Hey, I can reply to this.
I feel ya.
3 years ago we moved half way across the country with two kids (six and eight) to find some property. The first place we went was property found online and it was off grid woods. Certain relatives said we were crazy doing that with/to two little kids. Those same people firmly believe that we should each have full time jobs (at least) and bustle the kids around to and from day care, after school activities etc etc. All so we can buy a house in a subdivision, make payments on two cars (forever) and in general, become awesome American consumers living in our perfect little built world, safe and sound and immune/oblivious to what happens elsewhere in the world. Gots ta keep up with them jones' you know. Yeah right. My Dad worked two jobs all his life. I barely knew the miserable man.
Of the three people who were against our plan, all three have been through divorces. The most outspoken one is on marriage #4. How's that for normal and stable. One has actually had a change of heart and told my wife she thinks we're smart for learning how to live this way because she sees the writing on the wall. I have no idea what it's in regards to. economy, environment, political, peak oil etc. Maybe all of the above.
We're at a different property now. After two years we finally found the one. We actually have neighbors here including a couple of kids about the same age as ours and we get along with all the neighbors. It's still not a subdivision. It's just not my thing. There's electric running down the road and we've been here a year but still haven't had power brought across. We do plan on it but don't see any reason to rush. In fact, the path for elec has changed so I'm glad we didn't get it done right off. We've gotten used to living with 305 watts of solar, rain water and humanure. My wife had a part time job for a while and I had an offer to work at the farm across the road and I'm about to take him up on the offer. Meanwhile, I've picked up a bit of work here and there.
Our kids are well behaved and we get compliments on their behavior. They're not awkward though they were a little shy with the neighborhood kids at first. It lasted about 10 minutes.
We went through two major heat waves with no A/C including hoofing water for washing up a long steep hill from a creek. It was a morning job. We survived the heat waves and in the middle of the first one my daughter (she's the social one) one day said, "we live way better here than we ever did in FL". Back in FL we lived in a 4 bedroom house, with cable TV, with two TVs, internet, two cell phones etc. yet we all had our face in a different screen. The living better she was referring to was the fact that we spent a lot, ok all, our time together and passed the time with board games, playing cards and daily chores.
Bit of a warning. If you have someone totally dead set against your plans, they may do something to try and stop you. It took us longer get head out than we thought and we had already had electric scheduled to be shut off at the 4 bedroom rental house. I didn't bother getting the shut off date pushed back. I had a big generator to run the well pump and water heater and we had the solar panels and small fridge to run on them. Well someone called the division of children and family services on us saying we had no running water or refrigeration. When the person came out to investigate, I turned the faucet on and hot water came out. The well tank has a bladder so the plumbing kept pressure quite a while without the gennie running. Then I opened the fridge and there sat cold produce and chicken and milk. Then she talked to the kids one at a time and basically found that the report was untrue. Grasping, she wanted my wife and I to pee in a cup even though the report said nothing about drug use. I told her to leave and that was the end of it. People are crazy and some can be very possessive and/or controlling. We're not sure who it was but only a few people knew the electric was shut off. We narrowed it down to two people. One my relative and one my wife's.
Bottom line is, we're all healthy and happy. Before we were busy, busy, bust and not happy. We were drifting apart and I'm quite sure I would have turned into my father. Miserable sob. Meanwhile the naysayers, not so much. The system is killing people. Some quickly some slowly. Some may seem quite happy but watch them work their asses off and claw their way to the top stepping on everyone on the way. Nothing matters to them but "he who dies with the most toys wins". The system is also killing the planet.
OP, and you were worried about your post being long. :
1
