Baby, It's Cold Inside

"No, I mean it, I'm freezing, wake up and put more wood on the fire!"

This is every night at our little farm on the prairie... I think it's a 70/30 split. 70% of the problem is that once we get heat in the house, it is escaping, and 30% is that our woodstove may not be as efficient as it needs to be. Of course my husband disagrees and thinks it's all the woodstove, which can't be fixed until we can can get 3 other men over to move out the old and in with the new.

DH is emotionally "done" building the house. I don't blame him really, it's taken a lot of work and all of our savings, and every favor we ever had. He's been working every weekend and some vacation days for over a year now.

However, the house is not done, so that's a bit of a problem.

Everyday I consider throwing in the towel and moving back to the city, not because I don't want to be here, but because there is neither human resources nor financial ones to solve problems at the farm anymore. I have no idea what to do, so I am little help. We have spent all of our savings to get to this point, so hiring someone isn't an option either.

It's easy to get discouraged because so little progress has been made as far as livability goes, but I know intellectually that the entire house has been sided, the roof was finished, the stove and pipe went in and the exterior was painted this summer, so that's a good summer's worth of work.

I just want to be out there. I have new friends out there, as well as, many new colleagues that I want to get to know better. I want to stop living in two places, but while I am willing to live without running water for awhile longer, I can't be cold. I just can't do it.

We do have the option of adding another wood stove or a propane heater, but the former would mean that I have no office and the later scares me.

Better start knitting more sweaters I guess.

Simplicity update: The most selfish person I have ever met is one of the city house roommates and is moving out on Saturday....thank you Jesus.

Voluptuous update: I learned how to make Greek yogurt, my world will never be the same...

Git'r Done

As Autumn quickly approaches, we are in a Get it Done mode here on the farm, or as my "grandmother" would write, "farm". I know I'll never be a real farmer to her until I have a cow, or several hundred...I guess I'm not sure where the threshhold is?

Not only do we have to get serious about winterizing our little homemade homestead, but DH and are both at the university this semester and applying for graduation in May, RIGHT ON!

I have also been offered an opportunity in midwifery, which would require another move, what? Yes, well, it may be in the cards for us I'm afraid to say. I'll know more as we get closer to the New Year.

But even with all of this hard work and planning we still have money burning a hole in our pockets to purchase more real estate. The city house is about to be rented up, so it's either the school house across the street from the farm, a storefront, or more rental housing.

I was going to buy rental housing and help out a "friend" but I found out about a week after the deal fell through that she owes about $20-30K for services that she didn't render and the Sheriff is getting involved, so I think I dodged a bullet there. I'm sure I don't know the whole story, but to quote this same friend "it's good to hear both sides of the story, because the truth is somewhere in between". I hope that is in this case because if not, she's probably going to jail.

(Note: January 22, 2011, I was happy to hear that the above situation is at least partially resolved, and that my instincts surrounding the situation were right on)

We have had some good times too. A week ago we got two 12 week kittens to take care of the mouse issue. They live in barn, purr like crazy, and make my nieces happy. They also bring me dead mice everyday...these free cats were a GREAT investment.

I invented a word today: hilariprecious def: the only description of a cat the size of a coffee cup trying to attack and almost full grown Cochian hen. Synonym: epic fail.

DH and I went for a drive on Sunday to spend some time together and reflect on the move. We have just finished the "easy season" so it seemed like a good idea. A couple challenges have definitely been:

1. The time apart and the fact that the farm is still a vacation spot for him and a home for me.

2. The isolation is as difficult as I expected, although I have met some really great, amazing, mature, hard working women in my new community, and I feel like I could be making some deep friendships.

3. The money didn't flow as fast or as soon as we had hoped, but fall and winter look good.

4. The livestock tie me to the farm. I have said more than once that I am being held hostage by $18 worth of groceries.

5. Completely off grid is not the right choice for us in this climate. We will be tying into electric, expanding the solar and selling back as well as buying.

Some great unexpected joys:

1. I lost a few dear friends due to the changes in me that made hanging out with them no longer possible-I tried to save it, ignored it as long as I could, but ultimately I snapped. Everyone, including me, got hurt. As a result, I am closer to people who I always thought were way too cool or smart to hang out with me, and who wouldn't be caught dead with my old crowd. The loyalty of three peeps (my originals) is particularity stunning.

