Growing up, I lived in a very different home than most of my peers.
While everybody else at school lived in the cookie-cutter suburbs around town, my family didn’t have the same resources as everyone else.
We resided on a big family farm, where we worked hard for our family income. We had to produce most of our resources for ourselves, including our meat and clothing. We left an extremely simple life out on the farm and I didn’t know much about modern living until I went off to college. In fact, back then we barely had basic modern amenities. There was no cable, limited indoor lighting, and the most rudimentary central heating and cooling systems. There were many days and weeks that we lived without any modern amenities, because we couldn’t afford the energy bill. Actually, I remember rarely utilizing our poor indoor air temperature control appliances throughout my childhood. Instead, we relied on the refreshing breeze that blew across the farm, and regularly opened our windows to establish natural ventilation. When we opened up the house to receive fresh air, it was always so clean and wonderful feeling. As an adult, I still think back to these early days and I often wish that I could revisit those simple times without central heating and cooling. To this day, I rarely operate my forced air furnace or try to use the massive AC unit located outside. I try to open my windows and take advantage of natural ventilation whenever I can. In fact, I take it to such an extreme that I’m even known to sleep outside and bask in the glorious fresh air all night when the conditions are right.