An Aussie friend of Elon Musk got a Power Wall (battery) and some solar panels a couple years ago. Had ’em pumping out juice for well over a year. Pleased. Very. Seems he saved $6,000.00 in electricity bills last year and he runs a larger 4 bedroom home complete with all the modcons and copious air conditioners. In the featured article he said, “I expected this to pay for itself in 20 years. At this rate, it will pay for itself in five years!”
That is not news. We know that every panel gives more power, every battery stores the power longer. Put more succinctly: Getting a solar array and storage is an obvious no-brainer, a totally can’t-lose proposition. Especially if you are capable of a grid-tie arrangement with BC Hydro. Grid-tie is even more dollar efficient ’cause the power company acts as your battery. Elon’s friend is now a convert……..but why did he do it in the first place if he had doubts?
What used to be dismissed as hippy tech or ‘unnecessary’ or too expensive is today proving to be a good idea. Think about that. He did.
If any of you decide to think about it and want advice, just ask. Free.
There is a yoga-gal and her husband who you-tube regularly about their OTG life-in-the-making. Nicole and Jake are building and living in a yurt and in an area not far from us (judging by the views and such). They have 172,000 subscribers. Admittedly, the ‘eye-catching’ shots of Nicole’s bare top (but she’s always facing backwards) or some other sultry come-on selfie-pose creates a larger audience than just those interested in yurts and trees but still….172K subscribers is HUGE!
When we wrote our first book and posted it to Amazon, the OTG category did not exist. We went under the general heading of ‘Wilderness Adventures’ or something. Today, on Amazon.ca there are over twenty pages with Off Grid in the title. There are several categories now. The point? Living (and/or prepping for) OTG is a growing phenomena.
Why? Why would 172K subscribe to Jake and Nicole doing very common and basic chores on the smallest of scales? Why would successful rich people who are on the grid start adjusting to being off the grid?
Why, actually, did Dave and Sally go OTG?
What is going on? Are they all feeling what I feel? Are they just ‘playing at it’? And what, exactly, am I feeling? Do they know something I do not? What has happened over the past say, twenty years to make people think this way?
It (the feeling) is much older than just 20 years, of course, 70’s back-to-the-landers were motivated to do the same but…if I might venture a guess….they were responding to the industrial conformity, materialism, pollution and unhealthy processed food that was modern life back then (still is for many, of course). The BIG threat, TEOTWAWKI or the coming Zombie Apocalypse was less of an issue.
Today? I do not know but I suspect that all the media and government fear-mongering is showing up as more idiots buying 30+ guns and ammo and storing dried food in buckets as they show on the Netflix series ‘Doomsday Preppers’. I think fear is the new motivation.
But…fear of what? More to the point: how does building a yurt and carrying buckets of water answer the fear? For that matter, how many guns can one man shoot at a time?
Look at the real threats…..climate change, pandemics, war, economic collapse and yes, maybe even revolution-in-the-streets (somewhere) but how is a yurt an answer to that?
There is an emerging answer to that growing-but-still-amorphous fear and it seems to be ‘community’. People helping each other. And we OTG’ers do that pretty regularly. I see it all the time. And ‘help’ OTG – style does not take the form of money or donations to the Red Cross. ‘Help’ out here is real-time. Real-work. We rescue disabled boaters, freely give required labour, provide materials, feed people and share what we have. Community plays a much larger role out here.
Perhaps, if urban people had a stronger REAL community, fear might play a lesser role in their life. That seems to be true for those ‘groups’ (urban or otherwise) that identify closely with one another like Jews or Amish or Muslims or even First Nations. Birds of a feather flock together and, in numbers there is strength…..that kinda thing. The point again? People are more afraid these days. Fear is somewhat unifying but NOT for everyone – only amongst those who look and act like you. The stranger is being seen as a danger again.
Fear makes for divisiveness more than unity.
Community is an answer to that fear but is it the answer to the actual danger we face? What good is singing Kumbaya together if the actual threat is a Tsunami or pandemic?
