5 Years In the Making

How our off grid journey has evolved

It has been well over a year since updating our blog. Things have changed and sharing simply wasn't a priority.

Thinking back on how this journey was expected to go and how it has gone felt like failure. There have been many conversations discussing different possibilities. Talks with people who had taken similar leaps and found them equally difficult were encouraging.

But money has become a real issue. How we thought that we could possibly survive the remainder of our lives on so little was our biggest error. Now in debt and with a limited income the build has become impossible. It feels like complaining and may come across as such. But more so it feels like the shame of failure. It is very risky to share failure but if risks are not taken and vulnerability shown, real joy cannot be experienced. Thanks Brene Brown for that insight.

For this reason this post is being written.

It was wonderful having time and money for the first couple of years, then the money slowly disappeared and although we had some of the materials needed for the build the lack of locally available materials and weather made the first summer a wash. The materials we had prepared that first year were not able to be used the second summer and without the equipment we hired the first year we could not make further use of them. Although we were optimistic that we could recover, once again the lack of local materials along with the physical labour needed to make what we did have on hand workable become a hurdle we could not overcome. The joys of being closer to 60 than 50.

Our plans now are to slowly build onto and add to the structures we already have on hand. A room and roof added to the trailer, another greenhouse, a sauna and a couple of additional storage buildings. This will take time and require working for additional money (all suggestions/ideas welcome)  but we are comfortable with this prospect. These things will make living off grid here, in the bush of Northern Ontario, a life we can be comfortable in for the remainder of our years. As our dear friend Cam Mather said 'Doing it from this magic place always made it worthwhile'. We hope you will continue to follow along for the ride. Tricia is promising to do more sharing here as she has more social media time available having given up Facebook.

Living in the bush in isolation is not easy. Moving to a community where you know no one is not easy. Being in our fifties (Tricia will celebrate 60 on November 19th) and working on the life of our dreams is not easy. But without the attempt we would have drowned in the life we were living and that simply was not an option. What are you committed to struggling through?

If you have read this far we are very grateful. While we have shared our struggles in this post it seems appropriate to also share that in order to supplement our income we have a distributorship with Young Living Essential Oils. We have been members for over 7 years and have found so many benefits with having these oils in our home as well as sharing them with friends and family. Tricia will begin to post more about how we are using essential oils as our first line of defence in staying  healthy. Most recently we have used them with great success with our 13 year old Tono, a Husky, Wolf, Akita mix, to help out with his stiffness and hair loss. You can purchase online, worldwide through the Young Living website,. Using our id of 1284131 when finalizing your purchase will be helping us financially, should you have that interest. If you are interested in purchasing essential oils or have questions we would be thrilled to help you out. You can reach us through our Facebook page, leaving a comment here or email us directly using northerndirtbags at gmail dot com. Your support of our blog and any help with our income is always greatly appreciated.

Now it's time to attack the never ending to do list and keep our dreams alive.

Edited to add - Hitting PUBLISH on this post was extremely difficult. TB