Self-sufficiency key to comfortable mountain living

By JoAn Bjarko
North Forty News

For Rex and LaVonne Ewing, country living means mountain living, and mountain living means a log cabin powered by wind and solar energy.

They also thrive on the do-it-yourself approach, a handy attribute when wanting to build high off the beaten path and the load of logs is dumped at the bottom of the hill.

Added to their ideal of mountain living is working from home so they don't need to venture to the city more than twice a week. It works when one is a writer and one is a graphic designer, when one has an office downstairs and the other upstairs, and when technology allows both to engage with customers via e-mail made possible with satellite Internet. Their home is also situated to provide reliable cell phone coverage.

The Ewings have found their paradise in Buckhorn Canyon midway between Stove Prairie and Masonville. Rex bought two parcels in 1988 and 1989 when he realized he had to build a home in the mountains, having lived in Rist Canyon in the 1970s and '80s before returning to farming and raising horses in LaSalle.

"You get used to a three-dimensional landscape," Rex said about mountain living.

He started with a weekend cabin, and then he met LaVonne, who shared his desire to permanently escape from the plains and the city.

"We definitely wanted to live in the mountains and with solar and wind energy, so we found a way to do it," LaVonne said. They never even talked to the power company.

Unexpectedly, the two-year building experience also enhanced their careers. In 2002, they published "Logs, Wind and Sun" through their own company, PixyJack Press, and this year they released a new book on the same theme, "Crafting Log Homes Solar Style." Details are available at www.PixyJackPress.com.

"Without the school of hard knocks, we wouldn't have written the books," LaVonne said.

"It just worked out better than we ever dreamed," Rex added.

For Rex, the quest began in the late 1980s when he hiked into the area with a real estate agent and saw a beautiful horseshoe alluvium. "I said, 'That's the piece I want,'" he recalled.

He later bought the adjacent parcel, and that turned out to be a better building site for off-grid living. "We're on a hill with a hill behind us," Rex explained. "In the daytime we get the updrafts, and at night we get downdrafts."

Three times they've clocked winds at 104 mph, and they wore out their first wind generator. Their current wind turbine is incredibly tough and guaranteed for gusts up to 120 mph, Rex said.

Rex located the solar panels facing due south using the North Star as his guide. "You can't use a compass up here," he said, "but the North Star is infallible."

The sun provides 85 percent of their electrical energy and the wind 15 percent over the course of a year. They also use a wood-burning stove and propane.

That's power and heat, but what about water? The Ewings had picked the right site when it came to drilling a well. High in those mountains they found water at 540 feet and are able to pump five gallons a minute. Many flatlanders aren't that lucky.

Nevertheless, LaVonne said, "We're very frugal with water and electricity."

Installing solar hot water tubes has also cut their propane use to very little.

Besides their co-authored books, Rex writes magazine columns for Log Homes Illustrated and Countryside. He published "Beyond the Hay Days: Refreshingly Simple Horse Nutrition" in 1997, and he released his first novel "Eyes of the Lioness," this year.

LaVonne owns Image Resource, a graphic design firm that specializes in book design, art catalogs and corporate identities. Not many graphic designers have log-peeling on their resumes, however.

Though the Ewings are best known for advice in building solar- and wind-powered log homes, they also have some tips for living in the mountains: Don't expect pizza delivery. Keep a list for the next trip to the city and plan an efficient route. Be prepared to get snowed in. Know your neighbors, rely on them and expect them to rely on you.

"You have to go into this with your eyes open and not think it's going to be easy," Rex said.