NARRATIVE BY KARENLEE SPENCER In September 1984, my husband, Chuck, and I embarked upon a journey that was to take us to unexplored territory We made a conscious decision to live "off the grid," since the property which Chuck family had purchased was a forested, unspoiled piece of land in east-central Illinois that did not have access to water, electricity, or gas. A Portion of the 136 acres (30 or so) had been farmed at one time, but the remainder of the property was heavily wooded. The terrain posed challenges as well. Quite hilly by Illinois standards, the ground marks the spot where glaciers stopped and spilled their remains many thousands of years ago. "Radiometric dating of wood and soil samples indicates that the Wisconsin glacier reached Illinois about 30, 000 years ago and spread out to its maxi. mum extent" (180 miles south of Chicago in central Illinois) about 23, 000 years ago (Hansel and Johnson 1992, p. 18). Chuck had started clearing 30 or so acres of the densely overgrown and uninhabitable ground that had been farmed many years earlier. He built a one-room cabin, using a gasoline powered generator to power his building tools, installed a very basic box stove for heating the place, used a Coleman two burner propane cook stove for food preparation, and a Coleman cooler with ice from the closest town, Charleston, Illinois. I feel that I brought a wealth of knowledge about gardening, having been an active participant in my family's backyard plot since childhood. I was not a complete stranger to the so-called 'primitive way of life, " and I spent a lot of time as a child and adolescent at some of the most archaic campgrounds in the Midwest and West. However, I was not prepared to actually live this way, and I was certainly not prepared to live without a commode of any sort. Eventually, I initiated the construction of an outhouse that served our family well for many years. Chuck and I built a greenhouse during our first winter together. Using recycled materials as much as possible, we were able to utilize operable crank-out windows salvaged from an area school and salvaged woods from salvaged barns to build the greenhouse. The south facing half the roof was constructed of corrugated fiberglass sheets we purchased from a distributor in St. Louis, Missouri. Simple band-built wooden shelves lined the north wall, while a low bench lined the entire south window wall of the structure. The floor was (and is still to this day) pea gravel. We invested in stove number two, a barrel stove which held a fire for almost 24 hours in the crucial early spring months when seedlings needed extra warmth in this Zone 5 region. We continued to live quite simply as we explored the possibilities of making a living off the land. We, also cultivated hard-shelled gourds and almost 50 different types of flowers and herbs for drying. We began painting the gourds and selling them at fine, juried craft shows throughout the Midwest. We harvested grapevine and attached the dried flowers and herbs, along with many types of wild plants that were harvested from the property. Still without running water and committed to organic farming, there were many difficult periods for us. We persisted, buying a tank and a pump. Hauling waterfront town was the only answer at the time. We also hauled horse manure from the county fairgrounds, using the bucket on the little Ford tractor to turn the pile, thus creating a nutrient rich plant food for our ever expanding gardens. I gave birth to two children, a daughter in 1989, and a son in 1994. Chuck and I had been interested in solar power for years and had been. reading the literature voraciously. We had also dreamed of building a bigger house and turning our existing cabin into a studio for our blossoming art business. While discussing our needs, wants, and wishes, we calculated the cost of materials. Knowing we would do all of the labor ourselves, Chuck drafted a plan in 1994 for a 24' x 32' two story timber frame house, to be built on stilts, or posts, and powered completely by the sun.
