Bob Billings

We have been living off the grid for four years now. We love our decision to go off the grid; the independence is worthwhile. We heat water with an evacuated tube system, and our electricity is an 8,000-watt solar panel system with five 100-amp-hour LifePo4 batteries. Water is a rainwater collection system in a 6000-gal cistern.

Yes, we do have Hügelkultur beds, a total of 7 total, around 500'. Great process and addition to our grow areas around the house. We live on a ridge, so the beds and swales allow us to trap water, preventing run-off.

Lauren Ritz wrote:I'm 48, but my Dad is nearly 80 (that sounds so weird!), so I'm definitely thinking about aging in place for both of us. I'm his primary caregiver at the moment.

It's funny, because I think about things that would make things easier and he says it's not necessary--won't use a cane or a walker, won't use his "lift" chair. Which I guess keeps him active, but he worries me sometimes.

We do have various "aging" appliances, which he also refuses to use, but they're available if and when.

I'm more focused on being able to work in the yard when I am his age. Currently the garden is two feet up from the walkway (45 years of intensive composting) and I'm in the process of rearranging things so there are steps and a level surface rather than a two foot jump while holding on to a PVC pipe. :) Keeping trees within easy reaching distance for harvest and trimming. Garden boxes are 36 inches, so no bending, but I need to extend that into the greenhouse somehow.

It's house maintenance I can't figure out yet, but it'll come. Particularly cleaning out gutters and checking the roof.

Yep, we have spent the last several years intensively looking over every aspect of our homestead: House repairs, repainted house 2 coats of premium paint.  New house items to make it easier, new outdoor shower & composting toilet, new Sunsolar hot water system, solar electric all-new with lithium-ion batteries (no maintenance) Now have 8,000 gallons cystern to cover us through a drought.  Added some additional cross fencing and gates to regulate better where we invite the chickens too.  Tired of poultry fencing movement and rearrangement. Sold or got rid of clutter and things we do not use. Added drip irrigation system to our raised bed garden and kitchen garden area. Hand watering is great when your young but drip irrigation gives us more time to do other things. Built a woodshed and cut some oaks down, now have about a twelve year supply of firewood. In general, we have been sweeping all the pathways inside and out to make life as productive, safe, and secure as we can. And now with only a few more things to do we intend to relax a little bit more. My wife has retired last year but I still maintain and remain busy with my architectural practice, hard to give up a lifetime of pleasure.  I intend to always have my fingers in the design world.  Anyhoo, life in the country is all that it is cracked up to be.

John F Dean wrote:The back to the land movement in its Mother Earth format has been around since the 60s or 70s, depending upon how you want to start the clock. That being said, there are a number of us here who are well past what a saner person would consider to be retirement age.  Much of my mainstream  background is connected with rehabilitation, which leads me to wondering how we, as a group, are taking measures to stay active on our land.  For example, this year I bought a log splitter .....something I swore I would never own. My wife and I, looking into the future, are pricing a chair lift to get us in and out of the basement. If nothing else, it might be useful to transport boxes,etc.

So, I wonder, what adaptive measures have others taken or plan to take?

So, John, we too are aging almost 70 now and still busy as ever. We did it all ourselves up to just a few years ago, then decided to make it easier in many ways.  Our frugal lifestyle now allows us some luxuries and a hired hand several days a week too, so if you have a few dollars, make life a little easier on yourself.

So water storage and preparedness in general needs to start years in advance not days before a hurricane might hit. And why would one worry about millions of people moving to or already living in the coastal waters of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas?  How much responsibility do prepared folks have to the mass number of sheep who are so unprepared?  Just wondering.