By Skip Thomsen
Way back in 1977, we bought a beautiful 108 acres of forest in north central Oregon. There were no buildings on the property; we were going to start from scratch. In 1979, we packed up everything we owned and moved there. We spent the year before our move making plans, gathering information and supplies. Since we were determined to produce our own electrical power, we paid a lot of attention to how other folks were dealing with their lack of “store bought” electricity. Most of them handled it in a way which was, to us, curious. They often relied on smelly, dangerous kerosene lamps for most of their lighting. Of all of the people we visited, and of all of those who would eventually be our neighbors, nobody had what we considered an acceptable alternative electrical system.