f13.net

This is my new favorite show on tv.

Yeah, cool show. Started DVRin' em....

I was chuckling yesterday as I was putting up wood in the garage. I got about half in, just kind of taking it easy enjoying the day. And that was more than Atz Lee put up for 8 months of winter in Alaska. That kid's got issues.

Also, Eivan's wife Eve is wicked hot.

I really enjoyed shows like Frontier House and Alone in the Wilderness so I watched the first episode of this over the weekend.  I thought it was really boring, I had no desire to watch past the first episode.   :heartbreak:  Does it get any better after S1E1?

Yes and no.  These people work ridiculously hard for subsistence living.  But no mention of the guvmnt welfare to pay for bullets and gas.  I like it and wish them well.  Their background is interesting and no crazy face politics.

Wait, what? Are you saying that they receive welfare?

Alaska has the Permanent Fund (http://pfd.alaska.gov/) that pays people each year who live there permanently (as in if you move away you have to pay the money back).

$878 isn't a whole lot of gas (and they also pay for electricity, I'm guessing).

They may well have some side businesses. Don't they play music? I google-stalked and found one of them sells baskets.

If they received welfare, that would wreck the whole self-sufficiency thing.

I think they're off the grid, use generators and kerosene lamps. I doubt they run generators all the time. I wonder if they even have piped water? That would be the one thing I'd want - piped water that could be heated.  Did you see when that one couple did laundry in the spring after not doing it all winter? Was that for real? Eewww. They aren't so far from Homer they can't snowmobile or drive into town to do the laundry once a month, or am I missing something?

I knew a couple years ago who lived up in the mountains 7 miles past the power lines. They lived in a mobile home, had a propane refrigerator, and fired up the generator once a week to run the vacuum cleaner and washer. They didn't have much income, but didn't need much.  (They ended up getting a divorce after a couple of years of that - whether it was connected to their isolation, I don't know.)

Looked to me like they were mostly of the oldfashioned type where you had to go out to fetch water. Either that or I've just gotten that impression during winter, since they were going out and collecting snow, ice etc for water.

As for costs etc, I can only assume they're making a fair bit of money selling hides etc, how else can they afford what little luxuries they do have?

They should have a show that's just her gardening, tending bees, etc.