The Great Off Grid Ozark Adventure: part 4

Note: This content was written out long before it was published here on the blog. So although this post is being published in early 2025, it was written several months ago. If you’re just finding this post, I recommend starting with part one here to get more background.

We returned home from our trip and spent the next few weeks trying to figure out all the legal details of buying property in another state and more especially, the easement. We were not impressed by the very casual way things were handled so there was a lot of back to get the agreement in a good place. Luckily, Mary has a knack for details and caught some things that were not right.

Our trip had cost a lot more between the additional gas, and expensive auto repairs including a tow truck at one point. In addition to this, we had some challenges in both businesses that resulted in a pay cut for me. If you’ve run a small business, you know that when things go south, you’re the first to take the hit. Additionally, we now had a 2nd mortgage to pay on. Things got tight. That fall and winter were quite a challenge for us but things began to look a little better.

In the meantime, Mary got a phone call from someone that bought the property next to ours. They would also be using the same easement road and were legally liable for 50% of the cost to put in the easement road. They also have to drive through the edge of our property to get to their own, which, unfortunately is on the other side of our property from where the easement comes in. I think, had we realized the full weight of that, we would have worked on a different solution. The existing easement road that is not in good shape, puts them a lot closer to their property and they only have to drive through the corner of ours. However, access to that ends July 1st.

The people that bought that property live down the road. They have a lot of animals on the 5 acres where they live so they bought the 30 acres next to us to put some of their animals on and their son will be living there as well. They were worried that maybe we were rich people coming from California and wanted a road for our Maserati. That was a big NO on all accounts! However, we will be living there and will be coming and going often and want a decent road that isn’t going to destroy our vehicles or wash out every time it rains.

As time drew on, we knew we’d need to find our way out there and start working on this road project. We have a time limit, so while funds are limited, time is even more limited. I tried getting our new neighbor on the phone to discuss details but she wouldn’t reply to me. Finally, I told her that we are coming to work on the road and that they are liable for half the cost so if they want any input, to call me back or I’d just send them the bill. She called in the next few minutes. According to them, the guy that sold them the property said that we were just going to take care of the cost of the road. That was the first I’d heard that! However, the legal agreement they signed was that they were liable for half the responsibility. They gave us the usual story of how they can’t afford that right now, but they offered to let us park our trailer at their property and they would feed us. Really, they are in a better financial situation than we are, but we’re making it work. That’s what we do! With or without them, we need access to our land so we accepted their offer and planned our trip. Our trip started right off with more car problems! Luckily, it happened before we were out of town and my brother was able to help us. In the end, it was just a broken wiring harness and was easily fixed. The car worked well for the rest of the trip and we had our tax return to pay for the additional gas to haul the trailer this time. The rest of the drive went well enough but we were very tired and hadn’t slept well.

We arrived at the address the new neighbors sent us. They opened the gate to their property to let us in and we were immediately overwhelmed by a pack of dogs. I don’t remember how many, but there were like 15 dogs. Most were friendly but several were not. They had tons of farm animals that were jam packed in to this small area. I am happy to live around farm animals, but it was overwhelming to have so many everywhere and most were not contained in separate pens but were free roaming. Their property was drastically over grazed and there was mud, and all kinds of poop everywhere. They had to contain certain dogs every time we got out of the trailer, our shoes were covered in poo-muck all the time, and they had to let us in and out of the gate anytime we wanted to leave so that their animals wouldn’t get out. It was basically a strange form of captivity for us. They were friendly and invited us to eat with them but that was also challenging for reasons I won’t go into here. After several days of this, it was beginning to get very difficult. We had to come/go on their terms, and we also had to eat on their terms. Needless to say, we were eager to get onto our own property! They were kind to us, but their demeanor shifted when we told them that we were not just going to pay for their road.

A few days later we finally met the lady whose property we have to drive through to get to ours. She was very nice and said she thought we could get our trailer up the road since they had pulled a tiny home up it for her son. So we decided to go for it and had no problems. It was so freeing to be on our own property!

Our property has a wet weather creek running through the middle. There is a pool that has water almost year round where water drips out of the rocks. It’s very peaceful there and one of the favorite spots.

The next task was to start the road work! I was really excited for this part although I’ve never built a road before. The three main challenges were that 1. we didn’t have phone service so arraigning for the equipment rentals, culverts, and rock were difficult, 2. the excavator I rented was only available for one day, and 3. the neighbors who were supposed to be helping were, at this point mostly fighting against us. As we met other neighbors, it turns out that we ended up blindly walking into a situation where we were being forced to work with the most difficult people in the neighborhood. That isn’t what we were hoping for. Otherwise, the work on the road went pretty well, all things considered. It isn’t finished, but it at least resembles a road now and I am less concerned about getting it driveable by July.

The first part of our stay was tense. The feeling of being captive by the neighbors was heavy and tainted everything. Once we got to our own property, things started to change. We were able to set up a little camp site deep in our property in a gorgeous clearing with grass. It was a little colder there, but protected from wind. There were pretty song birds singing every morning and we were free to come and go as we pleased. During this time, we got a lot of work done on our road, but also just on our property. We got to explore and get to know it better, identify some plants, visit with other neighbors and actually develop some friendships with some of them, plant some things that we brought from home, and even cook with some of the wild foods that were growing on our property!

During this time we had our first taste of off grid living. Eventually, we’ll have better systems up and in place so it won’t be so much like camping. However, this trip was very educational for us and showed us where the chinks are in our off grid plans are and what systems we need to get in place. We have a portable power station and found that as huge as it is, it actually drains fairly quickly and the solar panels that came with it are very lacking. Especially since we had cloudy weather for most of the time we were there.

We found that even on days when it doesn’t rain, the dew on the ground is so wet that your shoes get soaked right away and things just don’t dry out as quickly as they do here in the dry west! It’s good, because plants don’t dry up and shrivel so easily, but we found that we need to have systems in place for drying things when it isn’t really sunny and anything you don’t want wet needs to be put away before dark.

We have a little off grid laundry set up. It works, but it takes a lot longer and requires more man attention. We did laundry on a sunny day and decided to use hot water to get better results. I had chopped up a thorny locust tree that had been cut down and I wanted to burn it so we put a kettle on the fire to heat up water. We set up a system of getting water from the creek, heating some of it on the fire, keeping the fire going, turning the manual washing machine, ringing out, rinsing, and ringing out again through the roller ringer, and hanging up the washed clothes. We found it worked well for clothes, but not for larger things like blankets. I can see that it will be fine if we keep up on it, but if we get behind then it will be overwhelming to catch up on.

There are other systems that we’ll need to set up including a rainwater catchment system. But I think the week and a half of off grid living taught me that it’s all about systems and being flexible. The systems sometimes fail, and when they do. You roll with it and adjust your plans. When something unexpected drains all the power, and the next two days are cloudy, you find ways to conserve power. If you need to do something that requires more power, you do it on a sunny day! Ultimately, we plan to invest in more and better systems to adjust, but starting small and dealing with the challenges gives us the education we need to make more intelligent investments.
While it came with its challenges, I found that we all worked together more as a team. Laundry, meals, cleaning, even getting a setup for bathing, was a family effort and our kids were excited to help and appreciated having clean clothes, warm food, and a bath more than they ever have! Honestly, the challenges of living off grid without adequate systems in place was much easier to deal with than those of being reliant on other people’s systems for basic necessities. That part of our trip was quite therapeutic for me and helped me recover from the stresses of life. I don’t pretend that it’s all going to be rainbows and butterflies, but I do look forward to a way of life where I am more connected to nature, it’s systems, and God.

To be continued…