Dear Ms. Wolfe,
Thank you for writing your wonderful article Learning To Love The High Desert in this month’s issue of Backwoods Home Magazine (Issue #120). Good work – and welcome to the only culture on Earth that you can join simply by proving that you can join it! You are now a Desert Rat, and there really is no going back. Be warned: even if you leave physically, you will never be able to leave in spirit. You will pine in your soul for the vast, lonely spaces of the High Desert until, like an irresistible magnet, it draws you back into its depths.
There are a few things you should know, however. Perhaps you already know them. I rather think you do. If not, please allow me the presumptuousness of being the one to tell you about them, as certain concepts will be of great comfort to you in your new life as a Desert Rat.
In the desert you really can put lipstick on a pig. By which I mean a doublewide doesn’t have to stay a doublewide for very long. Mine started out as a battered castoff that I bought for $1500 in Reno, then had moved to my ranch for another $1000. I gutted it, painted it, re-floored it, and built a mudroom/ porch along the front of it. I added a wood-burning stove, a swamp cooler, spinning vents, and propane heating (well, propane everything, to be honest). Now my wife, child, and our various pets live quite comfortably inside. It’s truly ours in every way, and I love it infinitely more than the home we used to have in San Francisco.
Don’t sweat not having a “stick home.” You can always do the same.
Off-grid power is a journey, not a destination. You will go though “phases” with your off-grid power project as you experiment with various things. It’s a never-ending attempt to figure out what works for you which changes as new technology comes along or you scrape together more cash. I use a combination of solar panels, windmills, and generators myself. My inverter/battery bank setup is a pretty simple one… too simple, to be honest. So that will probably be the next stop of my journey: buying/begging/trading for a more sophisticated system. You folks will go through your own phases as well.
A practical suggestion: new tech makes old tech a lot cheaper. My three Air-X windmills are pretty lame when compared to the nifty new wind spires that are now on the market. They were also one tenth of the price, and work quite well.
The winter will tell you a lot. Actually, it will tell you whether or not you are truly a Desert Rat. A true Desert Rat takes perverse pleasure in the Siberia-like winters of the Inner Mountain West. It separates the men from the boys and the women from the girls. It makes the tourists go away. It cleanses the dusty land. It is starkly, harshly beautiful as well.
It also freezes pipes and 55-gallon drums solid. So consider moving the barrels from that picture on page 81 inside for the winter and make sure your pipes are buried as far down as possible. Or you could do what we do: use easily defrosted hoses instead of pipes. And, while we’re on the subject of water, consider a filtration system for your well instead of hauling water in. A simple but effective one can be made out a 55-gallon drum, clean sand, and crushed charcoal.
You are now truly free. The very lines that provided your old home with power were also designed to hold you down. Living in the desert can be a delightful exercise in severing the lines that tie you to The System (Any system, really. Take your pick.). Your fellow citizens can be easily controlled by their dependency on the power grid, sewer system, water lines, grocery stores, and even gun stores. Your decision to walk away from these things and to recreate the basic structures of society on your own is the only revolution that is now genuinely practical: if the collective cannot control the means of distribution to the individual, the collective cannot control the individual.
Of course, like off-grid power this is a journey, not a destination.
In conclusion, I hope you enjoy your new lifestyle. I know I enjoy mine, and do not miss my old life as a San Franciscan. If you give the desert a chance you will not miss Oregon (though you may miss friends and family, of course). And remember this always: the lower the population density, the greater the personal freedom.
Sincerely,
Jason S. Walters
