The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

An outstanding anniversary

Bringing gas cans to town to fill up for the generatorDespite the phone dying again on Monday night, Tuesday was an outstanding day.  By mid morning, the sun started to poke through the clouds that had kept the sky white for the last three days.  Solar radiation quickly started melting the snow, and it only took a bit of hoeing to work our way out of the driveway.

On the one year anniversary of our marriage, we ended up in the parking lot of the same courthouse...but this time we were poaching wireless.  Our goals for this trip to town were really quite simple --- we wanted to fill up some big jugs of gas so that we could continue to run the generator an hour a day and I wanted to upload all of my past posts (thus the poaching).  While we were out, I figured we should also stock up on some other essentials --- citrus, chocolate, and flashlights.

Back home, we thawed out the top of our wedding cake on the wood stove and ate it along with some chicken cooked in my homemade Dutch oven.  And then two miracles!  First, an electric company employee came wandering through our yard.  He was lost and needed help reaching the road, but the mere fact that he was scouting the downed power line gave us hope (even though he said it may still be a week before we get juice.)  Finally, halfway through our generator hour, I picked up the phone and heard a dial tone.  Internet at home!  Rapture!

You all have been astoundingly patient with my shut-in, run-on blogs.  Now you're up to date!  Starting tomorrow, we'll be posting in real time (and will hopefully have a video to share with you.)  Meanwhile, check out our microbusiness ebook for some Christmas reading.


This post is part of our Two Weeks Without Electricity series.  Read all of the entries:





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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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