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Thanks for joining us here at "Jimmy's House"!

Let's introduce ourselves -  Jimmy is our oldest child, and is now 23 years old and becoming his own person. Jimmy is a non-verbal autistic young man who loves music and likes to rock out!  Jimmy's mother works extremely hard as a Nurse in a high-risk maternity ward - coming home  when she can to enjoy her family, while assisting with Jimmy - almost as a respite for the rest of us. Does she ever get a chance to rest? Myself, well I am Jimmy's primary Adult and Caregiver, managing his schedule, driving him to his locations, and creating a successful diet for responsibly maintaining his weight while  providing opportunities for weight loss.

Jimmy has two siblings, both younger and very loving towards him.  His sister is Caitlyn, who is currently attending college, an amazing artist, and has recently achieved her CNA license and is planning a medical technology degree. This is fantastic as she, along with myself are Jimmy's Primary Caregivers. His brother Wayland has just this year graduated High School and gotten his Associates, has a strong interest in theater with strong language skills and also assists in  Caregiving for Jimmy. We have an amazing family!

Jimmy started to talk when he was two, but lost that ability by age 3. He was part of a cluster of 5 children of parents that worked at a Silicon Valley startup with fewer than 200 employee less than 25 of which had kids. None of these parents had a family history of autism spectrum disorders. One child lost that diagnosis. Myself and my wife Chris moved from Silicon Valley to rural Washington after we received Jimmy's diagnosis. It seemed like the best decision to raise Jimmy and our family in a remote off the grid home in the forest. However, we have a thoroughly modern home with lots of room for him to move around and amenities like a fridge, internet, phone and our own washer/dryer.
Why did our family move there? When little, Jimmy had real problems with even limited street noise. This location got him away from that. Jimmy also had a lot of behaviors that were simply unacceptable in places where there would be neighbors nearby.  For example, when he saw a fountain he would take off his clothes to play in it, like someone with the development of 4 year old might. Here the nearest neighbor is 1.5 miles away. Many families with an autistic child will find interactions with the police are part of their routine. Which by moving to our forest location, we have avoided that. Non-verbal autistics are one of the populations most vulnerable to abuse that exists. In our location, Jimmy has been made much less available to predators that target that community in urban areas. 

Upon arriving at our Washington location, we needed to enroll Jimmy in his educational path. The local area was helpful because we got Jimmy in an ABA program. He later switched to the local public school district after it was clear Jimmy was not going to develop speech. He had his ups and downs in that process. But he did find people that got to know and care about him. A couple years ago, he aged out of his high school special ed, and now attends an adult daycare program two days each week. His sister now works at the same location and is enjoying using her skills she learned from growing up with Jimmy in the working world.

Now, let me tell you about "Jimmy's House"!

What is Jimmy’s house?

Jimmy has a two room suite that has been finished to meet his needs, along with his own bathroom. He also has a fenced recreational area where he has considerable autonomy and an amazing swing hung from two large trees.

There have been issues living here - but nothing we haven't been able to address and handle, improving upon the property as he aged to fulfill his growth and activity needs. Maintenance of an off-grid home is real work and considerable expense. Particularly the remodeling around Jimmy's requirements. The logistics and expense of traveling for work, school, socialization are substantial for all of us on the Mountain. Hence we work together to grab things while in town for each other, or carpool to the local transportation when one car is down or being worked on. We make an incredible team - Team Jimmy!

The remote location makes it hard to get housekeeping and caregiving help. Having amazing kids helps with the Caregiving situation and we have an on-site property care-taker named John helping us. John and Jimmy are best buddies. John works for room and board and some pay, but this is perfect for him as it enables him to finish his college. He is attending a local Community College and is in a Building and Construction Technology track. He is able to apply new things he learns on our projects, and also learn from my own experience as a large parcel property owner. Also, having the school professors in his program available to ask questions of has been helpful. Especially his OSHA Safety Class instructor! We all have been able to do the repairs together lately, but are needing to begin bigger projects to keep the property in the shape it's in now, and improve upon the power grid.

Our next projects will be to put on a new polymer Roof, and install a Photovoltaic panels to shore up the Summer time power supply.  Most of our electricity comes from an hydro powered alternator transferred to a Battery Shack with an inverter that powers the house. As our electricity is garnered from a nearby running stream, it is abundant in the Fall, Winter, and Spring. However, by Summer - it is so low that we suffer brown-outs. Therefore, a Solar Panel energy stream would supply that energy we lack during the Summer sunny months.

There are also other projects we would like to do eventually - but for now we will be kept quite busy in the coming weeks and months. As we go along, we will be sharing more blogposts and pictures of Jimmy and our "Jimmy's House" projects!
  

So stay tuned and check back in, we want to share our off-grid environment geared for Jimmy with you - our online friends. It is our goal to enrich the world with our living situation and how we arranged it as a solution to raising Jimmy in a stress-reduced environment that doesn't trigger him, or anyone else for that matter.

So whether you are a parent or family member of an autistic child, a teacher, social worker or caregiver - we feel there is lots to learn from our experience. Not to mention if you are an off-grid enthusiast! We have lots of fun stuff to share with you on learning how to build into that type of an experience.

Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to sharing with you as we go along. Subscribe to Jimmy's House by Email