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In March we moved full time to our off grid cabin on 20 acres in the high desert. The last several months have been go, go, go pretty much non-stop.
Our cabin is still a work in progress. We’re what I call a semi-dry cabin. We don’t have any water coming in, unless we haul it in.
We have a cistern outside with a pitcher pump that we ordered off of Amazon (that’s an affiliate link and this post contains additional affiliate links) that we fill with water from town.
We also do water catchment off the roof of the cabin and our original small shed. Joe put up a second shed in June that we still need to add a catchment system onto.
For us water catchment is an important item. Our area gets between 9 and 11 inches of precipitation a year. It’s not a lot but being able to catch and use it for animals and crops will be very helpful. Our set up this year isn’t working as we’d hoped. The faucet on the containers keep breaking. We’ll be adding new containers next year.
Our drinking water comes out of the cistern and we filter it with a Berkey system. We’re hopeful that in the next year we can add a well (which will fill the cistern) and install piping and a system to bring water into the house.
Our goats have settled in nicely up here. Until the last few weeks we were milking 2 of our goats and getting just shy of 2 quarts of milk a day. It was plenty for the 3 of us for drinking, cooking and making cheese. I made a lot of of yogurt and soft cheeses. (Learn how to make thick raw yogurt with this recipe from my affiliate partner Traditional Cooking School). Now we’ve tried up the goats so I’ll be looking for a raw milk source. We could have kept milking but don’t have a barn yet so winter milking would have been a challenge.
We’re doing meat chickens this year for us and a few friends. We’ve processed about 60 so far and have 36 ready in a week or two. We had more but we lost some to what we think was a snake! We didn’t realize they were disappearing until a dozen were missing. No blood, no bones, no feathers anywhere so all we can figure is it was a snake taking them.
Finishing up the chickens is just one thing we need to complete before winter hits. We’re also installing our wood stove, building a pump house, staining and sealing the cabin, insulating the ceiling and underneath the house plus skirting around the house and we’re adding an arctic room. The arctic room addition will be wonderful. Not only will it be a place for coats and boots it will also house our freezer and pantry plus provide a barrier to the cold and wind entering. The posts are in for the foundation and constructions starts on Monday. Woot-Woot.
When we bought our property 3 years ago we bought it with the idea of moving here someday. We’re super pleased we decided to move up now, even though our cabin is nowhere near finished, as opposed to waiting until someday in the far off future. Rarely a day goes by that I don’t feel immensely blessed to be here.
Our off-grid cabin life includes an unfinished kitchen. 🙂 We’ve been loving cooking outside this summer. If you are looking to cook outside more while the weather still permits, you’ll love the Cooking Outside ebook from my affiliate partner, Traditional Cooking School by GNOWFGLINS.
Another favorite book of mine for outdoor cooking is Roughing it Easy by Dian Thomas.
I use and highly recommend both of these books!
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