Turbulent times can make people feel helpless and hopeless, but we have more agency than we might think. We can still choose to live life on our own terms — whatever that means for each of us individually. This is what the McCaffertys did. “So many people have fallen prey to this idea that what they do doesn’t matter and that we’re all doomed when that isn’t true at all,” Emily McCafferty told me.

Mark and Emily McCafferty, along with their son Anthony, live on 16 acres of land in an off-grid cordwood, solar-powered house they built themselves just south of Cincinnati, Ohio’s, urban core in northern Kentucky. They even collect their own water via a cistern.

The McCaffertys are an example of how some families are choosing to live life according to their own values, outside of systems and infrastructures they no longer wish to participate in. I understand that. I may not live off the grid, but I did put solar panels on my house and bought an electric vehicle.

To some, all of this may sound extreme, but homesteading and relying on alternative energy is gaining in popularity. And it’s not something you can attribute to one reason, ideology or political party. Some homesteaders are more liberal, and some are more conservative. Some are religious, and others are just wanting to reduce their carbon footprint. All are people living according to their values.

“We have self-efficacy,” Emily said. “And even if what we do doesn’t make a massive impact on its own, it can make a difference for our families and those around us, and that counts for something.”

Jackery, a manufacturer of portable power stations, recently ranked Kentucky No. 3 on their list of top 10 states to live off the grid, behind Iowa and Texas. The other states (listed in order) were: Minnesota, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota, Illinois and Montana. Jackery’s rankings take into account water availability, weather, existing laws, topography and taxes.

“The whole thing was Mark’s idea,” Emily said looking back on their family’s decision to build off grid. He always wanted to build his own house.

Mark said, “There was a chance I was going to be an engineer, but I went into music instead.” Mark and Emily both have degrees in music from Morehead State University, and both grew up in northern Kentucky. Mark says it was when rehabbing a foreclosed house they bought that he grew tired of “constantly fixing other people’s mistakes.”

Mark started figuring out what it would take to build their own home, and Emily started to see the practical side. What they couldn’t do themselves, they could hire out. Emily said to Mark, “Maybe, one day…”

That did it for Mark; he didn’t want their dream to go unfulfilled for lack of confidence or lack of trying. “I don’t want to be that person turning 60 who wishes we would have done it,” he said.

They sold their rehabbed house and moved in with Emily’s parents to make their dream a reality.

They looked at properties across several Kentucky counties before deciding on the 16 acres they now call home. It’s a 45-minute drive for Mark to get to work — he’s program director of music and music education for Mount Saint Joseph University in Cincinnati, Ohio.

They moved in on the winter solstice in 2017. Winter can be challenging, they said. Mark has chains for his tires to get him from the house to the main road. Their long private drive can be treacherous in bad weather. Emily homeschools their son. Energy consumption is her winter concern. Shorter days mean less sunlight for solar energy. They keep a daily log to track usage and make improvements both day to day and year to year.

Mark and Emily have learned a lot along the way, and in retrospect, there were a lot of things they feel they could have approached differently to make the process a lot easier.

The McCaffertys were driven by the desire to live more simply and efficiently, according to their own values. Their home is a manifestation of what is truly possible when you persist to follow through on a dream.