2. I have the relationship with my sisters that I have always wanted. I see them almost every week and I talk to one or both of them everyday. This has not been true in my entire adult life. We are coming to let go of our childhood issues and really know, love, and respect each other. I'm taking my place back, as the oldest daughter, and I think everyone is relieved.

3. My marriage is stronger than it has ever been. Every couple does things that hurt each other, everyone has a journey of highs, lows, ebbs, and flows and we are certainly nothing if not average. But through the past three months, we have come clean, forgiven each other, reconnected and are having the time of our life together!

4. The connection with nature is so potent. I don't enjoy or experience the days, nights, and seasons, I feel them in my body, all the time, not just when I am concentrating. I can't stop myself from praying. Turning the wheel of the year is as easy as breathing, no effort, no planning. The apples and pears ripen...autumn is arriving. Their fragrance and sweetness is everywhere. I pile them into baskets, they give witness of the divine. The rose buds became heavy blooms, and are now saucy orange hips, soon to be thorns then rose buds again. Cheesy romantic poetry perhaps, but now I feel like I am living it with them, right now feeling my own fruitfulness-storing energy for the coming season.

We absolutely did the right thing. In doing so have created an affordable home for three college/working gals, made a commitment to finish our educations, came full circle back to our families, and became more ourselves and more us.

I'm sure all this rose hippy love will be fodder for sarcastic joking in February, but let's enjoy it together for now, huh?

Voluptuous Update: My husband has suddenly become my boyfriend again...well need I say more?

Simplicity Update: I am bringing almost my entire library to a new birth center, it is a beautiful plan: someone uses them, I maintain ownership, I don't have to store them!

Roll up the streets

I had to work later than usual yesterday, and was stuck eating chex mix for dinner...again.

I am struggling with the fact that not only is everything far away, but also, the piddly stores that are around close at 6pm around here...sometimes 8, but evening is the only time I have to go to any of them. I have to figure this can't work for many other people either?

I mean I grew up with stories of how hard farmer's have to work "sun up to sun down", when do they have time to grocery shop between 9am and 6pm? The rest of my neighbors seem to be factory workers, or childcare providers...same problem as I see it.

I never have everything I need. I am constantly making lists of things that I need from the city house, the grocery, Target, the hardware store. Trying to remember these lists and the water jugs every time I do get to leave is a hassle. Don't even talk to me about going to the bank. It's 90 min one way...oh and I lost my cash card and sunglasses, so I am a little reliant on cash and my car's visor at the moment.

Last summer when I was at the farm by myself, it was fine that there was nothing to do at night because I was overstimulated at work, now quite the opposite. I need to get out of here at night, but to where? I used to enjoy the slow pace,and going to bed with the sun, but today it sucks.

The spending from this spring and the month without income is catching up with us this month...I'm more than a little worried. I'm sure it will smooth out by September, but then we have to pay tuition again...ugh.

Voluptuous Update: it's still summer, and that's pretty great
Simplicity Update: Sister J and DH started a cottage industry this weekend, I went in for my Trellis consultation...

Standards

You know how people when they are camping or at the cabin, talk about "camp clean" or other such phrases to indicate that somehow, away from every day life, things don't need to be as perfect. You can wear clothes three days in a row, shower less often, eat marshmallows and gatorade for breakfast, wash dishes in cold water...these are just examples.

Many visitors to our off-grid life say these things, and you know it's cool, I've let some of my standards slip...but I'm not going in the same direction as everybody else...

You see, I'm a "make your own cleaning supplies" "cook from scratch" "tree-hugging, dirt-worshipping, environmentalist". And since moving here I must bleach everything! I live for Chlorox, and hand sanitizer.

I actually served a PBH sandwich to my dear sister with a mouse turd on it...now this gal took it in stride, because this is actually not the first time I have offered her poop as food. The sight of that 4 year old with bird guano in her mouth that 8-year-old me told her was candy is STILL priceless.

I spend most of my day wiping things, and I don't even HAVE small children...ok DH counts as twin toddlers, but that is another matter entirely.

