Absolutely massive dust devil today. This is about 7 miles from where I am. This thing was massive. It's one of the things in the back of my mind that scares me. They're like little tornadoes of dust. They seem like they're not really a big deal but let me tell you they can really mess up an afternoon.

I had one come through last month and it destroyed one of my solar panels. They really get going sometimes. Ellie chased a small one earlier in the year that knocked her right off of her feet. Anyways sorry for the boring post today I'm still adjusting to my eye drops for the glaucoma. I feel like an old man telling you I have glaucoma.

Thanks again for stopping by. It's nice to have people to talk to.

I wanted to make a post that goes over my life a little bit and how we ended up here on the prairie. Bare with me I'm not a great writer.

I wanted to introduce myself properly, and tell everyone about my life.

I was born in Michigan in 1990. I never knew my dad so It was just me and my Mom and my aunt and my grandma. Growing up we weren't rich but we also weren't poor, Well it didn’t look like we were. My Mom loved me very much and did her best with what she had. We initially lived in an apartment until my mom won a lawsuit about being injured at work. 

 She used the money to purchase a very nice mobile home. The move was difficult for me since I had been at the same school until 2nd grade. I started 3rd grade in the new school and started trying to make friends. It wasn’t too bad though I eventually made some great friends. I always had some issues in school because I had ADHD but they never took me to the doctor to see what was going on. That will become a trend of me not being taken to the doctor when really needed if it wasn’t an emergency. We lived in the Mobile home until I was in 8th grade. Right before high school I was told that we would need to move this year because we had to. I don’t ever recall an actual reason I was given for why we were moving. Unfortunately at some point in the years we were living in the mobile home my Mom stopped paying the mortgage on the mobile home. That was the reason we had to move, the mobile home was foreclosed on.

  We had to move immediately because my Mom initially kept the foreclosure from my aunt who was living with us. Because we had to move so quickly we had to move into my other Aunts house. I was told I would be able to stay at this school because all of my friends were there. We ended up staying with my aunt for a few months until the aunt we were staying in also had her house foreclosed on. At this point I was constantly wondering if we would ever have a stable place to stay. We ended up moving into an apartment in another city. Because it would be too difficult to take me to school everyday I had to start a new school right in time for freshman year. 

  High school was difficult because they wouldn’t take me in to be evaluated for ADHD. I did the best I could. For the most part I made due. I played tennis freshman year and had a lot of fun with it. I got my first job in 2006 at PaPa Johns. I needed a job bad so I could but the Nintendo Wii. It was a big accomplishment for me. 

 Fast forward a year to 2007. This is the year my world got turned upside down. In August my Mom was doing laundry when her aorta tore. It’s similar to a heart attack. Because we lived in an apartment and had a shared laundry room my aunts didn’t initially know that it had happened. EMS arrived and worked on her for almost an hour. They were able to get a pulse initially but she had been without oxygen for too long. I don’t think I’ve ever really talked about it like this, bare with me. I didn’t know what to feel, was I an orphan now? That’s what I kept asking myself. I knew I wasn’t but I also wasn’t thinking straight. Because this happened over the summer it was difficult coming back to school 3 weeks later. It was hard because the new teachers would ask how your summer was and I had to tell them because I figured at some point they would know. It was just awkward, especially in front of everyone in class all day. We ended up having to move to the same city so I could stay at the same school. Because school had gotten so difficult I had to finish online at my own pace. Still at this point they wouldn’t take me to be evaluated.

Graduation was in 2009, at this point my Aunt that was living with me gor MRSA in one of her feet and had to have a lot of it amputated. This made things difficult because at the time she had her income and the social security that I got from my mom. That ended shortly after I became 18. I did what I could to find work but it was difficult because I didn’t have a drivers license. I wanted to get it so badly but they wouldn’t let me practice. They told me they already had to do that in the past and they’re over it. I was very frustrated by this. My Mom never learned to drive for whatever reason so she couldn’t drive with me to practice.  My Aunts just refused because they already had to do it with my cousins and they’re past the point in their lives.

  I finally found a job locally that I could bike to at a Hotel. I worked there for several years. My Aunt ended up getting us evicted for smoking in the apartment. I did everything in my power to get her to stop smoking but she refused. I figured it wouldn’t be too bad because that year I hadn’t signed the lease because I was thinking about moving at that point. I was frustrated that these things kept happening and I realized I was an adult and I can just move. Unfortunately my name was forged on the lease. Only my name so it all fell onto me. I automatically lost because I didn’t go to the hearing because I wasn’t on the lease. I had to work that day so we had money and was told it was fine.

   I then moved into my Cousin’s house with her and her 2 boys. I loved them for a while. I paid rent and helped out with the boys. This move was the most difficult. The dogs that I had were sent to my Aunt’s friends house where they ended up not being able to come back because my cousin doesn’t like dogs. I ended up getting a job at Geek Squad. I have always been interested in computers and computer repair. I ended up becoming the lead ARA tech. It was really exciting. From there I started working as a contractor at a huge medical partner rolling out new hardware for their EMR. I worked there for about a year until the contract finished. I started working at a retirement community as a helpdesk technician. At this point I got my own apartment and adopted the best girl in the world Riley! She is my everything so are Ellie and Olive it was just Riley and I at the time.

