OFFGRID DAILY LIVING

In our offgrid daily living we try to remember to give thanks that we are allowed to live in the desert. We get up in the morning and go outside to have our coffee.

We look up to see the sun rising over the mountain. The birds are all making different sounds. There is a riparian reserve not far from us. There are hundreds of different species of birds.

We hear our neighbors mule as though she were right by us. The free range cattle are on the move grazing over the land.

The lizards scurry over the dry clay ground, looking for cover because we have disturbed them. The bees, butterflies and other insects hover over the small pools of water left on top of the clay soil from watering the newly planted trees and plants. Well at least the ones that the jack rabbits didn't eat and the pack rats didn't dig up over night.

My off the grid morning began with this washing machine. It is a James Hand washer with a hand ringer that I bought used on eBay!

It actually works quite well, but after three months I was over it.

Being thankful was getting difficult. That handle that sticks up is how you agitate the clothes...back and forth...We were so dirty from building the house the clothes were hard to get clean. I ended up using more water because I had to wash and rinse so many times. The wash water went on my trees.

My offgrid daily living just got easier. We did some research and found a front loader 3.2 capacity that was only 10 amps. It isn't huge but it only uses 20 gal. of water and senses the capacity and adjusts the water.

We didn't bother setting up the hot water feed. We don't use it. It still takes time to do the laundry, but oh how happy I was and still am to have this washer. The wash water now goes into a 30 gallon bucket then to water the trees. Eventually the washer will go into the shed.

We still have to use the gas generator to run the washing machine as we do not have enough solar. The generator charges the batteries when I do laundry.

When I do use the gas generator to do laundry, I try to schedule other things that take more electricity such as the vacuum, using my power tools or the air compressor.


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