Petra, Maine

My name is Ken Anderson. My wife and I have a home in Millinocket, which is near the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, close to the geographic center of Maine. Additionally, we have a hundred acres of mostly woodland, with a couple of potato fields and a cedar swamp, near the Canadian border in Maine's Aroostook County.

Just before the snow came last December, we have placed a cabin there. There are no utilities there and the road leading through the property becomes a snowmobile trail in the winter, but we hope, in time, to be able to create a reasonably comfortable off-grid second home there, which could become an only home if circumstances dictate.

In April, we will be renting a small place near there, so that I can get to work completing the cabin, as the interior is currently a shell, as well as completing a primitive graywater system. Additionally, I intend to plant some edible perennials in various clearings and other suitable places on the property, using forest garden principles.

I am sixty years old. I had hoped to have much of this completed last summer, but I ended up spending the last half of the summer in radiation treatment for cancer, which I am hopefully rid of for good. I grew up in the UP of Michigan, near the Wisconsin border. Moving to Southern California at the age of eighteen, I lived there, working in the paper industry until I was thirty-two, raising an adopted son. From there, I moved to the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where I became a paramedic and an EMS instructor, spending just over twenty years in the EMS field.

I married for the first time at the age of forty-eight. As my wife didn't like living in the Rio Grande Valley, I sold my interest in an ambulance company to my partner, and we moved to Maine in 2001. Except for a couple of years in North Carolina, where we went for work a few years back, we've been in Maine ever since.

My wife grew up in San Francisco, then lived in Minnesota for a time, moving to New Mexico, where she was when we met. We both work on Internet directories for a living now, which is how we met, although we were part of the volunteer Open Directory Project at the time. Our work allows us to work from home or anywhere that we have a reasonable Internet connection.

We are both Christians. I grew up in a Covenant Church, but never really understood the doctrines of the denomination that I grew up in, perhaps because we never had a Covenant pastor. When I began looking into Biblical matters for myself, I became a member of a Grace Brethren Church, which is a Mennonite fellowship. I still identify with the Mennonite tradition, although it has been years since I have lived near enough to a Mennonite church to attend. There are a couple of Amish colonies near us, since they have been buying up many of the farmhouses in Aroostook County but, while the Amish are Mennonites, the Mennonites are not necessarily Amish. I have visited with them several times, and enjoy doing business with the Amish, but I am not a part of their community. Given the lack of a Mennonite church nearby, we generally attend Baptist churches.

We also have four cats, all girls. Cutie and Lydia are sisters from the same litter, and are twenty-two years old and in good health. Their mom died of cancer a couple of months before what would have been her twenty-fourth birthday, so they are a hardy lot. Apart from the mom, I raised their grandmother, and their great-grandmother turned up in my enclosed porch as a very young kitten. Another of my cats is Bird, who is twenty-one years old. I fed her as a feral cat for the first few years of her life, gradually gaining her trust. She has been a house cat for nearly nineteen years now, although Cutie still treats her as if she doesn't belong here. Bird looks much older than Cutie and Lydia, although she is still playful and active, albeit on a more limited basis. Where she could once climb a tree onto the top branches and even cross from one tree to another, she now has to make a running start at the trunk of the tree, only to back down after making it up a few feet. Bird had a few teeth extracted a couple of months ago but was otherwise given a clean bill of health. Lastly, there is the baby. Obadiah is a girl, so we don't tell her that Obadiah is a boy's name. She is Bird's daughter, although the mother-daughter relationship leaves much to be desired. She will be eleven in May and, though she is twice the size of her mother and larger than either Cutie or Lydia, she still gives deference to Cutie, who is the self-appointed alpha female in the feline part of the household, although she picks fights with her mom all the time.

Howdy!! and welcome. That was some introduction.

Couple things I noticed, while my wife and I live near both an Amish community, and Mennonite settlers, we have never seen the church of either. I find that the Amish are easier to trade with, often they will barter for feed and seed and firewood where the Mennonites tend to want cash period. (at least locally)

In another post you talked about forest gardening methods. I hope you will post about these methods as several here are on small areas that are heavily shaded.

Best of luck being cancer free, my wife is 7 years cancer free and presumed cured of bone cancer!!

Cats, we have two, soon to be three, we have rescued all of them.

Thanks for replying. Yes, I would like to discuss forest gardens more in the future. I am not an expert, and my intentions probably wouldn't be considered a forest garden by those who claim to be experts, but I will be using some of the same concepts.

As for Mennonites and the Amish, mainstream Mennonite congregations generally do have churches that are not different than those of other denominations. In fact, a recent trend that I have seen, not only in Mennonite congregations but in Baptist and others, is to choose names that avoid denominational preferences, such as "Garden Valley Christian Fellowship" rather than "Garden Valley Grace Brethren Church". Since my work involves web directories, I have found that church web sites frequently avoid any mention of denominational preference. Although a church might be a member of the Southern Baptist Convention, often it is difficult to discern that from the name or the web site of the church. I believe the intent is to attract people who may not currently ascribe to those traditions. In other words, a Southern Baptist moving to another community might attend the Garden Valley Christian Fellowship when he would not have attended the Garden Valley Grace Brethren Church because he's a Baptist, not a Mennonite. Once in attendance, most Baptists wouldn't find anything so weird about a Grace Brethren worship service, at least until it came time for communion.

Amish colonies differ greatly in many ways. Some Amish colonies have church buildings, although they are apt to be off of the main road, so as not to be noticeable to people driving through. Often, these will be located in someone's yard or on private property, rather than along a public road. Others, and I think this is the most common, will meet in homes, rotating among different families who have the facilities to host the Sunday worship services, which is something that each family would strive to be able to accommodate. Another thing that most people don't know about the Amish is that most Amish colonies only meet together for Sunday worship service every other week, with individual or extended families getting together in their homes during alternate Sundays. Some of the Amish colonies with churches will have regularly scheduled services in English as an outreach to the surrounding community, although services are otherwise in High German. Amongst themselves, they generally speak English.

Another difference is in schools. Some Amish colonies will have schoolhouses where children are educated through the eighth grade. In homeschool friendly states, the teacher will also be Amish. In schools where teacher certification is required, they may hire a teacher from outside the community who is friendly toward Amish traditions. Other Amish families will homeschool their children while they are working, or in other innovative ways. Some Amish children attend public schools.

I have never been Amish, but I have lived near them in Michigan and here, and have read quite a lot about their traditions and beliefs. Most of what people think they know about the Amish is wrong, and some of that may hold true of myself.

Welcome to CH glad to have you on board. Look forward to reading your future posts.

I know what I see, the Mennonites are poor drivers! Good people, at least the ones I have dealt with. The Amish that run a feed mill where we get cattle feed are always helpful and just as respectful as you are to them

Welcome kfander!

Thanks for the welcome, everyone.

Welcome to the forums. I have a dear friend that lives in MA that was raised in the Brethren church. She married a Jewish man anc converted to Judaism, but still follows many of the teachings of the Brethren.

I look forward to hearing more about your journey towards getting off grid.