Living Off the Grid #1

Here is the foot of the stairs that I walked down every morning while in New Zealand. Our son-in-law, Ken Smith, is a sculptor. He built the studio, steps and cottage all by himself. I hope you'll get a sense of how pleasing the staircase is. The sculpture at the bottom is a bonus.

Yes, I was quite happy to run up and down these many times a day! An easy way to keep fit.

So what does living off the grid feel like? For me, there was a gentleness about it, perhaps a feeling of being less exploitative. Certainly I became even more aware then usual of the weather -- especially as we relied on the rain for the house and garden water supply.

The North and South islands that make up New Zealand attract clouds. (already mentioned, I know.) So the constant questions were: Will there be enough rain to keep the storage tanks filled, and will we get enough sunshine today to provide for our hot water 'needs'? The answer to both was... mostly. Okay, you don't have to shower absolutely every day, but it is best to have hot water for washing up.  So then we'd have to boil a kettle on the gas stove. And every day, remember to turn the pump on and then off so that the hot water circulated between the studio and the cottage.

Too many dry and sunny days made us more aware of how much water we were using and how much we ran the tap. Having lived with water shortages in South Africa, I used to be good with that. But over the years in North America I've slipped into the habit of letting taps run (for rinsing plates and so on) without much thought. Early on in our visit, my elder grandson was doing the drying of dishes while I washed. He politely leaned over and shut off the tap. That was my wake-up call, and I quickly put the plug in the other side of the double sink.

Fortunately, we didn't run out.

Here's our younger grandson keeping the flowers alive. This bed was overflowing with flowers by the time we left.

One totally scary aspect of living off the grid -- the electricity wasn't strong enough for me to use a hair dryer. Yikes! I'll show and tell you how I managed ze hair when I blog on Monday. Enjoy the weekend!