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Dude, you're freakin awesome. My wife has possession over some of my best weapons and I can't lay them out on the kitchen table. However, she has a second sense when they are being moved - like from the cabinet to be cleaned or to be admired. Seems like anywhere is okay other than the kitchen table.

You mention the power grid, we're covered if it goes down. However, I don't think some of my neighbors are. Some of my neighbors are prepared, most are not. The few that are, we have a pact to continue on. Like you say, as long as everything is cool, things are good. But very few have a plan if things go south. Relying on God if and when things go south. Simplicity is key.

“Simplicity is good. Things that function when nothing else DOES are good.” Words I have lived by all my life not out of some sort of wild fantasy but out of every day of living.

SINCE you brought it up.... I'll share another saying that we try VERY hard to live by...

"Trust The LORD first, and foremost... and then only after that, trust those who trust Him, bearing in mind that we're weak and imperfect and be willing to overlook a lot of that weakness and imperfection in order to live well during hard times."

We're still working toward covering all the bases of simplicity. Next on the list is a well WITH a manual method of getting water OUT of the hole IF the PV system fails! ...should be in place by end of summer. Water is very, VERY important. In fact, we had this little discussion with some friends of ours one evening and we decided that the four most important things... in order...ARE...

1. The LORD. Trust Him FIRST.
2. Water.
3. Clothing/shelter/protection-from-elements
4. Food.

After that, it's debatable and difficult to prove. But those first four are fairly irrefutable...unless of course one is a godless leftist, and then usually the other layers after #1 are SIGNIFICANTLY lacking.

My wife is VERY territorial about the kitchen and dining room! She came home one day and smelled Hoppes #9 in her kitchen... and upon discovering that "somebody" had THOROUGHLY cleaned her AR, she was begrudgingly grateful! :-) She's really very sweet and doesn't ask much by staking out the kitchen and dining room as HER territory! :-)

We've got a decent little 5KW generator that I wired into the distribution system for the house/barn. But I'm going to get some PV installed and some circuits installed from that ASAP.... maybe before well is in. I at least need some D.C. outlets where I can plug in battery chargers and fans and such. :-)

I had a discussion with a guy at work one day about heating with wood...something we've been doing since 2000. He thought we were a bit eccentric. But I explained to him that it was bad stewardship to walk up to a thermostat on the wall and mess with it and potentially and instantly run up a line of credit! Worse than this, neither him nor I or anybody else down here at the "steamy-poo" layer have much of an impact on the price or supply of electricity and piped in gas! He told me I was paranoid because he thought I was afraid that somebody would shut it off! But that's not the case. I'm not concerned that they "will" turn it off. I'm merely concerned that they "CAN" turn it off!

Ah but the woodpile! Now there's a concept! It's something quite contrary to the American way of CREDIT and instant gratification! The woodpile is certainly quantifiable in terms of cash. BUT it's PAID FOR...in advance!...and it's completely QUANTIFIABLE! It's the epitome of the rewards of gradual but steady hard work and PAYING for what we own! ...much unlike the average power company, who is all too willing to set us up with "easy" payment plans. How's that working out now for the mortgage industry?! Hmmmm... yeah...that's what I thought too! I can look out at the woodpile and pretty much know how many months worth we have. The best part is that I don't have near the concern about somebody's ability to take it away. It's physically defensible... at least to a point. If somebody tries to haul it off, they have to deal with US. Not so with piped in gas and electricity! They can shut this off without even being seen in many cases!

I'll feel better when we have our well. We're in a fairly rural place now. Back in 1996 the place had a well water supply (under the house), but the house was treated for termites and they filled it in and capped it and connected the house to county supplied water. But we've checked into it and can have a well punched for livestock use... we just won't tell anybody that we consider ourselves "livestock" too! :-)