Living Off the Grid in New Mexico Photo: Courtesy of Jeff Thrope and Colleen Hammond Photo: Courtesy of Krysta Jabczenski Photo: Courtesy of Jeff Thrope and Colleen Hammond Photo: Courtesy of Krysta Jabczenski Photo: Courtesy of Krysta Jabczenski Photo: Courtesy of Krysta Jabczenski Photo: Courtesy of Krysta Jabczenski Photo: Courtesy of Krysta Jabczenski Photo: Courtesy of Krysta Jabczenski Photo: Courtesy of Jeff Thrope and Colleen Hammond

Last October, my partner Colleen and I bought a 1,200 square-foot off-grid cabin in Abiquiu, New Mexico. We have 40 sandy acres covered with juniper and piñon, and a front porch that looks out on Cerro Pedernal, the looming flat top mountain made famous by Georgia O’Keeffe, who lived and painted in Abiquiu for most of her adult life.

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We had been living comfortably on the Eastside of Los Angeles for the last three years, bouncing around Brooklyn for close to a decade before that. We never intended to buy an off-grid house, but the northern New Mexico part made a bit more sense. In 8th grade, a teacher gave me a copy of an Ed Abbey book called Abbey’s Road, and ever since, I’ve obsessed over the desert landscapes of the southwest. Through work as a writer and a consultant in the outdoor industry, I’ve been lucky enough to do some extensive traveling and backpacking through this region. Like many of us, I’ve toyed at the idea of buying a piece of land somewhere far away from city life, but never actually thought it would happen. Then we found the perfect place—on the internet, of course (we’d set an alert for “Adobe” and “Under 300k” on Zillow)—and jumped right in. For better or worse, there wasn’t too much thinking involved.

Our specific off-grid situation means that we’re not hooked up to any city utilities, so our electricity comes from the six large solar panels in the backyard, our water comes from rain, and our heat comes from burning wood in a cast iron stove that sits comfortably on the first floor behind our old dining table. The mud and stone walls are almost two feet thick, which keeps the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter after we’ve been cooking the fire for a few days. We have a relatively modern life in “the middle of nowhere,” working during the day, cooking big meals with friends (baking takes a lot longer at 6,500 feet above sea level) and watching Netflix on our projector at night. We drive an hour to Santa Fe once a week for groceries, museums, movies, etc. and spend a lot of our free time hiking with our dogs, Mona and Frankenstein. Although we love the red rocks of Ghost Ranch, the white spires of Plaza Blanca, and the yellows and greens of the Chama Wilderness, we mostly hike in the vast tracts of land right outside the front door. Our initial it can’t be that hard naiveté proved to be somewhat on point. We ain’t roughing it out here.

When we moved in, many parts of the off-grid system were already here for us. The two 1,600-gallon water cisterns—which catch rain and snowmelt from the pitched roof—were full, but had been sitting for years, so we bleached them both, pumped them out, and had a truck deliver enough clean water to fill both cisterns back up. We hoped it was the only time we’d ever have to pay for water, and after seven months and a very dry winter, we’re proud to say our cisterns are still quite full. We installed a high-efficiency toilet, only shower once or twice a week for five minutes at a time, and do our dishes by hand with a low pressure faucet. Water is precious in the desert, and learning to live with a limited supply has been surprisingly easy and rewarding. When you quickly realize the insane amount of water you carelessly waste on a daily basis, you can’t help but feel a little good about seeing a hawk fly overhead while you’re peeing in the backyard.

Our only real fear centered around whether or not we could get decent internet at the house, as Colleen and I both work remotely. We spent more time plotting hypothetical drives to libraries with wi-fi than we did worrying about whether we’d have enough water. We had satellite internet installed, and we’re still a little shocked by how well it works. We have no problem furiously checking social media and yelling at our screens while reading news in the morning. And like any good members of our generation, we set up an Instagram account for our home to document the unreal views from the porch, plus fun home stuff like new concrete floors, Doug West prints, rugs from Chimayo, and an outdoor piano. We called it @tract_f because the legal address for our property and home is actually Tract F in Abiquiu, NM. (We’re not on Google Maps, so, sadly, you won’t be able to find us.) We’ve even tiled a blue “F” on the front of the house, which our friends have pointed out looks like a poor grade from the New York City health department.

The house is wired for electricity like any house you’ve ever been in, but the solar power system only came with a single panel—it was barely powerful enough to turn on the lights. At the inspection a few weeks before we closed, we met Allan, a quirky solar genius who came up with a relatively inexpensive system to fit our very low-usage needs. With constant sun, a high-efficiency refrigerator, and a giant cast iron wood stove for heat, electricity here is a breeze. The panels sit about 20 yards from the back of our house on two large poles, facing south and basking in that intense New Mexico sun.

One of the best parts about living off-grid is that we’re a self-contained system. When spring winds took out the power in town a few weeks ago, we had some of our electricity-deprived friends come up to our house to hang out and watch movies. I still don’t know what exactly “homesteading” means, but a few people have referred to our situation out here as such. It sounds like it involves cows pulling wheels. Instead, at this very moment, Colleen is making vegetable curry on our stainless steel stove, while I’m on the porch typing on my iPad Pro. Pioneers, we are not, but we sure do love living in New Mexico.