A Cabin in the woods

Professor Jeff Wetzig and his family gave up a life in the twin cities for an off-the-grid home in the woods of Wisconsin.

Professor Jeff Wetzig stands in front of the handmade shelf that stores various scavenged ingredients and leftovers from his wife's pottery sales that serve as the family's kitchenware.

Wetzig and his wife, Christy, have owned the lot they now live on for eleven years. They started camping in a small shack (pictured above) on the weekends but soon began to wonder what it would be like to call the woods their home.

Wetzig's property houses only a handful of structures, namely the house they live in and the greenhouse that doubles as a shelter for their water supply. Rainwater and melting snow will runoff from the roof into an old milk tank where the greenhouse will then keep it thawed all through the winter.

The Wetzigs have made use of their land and now grow a lot of their own food such as mushrooms (left). They have had to find creative ways to keep squirrels, chipmunks, and other wildlife from eating their food before it is grown (right).

"We have a love-hate relationship with the wildlife. You love to watch them, but then they eat your plants." - Jeff Wetzig

In the summer months, the Wetzig family does all of their cooking outdoors in their pizza oven and on a stove attached to the side. "You have your summer way of life and your winter way of life," Christy said.

Christy Wetzig is in charge of stacking the logs of wood that Jeff and their two kids cut. She developed a style of stacking them into intricately crafted domes. It takes the family two full stacks to heat their home throughout the year. While two stacks serve as the supply for the year, another two will sit for a year until they are completely dry and ready to be burned.

"All the trees we cleared became part of the house.' - Jeff Wetzig

Christy Wetzig pours cups of Chagga (left), a drink made from a bark-like root (right) that must be chiseled into pieces. They harvest the root right on their property instead of buying it for a steep price at the store.

"It's right here if we bother to pick it" Jeff's daughter Mercy mused.

The family's handprints and initials are engraved into the plaster wall.

The Wetzig family huddles around the stove that serves as central heating and a cooktop in the winter. "We kind of nailed it," Jeff said. The house they reside in is everything they had dreamed it would be.

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