We have our own water. It's from a well, with a solar powered pump (that only
runs when the sun is shining, which we're supposed to have plenty of in
Colorado) goes through a one micron filter and then through a UV purification
system, then into a tank, where we go fill up our barrels to take back to our
houses. So, it sounds like we're doing well, off the grid, pretty much
independent of the "system."

Ok, here are the (until now) unrecognized dangers.

Our water tasted and smelled bad this week, so we got it tested. There had been
a low voltage regulator on the UV system that broke. We replaced it (purchased
parts, from a company that produces the parts with the power of oil, all the way
from the oil in the plastic that's in the part, to the power to run the
machinery to make the part) , but my brother bought the wrong one and it didn't
have an automatic shut off if the power was too low from the solar panels. So,
the pump kept on pumping and the UV system wasn't working, so water with
choliforms is now in our entire system.

What this has made me realize is that no matter how independent I have thought
we were becoming, our entire standard of life, low as it is, is 100% dependent
upon oil.

This dependency is in spite of living in a house that has NO power inside it
that we don't make ourselves. We don't have gas or oil lines to the house, we
don't use propane, we cook with wood rather than be dependent upon the outside
source of propane tanks. We do have an electric stove top oven and a hot plate
that we use during the summer, but at any point we can't get gas for the
generator, we can always go cook on the wood stove in the outside kitchen, so we
don't consider that "dependency" but rather convenience.

But without water, we are dependent. That's it. No way around it.

As hard as we have been working to become self-sufficient, this is what it comes
down to. I tremble for those of you who imagine you're going in the right
direction by learning how to grow vegies in pots on the patio.

Tom Brown Jr's Apache Grandfather had a vision in which he saw cities burning,
people starving, people eating children, agony, disease, terror and death. He
saw that the only people who survived would be the "children of the earth."
What are the children of the earth? Are they the farmers? Are they those who
actually move into caves in the earth? Are they the ones who learn how to gain
their sustenence solely from our Mother the Earth?

If I have imagined that I was becoming self-sufficient while trying to live in
both worlds - writing on this computer and sending out the letter across
cyberspace to others sitting in front of utility supplied electrical
connections, powered by oil all over the world - well, my mind is reeling with
the reality of how desperately dependent I am in truth, on the grid.

Sharon, Linda, other farmers - methinks those who advocate the hunter-gatherer
life are in the right of it. The only ones who will survive are truly the
children of the earth who can do it without a tool created by modern man.
Lua in Colorado