Living Without Electricity

People have often asked us if we were raised on a farm. We tell them no and then their next question is... "How did you learn to do all that you do?" Our answer is books and people. We would find books on the subject and read them. We would find people who did what we wanted to learn and we would ask questions, offer to help for free, etc.

We lived without electricity for a short time. We bought an Amish home and it took us a bit until we got the electricity put in. Even then we only had 5 outlets. One for the fridge and an extra in the kitchen, two for the computer room and one in the basement. Our lighting was oil lamps and I actually like that better than electric lamps. However, electric lamps are cheaper to run that oil lamps.

The book you see above is full of useful information. It is on sale this month at Lehman's Hardware. It is regularly $14.95, but is on sale this month for $7.99. It addresses a lot of details that many would not even think of.

I have to say, I loved living without electricity. It is amazing at how quiet your house can be. When we finally got hooked up and the power went on, I was amazed at how loud a refrigerator motor is. The 2 things I missed the most was my computer and the refrigerator. We had a dark room in the basement that had been a sort of root cellar. At one end, there was what looked like a big cement tub with a drain pipe that stuck up about 8 inches in the air. There was a constant flow of water coming into the tub and going down the drain. We had to put all of our cold stuff in water proof containers to sit in the tub. The water would get sort of gross, so when you went to get stuff to prepare a meal, you had to have a way to dry it off and something to carry it in so you wouldn't get yuck on you. It was not convenient at all. We figured we would keep our meat and frozen items on the back porch in a cooler. However, that winter did not have lots of time that was kept under freezing temperatures, so we had to buy meat on the day we wanted it, or no more than a day or 2 before.