Been there and done that. I grew up on a small farm. No electricity we used "coal oil" lamps for the short time we were up after it got dark, no refrigeration, everything was kept in the cellar or in a bucket hung in the well to keep it cool. No indoor plumbing, I vividly remember going out in the bitter cold and parking my butt on a frosty plank. I also remember carrying all of the water we used in 5-gallon buckets from the well in the bottom about a 100 yards downhill from the house; we heated water for washing and bathing in a big iron kettle, which was also used for scalding hogs. We heated and cooked with wood that was cut with a crosscut saw and split with wedges and a sledgehammer. We raised most of our food, planted a huge garden and canned hundred of quarts of fruit and veggies, milked several cows by hand and sold milk, raised and butchered hogs, cured our own hams, shoulders, jowls, bacon, canned sausage, and rendered lard. While there is something vaguely romantic to some folks about getting back to the old days and ways, when you have had to do it without the option of saying "to hell with this it's too hard" and going back to town, believe me there is nothing fun about it. Just a lot of hard work and drudgery. I still live on a small farm, have an earth sheltered home, heat with wood, have an orchard, plant a big garden and preserve a lot of food, raise our own beef, (I still refuse to milk a cow unless it is an emergency situation), raise our own fryers, and eggs. I also have a propane furnace, air conditioning, water heater, refrigerators, freezers, and best of all indoor plumbing. I have lived both ways and this is a whole lot better, and I suspect there are few people who were raised the hard way that would want to go back to living and working like that again.
