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Off the Grid
By Shanna Carlile
Three miles up a steep and bumpy road in a small valley thick with deer, on forty rugged and secluded acres in Humboldt County (California) is our home and little piece of heaven we call Woodlum Mountain.
Howdy folks, call me Blu. I’ve been accused of being a cross between Laura Ingels and David Bowie. I’m 28, nearly a senior citizen in CF society! It’s me, my mountain man, Abner, our 2-year-old miracle daughter, Sage, and my crazy traveling sister, Tree, who also has CF. Some of our more adventurous family and fiends frequent the homestead and help out, too.
Life here is a bit different. We live “off the grid”. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it means that we have no access to public utilities, nor desire to have them. It may seem primative but our basic needs are satisfied. We utilize a propane fridge and stove, camp lantern for lighting and woodstove for heat. In the summer we go to the swimmin’ hole at the river to cool off. A car battery powers my nebulized treatments. Our water is gravity fed from a natural spring nto our humble hunting cabin.
We must confront our waste daily and dispose of it in and environmentally friendly and practical manner. Recycling is key to our way of life. We reuse our greywater in a filtrating marsh which has water-loving plants growing in it. A composting toilet system utilizes the proper amount of sawdust and straw mixed with our poo – I mean fecal matter – to create usable fertilizer after a two-year decomposition period. It is both safe and water conserving. Water can be scarce in an arid summer.
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