The Modern Homestead: An Introduction to Author Skip Thomsen

An Introduction to Author Skip Thomsen

TMH wrote ...
Please join us as we welcome Skip Thomsen to the contributors of The Modern Homestead. Skip is the author of " The Modern Homestead Manual" and the owner of www.homesteadinginfo.net. Skip has extensive experience in living the homesteading life from bare land to a productive homestead. Rather than me explaining, I'll let you read Skip's introduction yourself. We at TMH are truly blessed to be able to introduce you to Skip Thomsen, in his own words.

As a kid, Skip often asked his father why he chose to work 49 weeks of the year at a job he didn't like so that he could go up to the mountains he dearly loved for the other three weeks. He said that was how life was: a lot of sacrifice for a little pleasure.

The kid didn't buy it.

But he struggled with this dismal philosophy for years. He was somewhere in his thirties before he figured out just how wrong his father was. And in 1974, he and wife Sande moved out of the San Francisco Bay Area to the hills of Oregon. They got their feet wet in their quest for self-sufficiency by buying a rustic owner-built A-frame on four acres of woods. They heated with wood, raised almost all of their own food, and earned their keep in the shop they built on the property.

But they wanted to get farther out and really start from scratch. So in 1978, they put a down payment on 108 acres of forest on the northeast slope of Mt. Hood. The land was at 2600 feet elevation, sixteen miles from the nearest town, and there wasn't so much as a shed on it.

seedspreader wrote ...
Keep your eyes open for a new series on Homesteading Equipment from Skip in the near future!

Welcome Skip in the forums here.

In the following year, they accumulated all of the materials they would need to build their cabin, mostly from old city houses that had been carefully disassembled to make room for yet another freeway.

Every time they made the trip over the mountain to their new homesite, they took as much stuff as their stout old pickup truck, with a rack to match, could hold. They made quite a few trips carrying up to 24-foot long lumber to their new homesite.

They found a great 1950 Case tractor with a loader, grader, and plow. They built a heavy-duty six-foot-wide snow plow to mount onto the loader mechanism.

Their first few years were busy and exciting. They built their cabin, shop, greenhouse, poultry house, water and electrical systems; put in a great garden, raised chickens and turkeys, and again, earned their keep right on the place. They were also successfully home-schooling their son, Jake, who was by then about six years old.

During the next few years on the mountain, they totally debugged their electrical system. Visiting friends had a difficult time believing that they made their own electricity; they had all the electrical gadgets found in most city homes, and then some. They ran their home, shop and office with that system, never had a blackout, and the cost of operation was next to nothing.

After listening to repeated requests that they write a manual on how to duplicate their electrical system, they finally did. They self-published their first book, More Power to You!

The family had always loved the ocean. They made countless trips to the beach from the mountain. During 1988 and '89, they started going to the beach at least once a month. Soon they were going every two weeks. When their trips became even more frequent, they decided that they were ready for a change, and they put the homestead up for sale.

With the proceeds from the sale of their place on the mountain, they paid off what they still owed on the land, and made a down-payment on a little house at the beach on the Oregon coast. Their intent was to stay in that house until they found just the right spot on the coast to start over with a brand-new homestead. They built an addition to house the Oregon Wordworks publishing office, and running that business, Skip started a construction company. Over the next four years, he wrote and published two more books, and built (and sold) four houses and remodeled two, including the house they were living in.

Meanwhile, they were warily observing the changes happening to the Oregon coast. Their once-sleepy little community was discovered by affluent city-dwellers looking for tax-deductible second homes. During their four years there, the number of homes doubled, the price of real estate tripled, and, for them anyway, the charm began to evaporate. And if that weren't enough, the timber business—which includes both government and private interests—continued to rape the forests of Oregon to the point where much of the reason for moving there was lost forever.

They started looking for other options. Knowing that they were going to have to find another destination for their next home, they started to analyze their priorities. They had moved to the coast to be near the ocean; they wanted to stay near the ocean. They loved to play in the water, so a warmer ocean would be even better. They loved lush forests, low population density, warm weather, and a laid-back lifestyle. Being very creative in their thoughts and a bit whimsical to boot, It didn't take them a whole lot of research to focus on the Island of Hawaii.

They decided to make a trip to check it.

Oahu had indeed become a beach-front Las Vegas. The Big Island of Hawaii, however, was very much as it had been twenty years earlier when Skip spent some time there: few tourists (much to the dismay of the tourist industry), little development, and the same old laid-back lifestyle, particularly on the rainier windward side of the island. They decided to go for it. In August of 1993, they sold their little home at the beach, packed everything they owned into a 24' container, and moved to Hawaii.

Once again, they were in a little temporary house, this time in a fantastic tropical forest. And, once again, looking for that perfect spot to build their homestead, not far from where they were.

A lot of folks on the Big Island of Hawaii depend on alternative electricity and independent water systems. The incredibly expensive and unreliable power supplied by the local electric company, and the number of people who are in doubt that a solar-powered system could work for them, are the inspirations that started Skip in on this book. And these problems are certainly not limited to the Island of Hawaii, either.

Skip has written numerous articles for various publications, including Backwoods Home Magazine, Back Home Magazine, Mother Earth News, Countryside Magazine, and others.

His homestead-related books are " The Modern Homestead Manual" and the how-to on duplicating that wonderful electrical system, More Power to You! Both are available from your local bookstore, Amazon, on any number of other on-line booksellers.

seedspreader on Monday 17 March 2008 - 23:50:22
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