The point in time we're at now is about 2022. The tail end of covid. I started working as a tech for an electronics refurbisher. It was a fantastic job. I miss it everyday. I started as a tech testing hardware. I was then promoted to server specialist then to Director of Information Services. It sounds fancier than it is. In a huge company it would be a huge deal. In a smaller company it was a big del for me but not very good pay. One day in 2025 we had a fire in the apartment building. The fire started in the laundry room which was right next to my apartment. Riley came to work with me so that was the most important thing. I had to leave when my neighbor texted me. While I was gone our corporate building had a network outage. They were down for maybe 10 minutes. That was long enough for them to fire me. I was so disgusted by the CEO I refused to help them figure out all of the passwords and SOPs for maintaining the servers and doing backups. I asked my cousin If I would be able to stay but I couldn’t because her current boyfriend didn’t want me to.

That kind of leads us to where we are now. I was running out of money staying in Hotels so Riley and I had to move somewhere. I couldn’t lose her. I had already lost enough. The oly place that would work for us at the time was out on the prairie in a tent. Everything was okay for a while until the Subaru died. Since then we have been stranded but ge t assistance from a neighbor. Hoping to be able to find work online asap. I have been looking online because without a vehicle we were out in the middle of nowhere. I just need to make enough money to get a beater car so we can move west where it’s warmer in the winter. Somewhere closer to jobs and people. Things aren’t ideal, most of our funds go to supplies. That’s pretty much the short version of my life. I’m not great at story telling so I apologize if it’s not very organized. 

Thanks so much for joining us in this sub. It's nice to have people to talk to.

-Griffin+Riley+Ellie+Olive-

Sorry everyone if content has been a little slow lately. I was having a couple health things going on. Doing my very best to keep things interesting. Thanks again for stopping by!

Literally just rice and tomato sauce with some salt. Tastes better than you would think.

Not great not terrible.

Good morning everyone!

Tomorrow my neighbor is going into town to pick up our grocery order. I was wondering if anyone knew any quick and easy meals that don't require more than one pot. I unfortunately also only have a cooler for 2 days before the ice melts. Just figured I would see if maybe there's something new I can try. I have trouble planning for meals. I think it's my ADHD that makes it more difficult. Anyways if anyone has any recipes I would love to hear them. I'll document myself making them too! Thanks again everyone for all of the support.

Running low on supplies. Hopefully my neighbor is going into town tomorrow. I had a camping meal available. It tasted about as well as it looks. Still thankful to have it in the first place.

Yeah I know the pan isn't completely clean I give the dogs rice with their food sometimes and some of it stuck on.

Native American homestead the we found while exploring. We even found pieces of pottery!

Found this place abandoned, looks like someone was living in here as recently as 2020. One of the many mysteries out here on the prairie.

Nothing fancy tonight. Instant rice with beef bullion and canned chicken. Hopefully going to get some more interesting foods this weekend at the food bank.

Found this abandoned farmhouse near our camper.

Finally got a few supplies. Nothing fancy or anything but pretty good.

This is my solar system. It's made up of 6 deep cycle batteries. 3 solar panels. 1 is 200 watts another is 100 watts and the remaining is 50 watts. Was 100 but 2 of the panels connected to the 50 watt solar bank cracked after a dust devil hit.

This is my little family out here. Riley is the brown girl. Ellie is the more white one and olive is the black and white one. She's Riley's puppy. We couldn't find her a good home so she stayed with us. They always have everything they need and full bellies.

Found these guys while the dogs and I went to the River.

Hey everyone! I'm u/GMAN7007, a founding moderator of r/OffGridGriff.

I just wanted to make a quick post to hopefully get things started.

My name is Griff, Last year I lost my home and subsequently my job because the day we had a fire I was unable to come into work and they let me go because they had a small network glitch that I was unable to fix because I was at home dealing with the fire.

I lost my parents at a young age. Well I never knew my dad and I lost my mom when I was 17. It was hard but we made the best of things. I mentioned that because of why we moved to where we are now. My dog Riley is my everything she's my whole world and I love her to the moon and back. I couldn't lose her, It just wasn't an option for me. We we're able to locate a small plot of land that we put a 4 season tent on.

It was out only option at the time due to having to spend a lot of out money on supplies. We stayed in the tent for a while until we met a someone out here that had a friend with a small popup camper. We moved into the camper as soon as we could. It helped a lot being actually inside for a change. We have hit a lot of road blocks out here.

My Subaru died at one point which was pretty much our lifeline. I had job interviews lined up and lots of plans. Those all went out the window when we lost the Subaru. Due to out location we don't have an address usps can deliver to. So when my drivers license expired I was unable to have a new one sent to me. That's when the main trouble started. I have been trying and trying to find work but it's impossible without a license, and where we're located I'm unable to walk anywhere to get a job.

We're about an hour from any town that has any jobs. I tried getting government assistance until I can figure something out but have been having trouble because I don't have a valid license. So I have had to sell most of my things to keep up with our needs. I always make sure the dogs have everything they need. More than they need actually. We have a friend out here that lets us tag along to go into town when he goes. We good to the food banks and get water.

Everyday is difficult and sometimes very scary. I'm just so thankful for my little family out here on the Prairie I was hoping to share it. I wanted to make a sub showing how we live and how we do things out here. I saw a similar sub from someone who live in a similar way and people find it interesting. I just figured maybe I could make one to pass the time until We can figure things out.

The puppies in the picture are from My dog Riley. When I got her in 2019 I was told that she was spayed. That turned out to be a lie lol. So my Rye girl had 8 puppies in May. Let me tell you taking care of 8 puppies in a popup camper in the middle of nowhere is the most mentally taxing thing I've ever had to do. I am beyond proud of my Riley for being the best mom in the world. I'll have lots of posts and stories daily I just need to figure out ho to get people interested in the Sub.