As always, my mother is my best librarian. She loaned me this book, which is about the experience of the poet Baron Wormser living off the grid in the woods in Central Maine with his wife and two daughters. They lived without power, running water, etc. for 25 years. He talks a lot about the spiritual (my word) nature of heating with wood--the felling of trees, the meditative quality of splitting wood. He said that each time he put a stick of wood into the stove he could remember its origin. I'm not quite at that level, but there really is something about doing for yourself. Anyway, this book is beautifully written; he makes the mundane magical.