Now that we have 48+ acres we need to decide where to put our cabin. Ideally we would like to be 1600' in, completely secluded in the middle of our land, but a driveway is a big expense so we need to look closer to the existing driveway for now. Our cabin will have wooden skis on the bottom so we can pull it further into the woods later on. We found a trail and partial clearing in the first portion of our land where there is already a partial driveway; it seemed like the perfect spot to put our cabin.

The trail and clearing gave us some space but we will need more, so my husband and his friends got to work cutting down just enough trees for our house, garden and animals.

       Below is our back yard with plenty of space for our garden, animals and a play area for the kids.

When the snow cleared we put in a 120'x6' dog fence for our Beagles Mario and Luigi.

Below is the view from the driveway, if you look close you can see the dog fence on the left side.

Cutting everything down was the easy part, now we need to get all the trees limed, logged and organized into piles.

Finding this bright green moss made cleaning up even more fun and interesting for the kids.

 After a few days we cleared most of the logs from the front portion of our lot. The tedious and seemingly never ending task is starting to pay off!

  Hello my name is Jenn I am a Momma of 4, I have a 12yr old step son Evan, 7yr old son Gavin, 7yr old step daughter Sophie and our newest addition Eliona is only 6mo old. This is the story of our family’s ongoing journey to become completely off grid and self-sufficient.

  I spent my life working to become as independent as possible, but when my son was diagnosed with autism at the age of 3, I realized that my 40-80hr week jobs were negatively affecting the most important part of my life and it was still a struggle to make ends meet. I had to reexamine what was important in my life and make a big change, so I set out on a goal to have my own business specializing in wedding and birthday cakes.

  Fast forward 4yrs, I married my best friend, developed a good business, decided to slow down business to have more time at home, gave birth to a beautiful little girl, and now we are faced with another life changing decision, we have had a beautiful 3 story home that sits on 2 acres for 2yrs but our mortgage payments have gone up, our income has dropped slightly and our expenses have gone up.

  We looked at our options and tried to weigh the pros and cons, in the end we decided to take a route less traveled, we have decided to move off grid and start a journey to total self-sufficiency.  My husband Jeff and I had both experienced some level of off grid life in our childhood but  as we grew up we became increasingly consumed with the crazy notion that the only way to become successful was to have a full time job and buy as much as possible so we could keep up with the Jones’s.

  It was only when we were forced to make a big change that we realized there was a better way and it was actually possible. Too many times we had looked at becoming more self-sufficient with a garden and some chickens but it seemed an impossible feat to become completely off grid. We found 48+ acres in Central Maine within 20 minutes from my husband’s work, 5 minutes from a great school for the kids, we found an Amish community close to us that is building a small cabin for us and we will be saving over $1,000/month on our mortgage!

  We know that our journey will take lots of hard work but I find the harder a goal is to reach the better the reward once you get there; we have started work on our land, by the end of this summer we will be living there full time with solar for our power successfully living completely off grid, our end goal is to be completely self-sufficient within 5yrs. Please keep track of our progress on here as I show you how to live the simple life of hard work long hours and tons of quality family time, I hope that our story can help to inspire more people to take the jump to live off grid and complete self-sufficiency.