Fire Update

All is well.  That's the simplest thing I can say.  We've all adjusted reasonably to having basically no electricity.  My sweetie rerouted some wiring to allow the generator to directly power the house, but, since it is noisy and guzzles gasoline, we don't like to run it except to power the glow plug on our stove. While we bake we do all of our baking, charging of rechargeable stuff, and movie watching. The rest of the time we do all of the wonderful things we do without electricity,

FIRE!

There was quite the lightening storm last night.  It woke my hubby and I up several times.  Once we awoke to a particularly intense clap of thunder and through the plastic on our half-finished little cabin we saw a quite bright light and perhaps what could be thought of as a shower of sparks.  We figured a transformer had possibly been hit, and started to drift back off.  Before we were completely back asleep, at about 3:30 am, our eldest knocked on our door and informed us that the "tarp shed" had caught fire, but that he and his brothers had put it out and not to worry.  And by the way there is no electricity over at the house.

Humph.

Earth Day Visitation

Yesterday was Earth Day, though I must admit, we have been so busy that I didn't even know it was up and coming.  However, as it happened, we had a pretty big Earth Day celebration!

Around the corner from Groundwell Farm, there is another farm working toward goals similar to ours.  They call the farm: Shut Up and Grow It.  There are a few year round residents and many passers through.  For the past few weeks they've been having a work party so, many temporary residents have come from all over the country to help and to learn.

Independence Day

When we left our day jobs at the great Mammoth Cave a lot of people thought we were nuts because in this great nation of ours only one means of survival is considered viable: a good (read high paying) wage earning, job.  We have set out to prove that a beautiful, satisfying life can still be lived without selling our time for less than we believe it is worth.  And, so far, it seems to be working out.  Granted it has only been about a month, but in that month we have made serious strides toward true independence, without depleting our meager savings.  Indeed, our savings have actually increased!

"What is true independence?" you ask, well here at Groundwell Farm we consider independence to be:

Meeting, or even occasionally exceeding, all of the necessities and desires of life through either direct work, or through agreeable trade with people we are close to in everyday life.

Shifting

Once upon a time, in Freedom, Indiana, our family spent most of our time with a nearby Amish community.  In that community the term ‘shifting’ was incredibly common.  It took me a while to gain a full grasp of what they meant by shifting.  In my modern train of thought I went straight to shifting gears, as in a car, and although that idea comes close, that wasn’t quite the connotation they had in mind.

Visitors!

On Friday we had a most pleasant visit from some students at Tennessee Tech.  Dr. Lachelle Norris leads a class on Sustainability in Appalachia and a major focus of the class is to build links between folks who are making use of sustainable skills in their lives and those who desire to learn such skills.  We feel very honored that they chose to make the 1.5 hour trek up to our place to spend an afternoon learning about what we are doing here.