We've Come A Long Way Baby !

Back in 2011, while training for Iditarod 2012, we were living "Off Grid".  We had "old Faithful", our generator and lanterns.  We would turn on the generator for a short time in the morning and in the evening.  While running, we would draw water for the dogs, shower,do dishes.and wash clothes.  We had no dryer, so we would hang our clothes to dry (yes, bedding and towels too).   

                                       

We heated our home with a drip stove.  It was either on or off with not a whole lot of control heat wise.  Our thermostat was our window and door.   To turn the heat down, we would open the sliding door a bit and/or open the window in the living room.  The nice thing was that it didn't take electricity to run and it allowed us to be gone on long training runs without risking freezing our pipes...no need to stoke the fire.

Electricity !

Summer 2012, Bob dug the trench and ran power to the house.  I will never forget our first "Plug In"....a programmable coffee pot. I was in hog heaven !  

Life here in Willow has been a work in progress...with more improvements each year.  This year we have made 4 major improvements.  First was replacing the drip stove with a Toyo Stove.  It is programmable and has a thermostat and far more energy and cost effective

Then we added a water system which takes the iron out.  We actually have clear running water and our sinks and shower are no longer orange and our clothing doesn't become all stained and ugly.  I can wear white and wash it and it is still white !  

We also bought and installed a dryer.   Oh, Happy Day !   Can't believe the time saving here.  So nice to have most of our laundry washed and dried in just over an hour.  We still hang dry most of our wool socks and some fleece.  My Woolx clothing goes right in the dryer and doesn't shrink !  

While Bob was in Iowa, I added upper cabinets to our kitchen.  Bye Bye open shelves !  Sure will keep our dishes much cleaner.  The nice thing too, is that it more than tripled our storage capacity.  

Well, we are saying goodbye to 2014 with great feelings of accomplishment.  

We are looking forward to all that 2015 has to offer !