Like many young couples disillusioned with the modern way of life, we dreamed of owning our own homestead. A place to stretch out, raise our own food and reconnect with the world around us. Too many years of office work had worn down our resolve, and we wanted something better.
Our initial qualifications were:
-Minimum of 10 acres
-House not visible from the road
-Wood heat & a sufficient woodlot to sustainably harvest for heat
-Land suitable for agriculture
-Within 30 minutes of a small store to acquire the essentials
-Access to water
-No easements, right of ways or snowmobile trails running through the property
-Located in Vermont
After looking at the options in our price range, and determining most of them would better serve humanity and the community by being burned to the ground, we were discouraged.
Patience. Continue to save. Stay the course.
We continued to watch the market, checking real estate sites daily. Over the next few years, our savings grew, along with our budget and we began to see plausible homesteads. During our 3rd summer of shopping, we began to see 8-10 plausible options a month. After initial calling and background research, and that list shrunk to 2-3 actual home tours per month. Each one, not quite right.
Crumbling foundations, floodplains, dumpsites, junkyards. Google earth became our best friend. Scouting the neighborhood via satellite maps and street view saved us a lot of time and mileage.
Finally, we found it. Our dream compound. A former organic farm with a beautiful timber frame home and greenhouse on 20 acres. I called the agent immediately, only to learn they’d just accepted an offer. It was listed for a total of 12 hours. We’d seen it. So close, and now we knew it was out there.
Patience. Stay the course.
A few weeks later, we finally found it. The perfect place. Multiple structures all almost 1000 feet from the road, dense woodland, 30 acres, attached greenhouse, super-insulated, wood heat…but…it was off the grid. Were we ready to move off-grid? While we were both experienced with agriculture and animal husbandry, we knew nothing about solar and wind energy.
What does a charge controller do? Aren’t the batteries expensive? How often does it need maintenance or replacement? Will we be able to have computers? How about modern conveniences like a washer/dryer?
We knew nothing. After a few long nights up mulling it over, we decided to jump in with both feet. What better way to learn than immersion. In hindsight, it was crazy. The first three years off-grid had a steep learning curve and a few near disasters, but we’re loving every minute of it.
We’ve now been here for nearly a decade, and we wouldn’t trade our slice of heaven for anything.
January full moon. So beautiful it looks like daylight, doesn’t it?
Since moving to our forever home, we’ve learned a lot about off-grid living. We’ve since mapped out our full system and made a lot of improvements (click here for tour and specs for our power system).
These days, we both work as independent contractors and earn a full time living off-grid without ever having to leave the property.
In hindsight, there are a number of things we wish we would have budgeted for before the move, but all in all, we never regret making the jump.
If you’d like to hear more about our journey, signup for our newsletter below. Our blog talks about all things self-sufficiency and gives you the benefit of learning from our mistakes before you make the jump.
JETHRO PAUL RAYMER
Can you please sign me up for your newsletter
Ashley Adamant
Sure. Done.
Heidi Villegas
I love this! Our home is situated in a village far from Las Vegas, the nearest city. We wanted so badly to get out of Vegas. We are off grid too! It was a huge leap of faith, but we love it! We are currently searching for our forever retirement home, and for us , being off grid is now a big plus! Good luck to you!
Rita
Where is this community? We are in vegas and want out.
Patsy Mims
I have sighed up please let me know if it took. Thank you so much, Patsy Mims
Ashley Adamant
I’ve added you manually to my mailing list, thanks for checking! It didn’t go through before. I was having some issues with the signup box, but it’s resolved now. Thanks for subscribing!
Darren
Yep like to go on your newsletter please.
Darren
Ashley Adamant
Added! The form above is fixed, so that works too.
Tracey Colgrove
I would like to get your newsletter. Thanks
Martin Longhorn
Thank you for your posts.
Kathy
Please sign me up for your newsletter!
MacKenzie
I just stumbled upon this on Pinterest. I also have an off grid house in central Vermont and your house looks very familiar. I think we might be neighbors!
Ashley Adamant
Neat! Send me an email at Ashley dot Adamant at gmail dot com if you want to connect =)
Tara
Impressive! My husband and I talk about this quite a bit but the thought of actually doing it makes gives me butterflies. I think it’s incredible that you are living so independently. What a dream. Thanks for sharing!
Maria
Really Great Post. Thanks for sharing.
Charles
Hello,
Are there special websites for off grid homes? The big sites like realtor or Zillow don’t recognize off grid as a search option. Do you know any realtors who handle these sort of things? Thanks. Great blog.
Charles
Ashley Adamant
That one’s tricky. I’m just starting to research a post on it, because I get that question a lot. I know mother earth news has a home listing page, and there’s a site called survivalist realty that has a lot of off grid homes. I think there’s also a facebook group for off grid land available. Our find was more or less accidental, but I’m going to put up a post about this soon.
Charles
Hello, if you don’t intend to have animals and don’t intend to heat with wood how many acres do you think is needed for a homestead? Thanks
Ashley Adamant
Without needing wood heat, your land could be quite small. An acre of land, managed intensively, could feed a family. That’s assuming you’re willing to buy in things like oils and flour for cooking. If you want to grow grains and oils things get complicated.
Charles
Thanks so 10 would be more than sufficient?
Ashley Adamant
Yes, totally sufficient, provided the land was usable. We looked at one property that was 50 acres, but it was all north facing ledge, about 2 inches of topsoil over rock. Ten good acres is plenty though.
Charles
Hello,
If you aren’t using wood to heat your house how many acres do you think are needed for a homestead in VT? Thanks.
Charles
I think you answered this already. Sorry!
Charles
So how many acres for a wood lot is necessary to heat an average size home? I never understood how many trees make a cord? Thanks!
Ashley Adamant
It really depends on how good your insulation is, and how you’re heating your home (woodstove inside, external boiler, etc) and what your climate is like. It also depends on the type of wood as some types of trees have more heat energy (BTU’s) in their wood than others.
As a rule of thumb though, in Vermont, the old timers say you can sustainably heat an average home on 10 acres of well managed woodlot. It seems about right to me, but I don’t know for sure.
Charles
Thank you so much! Sorry about the repeat questions, I’m new at this and wasn’t pulling up your answers.
Gary Santee
More and more thinking people are looking at your way of living. My Grandparents in West Virginia lived on 30 acres with ponds, woods, gardens, bees. Wonderful place to grow up. As retiring someday looms ever closer, all of your conversation makes more sense. Thank you for making these options available to more of us!
john
in the process of buying an off the grid house in Walden VT and like to install a greenhouse attached to the front of the house 8′ x 36′ southwest facing and wondering if you have any other tips as I read your article on attached greenhouse pro and cons. Thanks signed up to follow you
Jeremy
This story is beautiful; it is the modern-day adult equivalent to everyone’s childhood dream of “running away from home and living off the land”. It is fantastic that you managed to acquire the agricultural and animal husbandry skills, and are able-bodied and resourceful enough to make a successful run at this lifestyle. Not everyone could.
I liken this to Dick Proenneke’s “Alone in the Wilderness” undertaking in the 1960s, in which he decided to homestead in remote Alaska by himself. He was already a master woodworker and decent outdoorsman and gardener when he set out. It would be naive for the average layperson to try what you, or Mr. Proenneke, did, without acquiring the prerequisite years of skill and knowledge.
Thanks for opening up this window into your world, for those of us who dream but don’t yet have (or may never acquire) all the fundamental skills and abilities to experience it for ourselves.
Cheers.