About Us

Meet Grey

I’ve always loved nature. I grew up playing Indian in my backyard and exploring a little bit of wooded land not far from my home. I’m not a “crazy” treehugger – I’m willing to do my part, and support a cause, but you won’t see me screaming with a mob outside the White House. Nature is quiet, and I can help nature in my own quiet way.

I’m constantly awed by nature, by the balance of all creation that we humans like to play with and consequently mess up. Now as the green movement is growing, you see a lot of stories about the environment, and a lot of bandwagon jumpers and corporations with no true interest in the environment jumping in touting their “green products.”

None of that makes sense to me. It’s still consumerism, it’s still creating waste with its planned obsolescence, and in the end, very little of it helps the environment a whit.

My frustration with consumerism is probably my biggest environmental complaint.

I’m the kid that in school loved the research paper assignment. I eagerly went to the library and checked out so many books with even a scrap of information on the topic that my bookbag was stuffed and my arms were loaded with every book I could carry. While other kids were telling how they managed to stretch one page of writing into two, I was struggling to keep the paper under twenty pages. I still love research, only now I am involved in the biggest research project of my life: learning how to get off the grid as much as possible, with the least impact on the environment AND my wallet.

This blog will document what I learn. I’m happy to share – not everyone has the time to hunt all this down. I’m not only trying to help the trees I so love, but I want to do it in ways other people can follow – whether their frugality is tree-hugger or budget driven, they go hand in hand.

Meet The Other Half

For most all of my adult life I have been fascinated with the thought of being completely self- sufficient in all aspects of life. Whether it be dependency on the grocery industry for sufficient nutrition, the utility company for clean water, electrical energy dependency to heat and cool our home, or America’s insatiable appetite for foreign oil as a means for transportation, it’s always discontented me to know that I am but a small cog in the corporate machine of big business capitalism. A close friend of mine who makes very good money always says to me that he’s convinced he will simply work until he dies, and that there is no other desirable outcome to be reached in our lifetime.

While I am aware that it is truly impossible to completely escape taxes, or consumerism, I’m not satisfied with that outcome, and am currently researching ways that I can free myself from the shackles of this capitalist entrapment.

In the coming weeks and months, my wife and I are going to start addressing some of the research we uncover on these very topics, and ways we can truly make a difference not only for our own lives, but for a better future for our environment and future generations. Feel free to read, comment, or add to the discussion, as we do not profess to be experts on any of the following topics, but merely ‘blind mice’ searching for a scrap of free cheese in an otherwise heavily tarriffed world.