7 Things I Learned Living Without Electricity For A Year

I spent one year living on a mountain in a cabin with no electricity (more on why in a future post). Here’s what I learned.

Prioritize the daylight hours

When you can’t come back to your house at night and flip on a light, You become much more aware of your dependency on following the patterns of the sun. In the summer, it’s not as big of a deal, but when you’re in the dead of winter and the sun is only up for 9-10 hours, it becomes incredibly important to prioritize what you do while you have light. If you had plans to come home from working and make an elaborate meal, you might reconsider when you have only a propane lantern or a flashlight to do so.

That being said:

You can do more than you think with no light

After the first month or so of walking into a dark room and desperately flopping your hand around on the wall, looking for a light switch that’s not there, you start to realize how much can be done without light. I can’t tell you how many books I read, desperately leaning towards a window to get some moonlight. Or dishes I washed with nothing but a dim glow from the stars outside. Your eyes start to adjust to not being able to see, and as long as someone doesn’t shine a flashlight right in your face, you can accomplish most everyday tasks.

 

Windows are life

Not only are they the only good source of light inside your house, they’re also the gateway to a heavenly thing called airflow. In the summer months, without air conditioning, if you don’t have windows you can open, you will be cooked alive. The one plus is that you are gone most of the day doing work, so you are mainly at the house after the sun has ended its attack on the house.

Always have a flashlight on you.

Whether you’re coming home from a long day of work or you hear a sound outside your cabin at night, it’s imperative to have a light on you. Picture this: After working from sun-up to sun-down, cutting down trees, chopping and loading wood, etc. you come home and it’s pitch black in your cabin. It’s freezing inside because it’s 10 degrees outside and you haven’t stoked your stove since you left this morning. The last thing you want to do is go around looking for a flashlight in the dark. Always have one with you. And always know exactly where several are in the cabin.

Chop wood before the Winter

The longer you push off chopping your wood, the more miserable you will be. Henry Ford had it right when he said “chop your own wood and it will warm you twice,” but I can tell you from personal experience, it is much more pleasant to chop wood on a nice Fall day vs a 15-degree winter day with a wind chill of 0. I liked to have at least a months worth of wood chopped at a time so that I didn’t have to constantly be afraid of freezing to death if a blizzard came.

There are no quick meals

There’s no “pop it in the microwave real quick” when you have no electricity. You either are making a PB&J, or you’re going to be getting some pots and pans out. You must think ahead so that you are not caught without a meal planned when you come home. When you come back from a long day and you have no light, nothing planned, and no quick meals able to be made, it’s very easy to get in the habit of skipping meals. It’s imperative that you plan what you are going to do so that you can make it as easy as possible on your future self. Think ahead and plan.

Technology doesn’t matter as much as you think it does.

While I kept my phone on me at most times, it only served as a flashlight. There was absolutely no service on the mountain where I lived, so if my phone was on, I kept it on both airplane mode and low power mode at all times. I was able to go to a place with wifi about once a week, and this was a short time that mostly consisted of checking in with family and friends. The first week or two this was challenging, but you’d be surprised how fast we adapt to no technology.

After a month, I hardly noticed. You learn to communicate what you need to when you see people. You plan ahead what’s going to happen instead of saying “we’ll be in touch.” Everything seems more intentional. If you want to do something with someone, you go and ask them about doing it. Maybe my favorite part of it, no one is on their phone when you are together.

Without the luxury of electricity, I learned countless things that cannot be put into any single category. The simplicity of life is incredible and even though it requires a greater amount of work, and sometimes pain, it provides a great opportunity to get the most out of life and nature. To learn skills and use them to their full potential.

While living without electricity isn’t for everyone, and I certainly do enjoy having a light when trying to work late at night, I highly recommend finding time to get separated from the lights and technology of the busy world we live in. Even for a week. It allows you to take a step back and gain a better perspective on the things we do every day. To evaluate with a clear mind what things are truly important for you to do.

Life might seem to be constantly changing and getting busier and busier, but nature’s still doing the same thing it’s always done, and by golly, it’s a beautiful thing.