Changes In My Life

The road to my home goes through the state forest.

I have seen many changes in my life over the years. Even if you do not live a long life, that holds true for everyone. Life would be pretty boring if changes did not take place. Looking at a person in their nineties, we often hear remarks of wonder of all they have seen in their lives. I discussed all the changes my father had seen in his lifetime with him often. He loved to talk about it. He was very alert and knowledgeable right to his last days. These conversations with him were some of my favorite conversations with him that I will always treasure.

The pot of gold is my homestead!

In social media we are discussing our favorite periods of our lives often. Someone will post a picture of some item we used in the past asking if you remember using it. Many times that once forgotten item will take me back on what I call my memory train. Back to another time and place. I personally don't have any really bad memories, unless I count as a teen, becoming a single mother and running away from home too scared to tell my parents. That turned out okay though because of my mother, who always made bad situations better. Two other bad periods for me were my two divorces, which is a subject better left buried.

Our Barn

For the most part, changes in my life were many and usually at the time, I felt they were good. I liked change. It was exciting to explore the new things it would bring to my life. One of the biggest changes of course, was moving to my off the grid home in 1999. That was the year everyone was preparing for the year 2000 and what was going to happen due to computers running everything, known as the Y2K. Truthfully, we didn't do much as far as the Y2K was concerned once we moved here. Instead we were busy preparing for winter. No computers. No televisions. In fact, I gave away my own big screen television because I felt even if I could ever power it - it was out of place here.

Cooking and heating water on my wood cook stove.

Was the change good for me? I thought so. Now I think it certainly was. Living with no electric bill for over sixteen years was good indeed. Over the years we have saved thousands of dollars including the cost of our alternative energy system. No cost of fuel for heating, most of the time, except for gas and chainsaws and their parts. I think we have only purchased about four loads of logs in all that time. I haven't figured out how to eliminate propane (for cooking) since I need it for canning. All winter I cook on my wood cook stove, which is my favorite method of cooking. I also use the wood heating stove for cooking and heating water during the winter. One time the propane delivery man asked me, "Don't you cook?" I sure do! I cooked and baked a lot back then. Homemade made from scratch. No processed foods most of the time. I still cook, but don't bake so much now since we eat low carbs.

Our road in winter

In 1999, my husband could cut a tree down and let it fall across the road and not have to hurry because of cars driving by. It was days before we'd see one or two cars go by. Now more and more people are moving from cities to the country. Mainly from NJ, Long Island and NYC in our area. I don't blame them for wanting to leave. It has made us think of looking for a more secluded place. But then again, do I really want to start over again? In our sixties? Right now we are centrally located from several small towns and one small city. Once our two elderly cats are gone, I think the traffic on our road won't be such a big stress point for me.

Peaceful Forest

My most recent change has been doing almost all my shopping online. Yes, even groceries and household products. It is easier for me to find what I need on the four sites I shop at regularly, Amazon, Netrition, Emergency Essentials and Walmart. I don't have to drive anywhere, which is good because at this time I do not have anything to drive (another big change for me). Most people do not like change and I am one of those people, IF it is forced on me. I need the changes to be my own doing.

Copyright © 2016 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2016 Kathleen G. Lupole

Updated 2018

Working On Our House

Our house with trees on it!

Our house was built in 1850 and the man who built it did an excellent job. When we had a tornado hit us in 2000 six trees fell on our roof. My husband and I were in the kitchen and did not even know that at the time. We were watching our poor horses out there in the paddock with huge trees falling around them like matchsticks. It wasn't until it was over that we went outside and found the trees on the house. Didn't even hurt the roof except for the ridge cap. When I think of that man digging out that cellar and then he built up the area around it into a hill so the water runs off. We have never had water in our root cellar yet.

Last year and this we have replaced two parts of our old tin roof. It was in bad shape and needed to be done. The parts we haven't done yet are mostly due to the fact are changing some other areas of the house and the roof will be affected. Don't want to put new roofing up there just to tear it down later. My husband has made so much progress this year on improving our house. I am quite happy!

Soon our battery room will be finished. It is going to be connected to the cellar and have our 24 locomotive batteries in it on shelves. Right now they are sitting on my living room floor. Will I be happy to have them off our floor and downstairs! This room will also be home for water pump, water tank and our generator. My smart husband is building a platform for our generator which will raise up out of the cellar so he can run the generator outside. When he is done with it he can lower it back inside. That will keep it safe from thief or storms. He will also be able to work on from its platform and not have to get down on the ground to do that. Very brilliant idea if you ask me!

The battery room is separated from the root cellar with a cinder block wall and a door. We do not want to change the environment of our root cellar. We will be putting new energy efficient cellar windows in the root cellar so we can open them easily. I need to be able to vent the cellar during the night to bring cool air inside for the hot days of summer. Then during the day for the time being I can open the door to the pantry letting cool air in there to keep it cool. Eventually we will have a built in vent in the floor of the pantry that can be opened and closed as needed.

The ceiling of the battery room for this year will just be our new porch since my husband took our whole porch off thr front of the house. We are using our sliding glass door at the side of the kitchen to go in and out for now. Our cats and dog, Nikita are really having issues with that change! The cats still after all this time, keep going to the regular door. We are keeping it locked for our own safety as both of us have gone to that door without thinking when we are in a hurry.

Next year, the porch will become part of the kitchen. That will increase the size of our kitchen so much. Then we can finally add our Sundanzer refrigerator and freezer units. They will make our life really nice and so much easier. Of course, we have to buy at the very least one more solar panel but hopefully we will be able to get two more. In doing this the front of our house will be different. The front door will be on the side and you will come into a mud room first. There you can hang your coat and take off your boots. It will also help us keep our warm air in the house in the winter and a buffer zone for the flys and bugs trying to get in during the summer.....a constant battle around here!

