Would you live off the grid if you could?
This girl on FB (knew her in high school, she's married to DH's cousin) is a total "hippy". She's always posting about natural healing, most of which I think are ridiculous. Like yes I'm all for acupuncture or medical marijuana. But she's into like "these herbs will heal a cavity in your tooth" and I'm like uum I don't think a hole can just be magically healed?
But anyways, she was talking about how their dream (her, husband, and two unvaccinated kids) would be to buy a bunch of land and just live off the land in a little shack and homeschool the kids and grow herbs and chickens and whatnot. And she had several people commenting how that would be the life to not have an 8-5 and not be slaving away to pay "the man".
But I couldn't be more opposite. I love having a house. A warm house with the flick of a button, and food that I bought at the grocery store, and cable, and antibiotics. I'm all about working to have nice things. Our civilizations progressed for thousands of years so we could have these things. Just wondering which lifestyle you'd chose given the chance?
Re: Would you live off the grid if you could?
This. I live in an apartment right now and the walls are pretty thin, I mean I hear the neighbor lightly cough in the middle of the night-type thin. I always think, if I can hear the neighbor stirring their morning coffee with all the windows closed, god knows what they hear from our side of the wall! lol So, living in a parcel of land in which I haven lots and lots of privacy, for my cartwheels and from the top of my lungs-style karaoke singing, is very very tempting. But, I don't really have much of a green thumb (I killed a house plant that I received as a birthday gift in less than a week), so the thought of having to provide food for myself and my family would be a challenge to me. I enjoy a good supermarket (Fairway anybody?!)
I don't even find any novelty in it! I don't even camp for a night hahaha
A few years ago I went "free-camping", i.e camping wherever you please on a (somewhat) secluded beach. This was really not my idea of fun, but well a group of like 12 of us were going so I thought "OK, why the hell not?" Damn, hindsight is always 20/20 right. Well, there was the obvious uncomfort of pitching a tent in a place where there is NO infrastructure for camping (i.e. no fresh running water, or BATHROOMS (!)). So, every night when we had dinner and a sea breeze was wafting through the air, so was the scent of the "bathroom field". This disgusted me to no end, so every morning I would hike this hill for 20+ minutes under the beating sun to have a coffee and use the bathroom at the coffee shop. We stayed for about 3 days, then one of the group got diarrhoea. Enough said. Within hours, FI and I rented an apartment in the nearest town for the rest of the trip. FI felt kind of bad for deserting the group. I was almost kissing the plumbing system of the apartment. I guess I am not the OTG type. sorrynotsorry.
ETA. more details and grammar
I'm the fuck out.
I would ideally like to go halfways. We currently have a small garden, can, and get meat from hunting or the animals DH's sister raises. In providing in the sense I'd do more if we could. Ideally we'd like to live out in the country/woods and have more area for gardening and such.
As for modern things. Vaccines, healthcare, and education is a must. I also like working, If I was sheltered in he same location day in and out I'd go crazy, I enjoy people. I also appreciate the modern comforts of plumbing, heat, internet, etc.
So I'd go halfway. I'd enjoy living in a more private setting with the ability to grow/raise/hunt more of our own food and still go to work in society every day.
I'm the fuck out.
This girl lives on the grid and will stay there. I can remember before I retired and we would go on a field exercise for a couple of weeks. I would go home and just keep flushing the toilet over and over because I missed being able to do that.
The closest I get is going camping once a year with the grandkids. I used to get paid to sleep in a tent and "rough it", they are the only reason I will do it for free.
I'm the fuck out.