Technology?

I received the nicest comment from Crystal, here.  She had some questions that I thought I might answer in this post.  By the way, we LOVE comments, leave as many as you want, ask any questions you would like, we will try our best to answer them. 

The first question Crystal asked was about continued blogging without electricity.  There are several options out there, from solar panels to generators to using the vans' battery.  For now we will use a small solar panel to charge our cell phone and laptop.  We are also looking into human generated power as a way to charge things, and keep in shape!

We definitely will restrict our computer time, the whole point of this move is to "go back in time" and live a simpler life.  We are keeping the blog going to keep a record of our adventure as well as keep our family informed of our doings, and at some point hopefully to help others who wish to live a simpler life.

Our plan so far is to update once a week.  That will be the only time the computer is used, the exception might be if we need farm animal information asap and can not find it in a book we own or by talking with friends and neighbors.  We hope to support our local merchants and purchase items close to home, but if we can't find what we need we are not opposed to buying online. 

The other question Crystal had was about staying up on current events.  While we don't desire to live in a bubble with our heads in the sand, we also feel a lot of "news" out there is unimportant and useless.  We will get the local paper and I think if there is anything huge such as the Japan earthquake or an event like 9/11 my mom, who I will talk to daily, will let us know and we can fire up the laptop and take a look.  But other than that we will be pretty busy keeping up on the farms current events!!

Things are changing around here very quickly, we have begun painting the house and have just about finished packing all but clothes and a few toys.  We have gotten rid of pounds and pounds of, well junk!!  I have whittled down every ones clothes to a manageable amount, toys have been sharply reduced and mom and dad's large book collection is smaller too!  Basically we found we own too much stuff!  It really is crazy, I feel almost embarrassed by all of it.  We will be having a yard sale in April, and the rest of what we don't absolutely have to have we will give away. Last week we unplugged the wii and cancelled our netflix.  The younger boys were sure their lives were coming to an end, but believe it or not there has been much less fighting and lots more playing, outside with "their bodies" as they say.  It's so nice not to have to police the computer and wii times, making sure everyone gets a fair turn and that nobody plays too much, what a pain that was, YEAH, I don't have to do that any more!!  It just hit me YIPPEE!!



Martin houses on the farm



So as you can see things are very busy here, life is changing everyday!