So here we are living in the middle of this huge remodeling project. After ten years of living here everything else just falls into place. Routines. Living without grid electric is no big deal and I never even think about it unless someone else mentions it to me. I like not having to pay someone for using my own stuff!

Have a great homesteading day! Looks great here at Peaceful Forest Homestead!

katlupe

Who Says Solar Does Not Work????

Today is our little girl, Nikita's 11th birthday! I never thought I'd haver her this long. One thing is that my animals do live long lives and they are basically very healthy. She is very overweight and I wish I could put her on my low carb eating plan. But she wants NO carbs at all. Her being a big dog, she loves her raw meat. But I can' afford to feed her that all the time and she does not understand.

People do not understand how we live if we are not using grid power. They think we are out of power if they do not hear from us for a certain amount of time. I cannot stress enough to others, "We are NEVER without power." You are. Our system just keeps working regardless. Maybe we have to run our generator to charge our batteries in the sunless state of New York, but we still have power.

When there is a storm here we do not have to worry about our power going out. It is on. Only if we unhook it for some reason would we be off our system. Our power is in fact, more reliable than the grid power. I know someone who had a solar fence charger that was defective or the battery would not work, so she would say all the time (in front of me knowing very well that is how I live), "solar does not work." Who is she kidding? I know it works! Plus, if my batteries were defective and would not hold a charge they wouldn't work either!

I think people are scared of using it. Scared of not having the power. To tell you the truth, if it wasn't for me liking my computer so much, I wouldn't even care if I had power or not. I could live without it and keep doing like we are doing right now. Washing laundry by hand, using kerosene lights, carrying our water in from our hand dug well, etc. We have done all that most of the going on ten years that we have lived here anyway. I used to write by hand and I'd really hate going back to that as my hands hurt sometimes.

I am really looking forward to getting our conveniences put in. Using my new washing machine will really improve my laundry day! Having running water in the house is going to be fantastic! I do hate the carrying of the water buckets though my poor husband ends up taking the chore from me most of the time. It used to be my job, but when my knees got so bad he started doing it.

I knew when we moved here that I'd be sacrificing many things that I was used to using. But what were we really giving up? Really? Neighbors? I was never the kind to visit next door or hang out with my neighbors......even when I lived in a fancy neighborhood in Vestal, NY. I have always kept to myself and did things alone.......until I met my husband. Him and I seemed to be perfectly matched. We like that alone time. We can sit next to each other all day and not say a word. Later we talk for hours until late into the night. I never knew anyone who I could tell my every single thought or idea to and not have them laugh at me.

When we first moved here our only visitors were our grown children, my Jeff and his daughter Hollie Sunshine. Both of them loved being here with us out in the forest. It is like being the only people in the world.....until a vehicle drives by to remind you that we are not. We never used to visit anyone except for our parents and my brother, Mickey. Then my best friend moved close by and we used to go to her house all the time. She got mad at me because she thought my blog on myspace was about her and it was not. But she convicted herself by thinking and believing it was.......it was a Christian based blog and she is not one. Anyway, after that friendship ended we had discovered we had neglected many things on our homestead by visiting and socializing. So we have done alot of things this past year on our place and it is improving.

Solar Baby - My New Site!

I have been very busy here. One of the things taking up much of my time has been designing my new website. It is http://solarbaby.org and my goal with it is to bring all the informtion to you and my other readers who may be interested in setting up their own systems. You can always start small like we did. Or you can even still be on the grid and just supplement your power with a small system. Cuts your electric bill. Plus it teaches you and your family how to live with a system and conserve your power. You will also love the fact that when your power company has an outage you will not. All the neighbors will see your house all lit up and your tv on........you might end up with company!

Another thing that has happened to me last week is that I have been looking for more than a few years now for a very close friend of mine. We lost touch with each back in the 1980s. Maybe 1985 or so. Anyway, she was living on Long Island and my then husband and I split up and I moved. So even if she came looking for me, I wasn't there. I signed up with a few of those search for people places, and nothing ever showed up. I put an ad in the pennysavers and newspapers and never heard a thing. I did find someone with the same exact name who lived out on Long Island and sent her a letter and waited........and waited. Never heard back. I was bummed out on that.

Then back in July I posted on craigslist under the lost ads. Nothing. A few days before Thanksgiving I posted some items for sale on craigslist again.......and something told me to post another lost ad for her. Well I did. Then forgot about it. Thanksgiving Day I went to shut my computer down to finish up the Thanksgiving Dinner I was cooking and there was an email from craigslist! It said, "She is my sister. What is your name?" I sent back and next thing I know she sent me her telephone number! Needless to say, we FINALLY talked to each other. And she came over on Sunday after church and spent the day here. We were looking at photos and laughing and crying all day.

You know the funniest thing about this whole story........she lives 14 miles from my home and has lived there almost as long as I have lived here. Plus everytime I drive to the nearest city of Binghamton, NY, I drive right past her house! So strange. We even go to some of the same stores. She said she didn't look for me as she was afraid I was living that life on "snob hill" and she would not fit in to my life. That tells you how much my life has changed. I told her "wait till you come to my house." You never would believe that I lived that lifestyle unless you knew me back then. So she saw a huge difference in my life now. But she also said, even though she is not into homesteading herself, she said we are headed in the right direction. And I say, "Yes, we are!"

Please be sure to check out my site. And if you need to buy books at Amazon, please click my book store link and buy them from my store. I would really appreciate it.

Have a nice day!

katlupe