free association

Each state has roughly 3 months of pure hell, so please pick your poison properly. Do you prefer a gloomy cocktail of darkness, multiple blizzards, leftover chili, baileys, and black ice or vastly acute sunshine torching your already sunburned face like an angry raging bull, topped with heat stroke, fatigue, “it’s too hot to eat anything but I’ll take some iced vodka” and insanity? I have lived in both types of climates and each concoction has made me feel like I was a direct threat to society. So what do I do? As soon as the bloody 3 months begin (whether I am living in the hot or the cold at the time), I desperately start applying to every single out-of-state job that I come across.  

Currently, in the valley of the devilish sun, summer hibernation includes tightly shut blinds, turning the AC down to as cool as you can afford, putting a gigantic ice pack on your head in hopes that the ice will just permanently stick to your face, and repeatedly watching cheesy 90s hits on Netflix (oh, and of course that vodka to make those 90s movies appear deep and meaningful).  I want to get the hell out, but my idiot rational brain will not stop knocking some sense into me….."this heat is temporary.......you chose this......if you leave, you will be slapped in the face with a blizzard......you need some stability in your life for geeze sakes.”

So here I am, trying to accept, become one with, appreciate, not criticize, my current 115 degree desert location. And luckily for me, we are “accepting” with class (see post below as we have temporarily changed off-grid locations). I have much gratitude for the fact that we just relaxed on massive leather couches, used an unlimited supply of COLD solar powered AC, and watched the magical Hugo on the HD big screen. As just a couple of months ago, we were watching the same movie on the small screen in the small box on our tiny bed, and got attacked by the strange smell of urine and bleach (aka: ammonia). Our fridge had broken, the fumes were dangerous, and we had to set a tent up outside and sleep with the scorpions and coyotes.

Anyhow, all of this rubbish filled chitter-chatter ultimately just shines some light on our current journey of "living off the grid with amenities". It goes like this: (a) Will we attempt to build our own modest off-grid pad here in the ol’ Sonoran, (b) will we be frantically sprinting back to the cemented city to purchase a house and be right smack on the grid all over again, or (c) will we move out of state? Only time shall tell and that so called time is always playing tricks on me……

Sidenote: Adam is currently out of blog commission, as he broke his wrist so I will unfortunately be the only one coloring our experiences for a bit….. 

A man and his land

Here are some older pictures of the beginning of our relationship with our land….. we had so much help from family and friends.....     

Plotting the fence

Help from all ages :)

 

Working hard

                                  

                                                  

Singing about the progress and the hope

we had no idea what we were in for :)

 ~JULSEY~