[Homesteadingfamily] Our new solar energy

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savour. How is everyone doing?
Everything is going good here. I got home Saturday afternoon for my
daughter's birthday. She is now 5 years old and is also now doing 1st grade
work. It is amazing how good she is doing and how fast she is growing. We
took her to Golden Corals which is one of her favorite places to go. It is
great that I got to be home for her birthday.

I wanted to tell everyone about a change we made. Everyone who knows us or
has been following our posts on the Internet, know that three years ago we
got rid of our electricity. It sure has been an experience, but we have seen
lots of good changes in our family and we have also learned a lot from the
experience. Our goal is to be God reliant and not have to depend on any one
company or any man to supply our families needs. Now that we know how to
live without the electric and to rely on God for our needs, we are working
on solar energy to supply electric to of the things we want. The house we
are having built will still be built to not need electric. We will still
have oil lamps, wood heat and cook stove, propane cook stove and back-up
heat, and propane refrigerator. But are starting to build a solar system to
power and charge our small personal devices. Our son-in-law has built us a
very simple system. We got a solar panel, 12V car battery and a 410 Watt
inverter. He hooked them up and mounted the solar panel on top of the roof
of our front porch. The system works great. We are able to run and charge
our net books while charging our cell phones. This is a very small and
simple system but we are able to expand it as time goes on. We will never
go back to having lots of electricity. We enjoy the simple living of not
having the TV and lots of electric things to distract us from what is
important in life. We also love the changes that this lifestyle has created
in our family. But we also know the benefits of cell phones and Internet
access when it comes to communications and networking with others and
promoting our lifestyle to others. Internet access also has great benefits
when it comes to my wife home schooling our children and doing research to
help us teach our Autistic son. The way we did this (going completely
without electricity first) is great because now we know we do not have to
have electricity. This makes it to where we are not in a rush to suddenly
put lots of money in having our house completely solar powered. We can take
it slowly and just add as we are able to.

For those of you who are looking into lowering your electric bill, this may
be a way for you to do it. You do not need to get rid of your electricity
but start out with a small solar system like what we have to charge your
cell phones and laptop. That will eliminate you needing to use your regular
electric to charge these devices and save you a little bit of money. Then,
as you are able to, add more panels and batteries. Eventually you will have
to get a bigger inverter to power larger items. Keep upgrading and you may
find yourself getting rid of the electric company and having your whole
house powered by God's sun. Of course, this method does take a long time,
but you will not go in debt and you can start saving a little bit of money
right away. We bought the solar panel at Lowes, got a standard car battery
and the 410 Watt inverter at a electronic store and it all came to about
$115. Not a whole lot when you think about how much it costs just to power a
laptop and charge cell phones. I will keep you all updated as we expand our
solar system.

Love,
The Oklahoma Tomcat
www.myspace.com/oktomcat

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]