It is quite clean and comfortable, and certainly functional too. There's lots of things we weren't expecting with this property.

It's too bad it's all melting at the moment!

They aren't real bugs, but artificial ones that you can make or buy.

In time we will be getting hollywood out here and teach them a few things! We always have potatoes to make more if need be. Cheat meals are cheat meals!

Winches are for b*tches. ;) Perhaps in time! Requires a different front bumper, but something to look into.

.Absolutely could work better that way! We do have a wireless WiFi extender, so we can try that too!

We are on a 24 volt system as of now; however if we did want to go to a better system we could do 36 or 48v. In time! As of now we have plenty of juice. Would need more batteries if we wanted to upgrade and then re-jumper everything.

Yes ma'am I am still teaching for the time being! My kids need me, especially right now. It's reliable, absolutely, but definitely slower. The sooner Elon Musk comes out with his satellites, the better. ;) For right now, we manage, and could potentially upgrade, by the sounds of things. Looking into that!

@@kandaoffgrid7550 Lets hope he brings them out before the brain-chips.

The batteries are what power the house 100% of the time. The solar panels and generators are to charge the batteries. We use the small generator only when there is a week of cloudy weather and the solar panels don't charge the batteries enough or if we are using high powered appliances that would put a massive drain on the system such as a blender, hot water kettle or power tools. The big generator is used when we need to use 240v for a welder or anything else that is above and beyond the capabilities of the small generator. I would say we use the small generator only once every week/ week and a half to give the batteries a boost and it would only run for about 6 hours and then we are good. Being it's the winter months we only get about 6 hours of day light, in the summer we would hardly need to use the generator as we would be getting much more daylight.

At this point we buy the mix, ready done, but we do have the ability to buy everything separately and grind it ourselves - a meat grinder works really well for this! Up until recently, we've found that it's actually more economically friendly to buy it ready mixed. The cost of collecting all the ingredients was actually more expensive than to buy it pre-made. However, with losing our supplier (simply because she doesn't do shipping and we are obviously out of driving range), we'll now be making our own mix, as raw food in our area is almost double the price we used to pay.

Definitely a great idea. Yes, Grandpa certainly was an expert. Wish we had him here! He'd be in his element. Planning on bees as well, in the future!

Yes, supposedly there is an apple orchard here but the bears have destroyed some of it. Will find out in the spring.

Absolutely nothing wrong with farm girls! ;)

i guess it is kind of off topic but do anyone know of a good website to stream newly released movies online ?

@Enoch Benicio i would suggest flixzone. You can find it on google :)

Hi Jesse! Yes the water comes in, fills up the black tank in the kitchen, and the on demand system picks up the water it needs from there. The cold water is plumbed separately throughout the house. Both the hot and cold water is about 25-30 PSI, because we just have the natural spring pressure. A standard house in the city is pressurized at 50 PSI I believe, so you don't have this problem in the city. In the kitchen we can get hot water no problem because we are so close to the heater, but in order to get the hot water over to the bathroom we need to create more PSI or "flow" in the system in order for the heater to engage and so we just turn on the hot water in the sink as well. We don't pay for water so it doesn't matter - our run off just helps the environment a little more. Yes the water is heated only in the on demand unit, as you need it, with propane. You can get these units for a house in the city as well that uses natural gas; it's much more efficient than having a water tank and keeping that water heated consistently. All on demand systems will have an exhaust and even most hot water tanks have a blower fan to exhaust everything as well. The pipes outside are valves that are down about 6 feet. There is a rod that comes up those pipes that we turn with a "key" to open or close the valves. You're right! They do control water flow that comes in and out of the house.

The septic is only for the shower and sink in the bathroom from what we gather; the rest runs down underground to the garden area. The previous owners said that is where majority of products are used. Absolutely; a tour of everything will be done once the 2 feet of snow melts.

The hot water on demand system is exactly like what you can install in the city as well! The only difference is that the ones in the city would use natural gas. Many homeowners will change out from a hot water tank to an on demand system because of the efficiency. The on demand system (steel box) will heat up the water as it flows through the box and gets up to about 66-70 degrees Celsius within 5 seconds of being turned on. Once you stop the flow of water the unit will disengage itself. For the wood stoves we put in 4-5 logs in each one before we go to bed. It keeps warm for 6-7 hours with hot coals left in the morning for a quick warm up. We have the place at 24 degrees during the day and when we wake up it's about 20-22 degrees, depending on how cold it is outside. The sounds of nature are almost euphoric. If the birds are not chirping, it's dead silence and is simply peaceful. We are sure there will be more sounds when the spring starts to happen and all the animals come out of hibernation. Tour coming up shortly! It's a little difficult with the 2 feet of snow. ;)

Most of the people in the area have this system; some even power their homes using the pressure of the water to power a turbine.

Only in the home gym!

Hi Ponzie! Andre is absolutely in his element here - you read that right. Washroom is a full four piece and runs as a normal on grid home would - we are plumbed into spring water and so have that as an advantage. Supplies are 3.5 hours away...one direction...so when we do go to town it's always a trip for a reason. We're in bear, wolf, coyote, wolverine, and lynx land, if that's enough danger for you. Nothing like a fabulous walk in the neighborhood! ;)