to charge up our batteries. It looks like we can go about 4 days of clouds before we need some help. Mike thinks he will be able to improve this when he changes our system.


I hope you enjoyed our little update. Have a great week and I will write again next Monday.

Lisa

[Jaxson]

Cool picture of the up close trees YLisa! Glad you got to recycle the W&D instead of going into the landfill.

Have a great week you little food hoarder you.