The bible warns of the 4 horsemen, chaos, pestilence, famine and war. Coronavirus fits. And get this new threat of pestilence in biblical proportions….: locusts! The horn of Africa and the Middle East are being swarmed by gazillions of locusts again. And then there is the anti-Christ….(In Christian eschatology, the Antichrist or anti-Christ is someone recognized as fulfilling the biblical prophecies about one who will oppose Christ and substitute himself in Christ’s place before the Second Coming).
Isn’t Trump trying to do that?
Regardless of the madding thoughts this all generates, I can deduce only two things. There are more people moving OTG and their motivation is more fear than a desire for Walden Pond. Me…? I started out at Walden and I am moving somewhat towards Zombie Apocalypse but I have no REAL perspective on it.
I could be a nut.
Our Off the Grid Home 
nah yer not a nut.
You’re the squirrel.
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I unsubscribed (on youtube) from Jake and Nicole’s channel and no longer follow their videos. Not only am I not impressed by their”clickbait” lead photos (eyecatching lead photos of scantily clad women designed to lure the most male viewers to click on their videos, a cheap tactic..), but as a commenting subscriber I was ignored in the comments I made. I simply suggested it would be prudent for them, and their young dogs, to be wearing flotation devices while out jetting around out on the sound on their small outboard power boat. Other similar commenters replied to me that, good luck, they “always ignore all such comments”. Dave, do you and your wife, Sal, as seasoned OTG island dwellers, make it a habitual practice to always go small power boating totally without any flotation safety gear??
Just check their boating videos.
As for Trump being the AntiChrist? Who knows for certain, Dave?
I do know that the AntiChrist is said in prophecy to emerge as the leader of the “New World Order”.
As I understand it, the NWO is very much the United Nations and their “World Government Plan”
(or Agenda 21 or 2030, if you will…). Donald Trump, from what I see, is NOT lobbying himself to be the leader of the NWO. He operates in direct opposition to them by abandoning their world treaties and such. Promoting National Sovereignty is NOT advocating NWO! It seems that if he wanted to be the head of the NWO that he would be more going along with their stuff. He is a businessman that wants to promote prosperity and peace for the country he is leading.
(from the site): https://www.endtime.com/new-world-order/ :
“The prophesied one-world government is being formed on earth at this very time. The Bible prophesies that the Antichrist will ultimately reign over this world government for three-and-one-half years just prior to the Second Coming of Jesus to establish His own world government.
Satanically Empowered Control
Control of the coming endtime government will be consolidated into the totalitarian hands of the Antichrist. The dragon, which is the devil, gives this world governmental system its seat, power, and great authority (Revelation 13:2). We will all feel the oppression of this world government structure because it is satanically inspired, and it is forming right now.
Revelation 13:7 states that power will be given to the Antichrist over “all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.” Verse 3 says, “And all the world wondered after the beast.” Daniel 7:23 tells of a world governmental system ruled by the Antichrist, “The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.” The prophecy then states that this world government will rule the world until the Second Coming. ”
I would worry more about Donald Trump aspiring to AntiChrist status if he were running for
UN Security Council Secretary General.
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Oh, Kev……once again we agree and disagree…what a friendship, eh? You and i agree on Jake and Nicole….flakes pimping for clickbait money. Sad. Still….they are young and living in a yurt up here in the winter aint easy. They may GROW still. There’s hope.
As for Trump? He is WAY more an antiChtist than any limp dicked puppet in the UN…..c’mon…the U.N. is the ‘dead-end cul de sac of windbag politics…they do nothing….they are not a threat.
Potus has more power than the Secretary of the UN.
Trump? Pure evil incarnate. And YOU know that….
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” than any limp dicked puppet in the UN…..c’mon…the U.N. is the ‘dead-end cul de sac of windbag politics…”
+++++
Would you mind terribly if I steal that and use it in a future argument sometime about the pro’s and con’s of political correctness?
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Absolutely. Use it. If you get into it with someone, feel free to blame me. No problem. It’s one of the reasons I live remote….lynching me requires a lot of bother.
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Dave, please don’t tell me what I know or don’t know or think. Granted, this is your blog and you can prevent me from speaking here entirely, by just not approving my post. I wouldn’t put my words into your mouth, or attribute my thoughts as yours, and I would appreciate the same in return. If you don’t want to hear what I have to say? or to have it seen on your blog? Simply don’t post this and you won’t see any comments from me again.
The UN may have an image of ineffective, do nothing, underfunded token bureaucrats. It is easy to say they have little control or power. They intend that image. Their organization has been around, under several names, for more than the past century. It was conceived, founded and funded and is run from behind the scenes by those who own and run the industries of world, own virtually all of the mainstream media, as well as own nearly all of the world’s central banks. Names like Rockefeller, Rothschild, Carnegie, European Royalty families and others. Organizations and think tanks and clubs including the CFR, Trilateral Commission, Bilderburg Group, Bohemian Grove etc.
These people often decide who gets appointed into the various nation’s governments worldwide. They control national elections and political campaigns, they sit on boards of multinational corporations larger and more powerful than most countries. They control the information that we get to see on their subsidiary media conglomerates. These people have and run the dynasties that far outlive elected officials of countries.
An American POTUS is elected for only 4 years, 8 if he is lucky enough to be elected to a second term. His office is powerful, the executive branch of a country, but it is only one of three branches.
The other two branches together can overrule his. They can fire him, if they agree to do that. They can overrule his decisions. The power division is not simply a 3-way balancing act as it was designed to be.
The “deep state” is part of government has spawned from “intelligence agencies” . It is controlled and run from behind the scenes by those people who run the world. They can and have eliminated presidents by assassination, on multiple occasions. They can and have started wars and/or prevented them from being won. They can and have funded both sides (countries at war). They don’t lose, no matter who wins.
The current POTUS was elected by the American people. This was a fluke. He wasn’t supposed to have won. Newsweek magazine had already published an issue of their weekly with “Madame Elected President Hillary” on the cover. They had to retract it. This is not what they (elite) had planned to have happen.
If you don’t like this POTUS? Don’t worry. The longest he will legally be around will be the end of his second elected term (if he is re-elected, and is not assassinated before then…). We all have had to endure waiting through the terms of elected officials we did not like. There are MANY folks who ARE happy that this guy is in the office. He is not being pushed upon us, we have and are voting for him. He has not exercised any powers that are not allowed or granted to his office. If he had he wouldn’t still be there. He is actually the first independent president (not controlled and run by the deep state) we have had in a very long time. I’m sorry if that doesn’t please you.
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and you wonder why your comments were edited on the other site.
The UN IS an ineffective conglomeration of windbags.
Trump IS a pig.but he has one thing going for him. He hates the UN.
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Firstly, Kev, I believe in free speech. So you have license to rant as you please. Secondly, of course I am telling you what to think – every writer is to some degree and – this may come as a surprise: IT WORKS! You would have no thoughts without hearing from others. You don’t know the Bilderbergs, Rockefellers or Trumps. My guess: you have never even been to the UN. People write crap about it and you believe it. So, it is not just me telling you what to think, it is everyone you read and follow.
By the way, I have worked for the UN. UNHCR. Refugee work. Admittedly not the most revealing job but closer to the centre than listening to Rush Limbaugh. When I write, it is to SHARE my thoughts, even my doubts, definitely my fears. When your folks write they are dogmatic and claim insider knowledge of conspiracies. With me you get little but it’s honest. With Rush and clones, you get lies…like the lies from Trump.
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Hey Kevin, I’m a low information type gal like you. I can not stand anyone telling me what to think or having an argument about where I went wrong. It does not take a genius to see the POTUS is above the law. The only way to get the very best kind of government for the people is to cheat. Look what fair elections has got us. Nothing but ungodliness and sin. Our values are in the tank and hard working guys are sick as they see good coal mining jobs taken by liberals. They make me puke.
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Hardworkin’, low-info gals digging #9 coal make for some of the best commenters, Sicko!
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