I feel the need to boil things, bleach things, do laundry in hot water. Good clean dirt does not bother me...dead chipmunks, and squirrels, any insect, any poo, makes me FEEL infectious...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

I even spritz down the chickens daily because their dirty feathers make me feel like we're living in a trailer park. They dig it though...until they are in the freezer, they hit the chicken lottery, just sayin'.

In the shower yesterday-where I do my best thinking-I noticed how tan my feet were in comparison to my legs. I do tend to wear long skirts or dresses with no shoes, it's a look not everyone can pull off I assure you. But then I bent down to wash them with soap and my "tan" went down the drain. Potentially, I've been walking around with filthy feet for weeks!

This is not so bad though. When DH and I were first dating, we were sitting on the front porch, my alabaster and manicured feet in his lap and he said "I wish your feet were dirty" Fearing a fetish that would end our relationship, I cautiously asked why. He said, "Because that would mean you were outside having fun, and that's the life I want for you." Pretty good standards.

Voluptuous Update: I am wearing a sundress today that hasn't fit around the middle since 2005.

Simplicity Update: I am wearing a sundress today that I have been storing since 2005.

Woman at the Well

Usually I go to our home in the city for two days a week. But I have a Mama "percolating" so I thought it would be wise to stick around the farm for now. This created the need for me to go get some more water. There is a municipal, spring fed well just down the road. We went there for an emergency once, now we prefer it to any other water.

So I was the Woman at the Well. It caused quite a stir. I'm not sure where all the women in this community are, but evidently they rarely venture from their homes, once they get married at 18. Not less than 12 cars drove through the area (there is absolutely no reason to drive through,unless you are just checking out who is there) all men, all slowing down to watch me pump water, to watch it splash into my bottles, and onto my feet.

I imagined that old story about Jesus and the woman at the well. What did He see? What did She see? You know he had been traveling for a long time, on foot. He was probably as happy to see water as he was to see a woman. Water...Woman...they go together. They quench the thirst, wash over you, make you clean, change your inner temperature-up or down. She may have seen the Stranger, her first instinct to ignore, walk away fast, but the warring feelings inside her told her to stay and give what release that she could.

She had a man, a good man, at home waiting for her to come back with the days water. He loved her, and there were lots of women in the village who admired him. And yet this Stranger called forth something in her that she thought had passed with her girlhood. So she stands at the well, for all to see and gossip about later; the Stranger asks for a drink, she lifts her cupped hands to His mouth...They are both released, unglued, awed, made whole and it takes only seconds. Whom has baptized who?

No one knows who this woman really was, or if this actually happened, or if it is another great teaching story; for me she is the Magdalene. She gives her emotion and her body, risks her life and lifestyle, for love, for the lover, for the Beloved. Later, in a tense moment, when the Stranger called out "I thirst", it was for Her.

I do not typically wax biblical when doing random chores, but I felt exposed at the well, open, necessary. When offered help to carry in my water, by dear friends visiting the farm this week, I had to say no. Carrying that water to my home seemed like a sacred duty at that moment. I felt tied to all women by that simple task. I imagined African women with big pottery jars on their heads, South American women with skin bags tied with rope, ancient Irish women throwing gold into wells to bless them. I am just an average American woman, with bpa free plastic bottles, but we are all one, thirsting, at the well.

Chores

Everyday we have chores. They are not super intense, but they are required and it's everyday regardless of how much I'd rather sleep, or if I want to go out of town.

Chickens have to be let out, watered and fed, pets need the same, and need to be walked and cleaned up after, and the garden needs to be weeded and watered. At first it was daunting, now it adds a peaceful rhythm to my life.

I had a mentor once, Rena Tarbet, who said "The less you do, the less you want to do. And the opposite is true too." I have found this to be accurate in my life in all aspects. The more I do, the more I want to do, and the more gets done. So starting out the day feeding 8 animals, taking a walk, and tending to the plants, makes me more productive overall and sets the pace for the day. By the time evening rolls around, and I'm knitting or crafting for pleasure and profit, I feel good about the day, like I've earned the down time and the rest.

I noticed last night, while in bed reading magazines with a flashlight (so summer camp) that the knot I have carried around in my right shoulder for the past 17 years is almost gone. How's THAT for a benefit of country living?

Voluptuous Update: The design for my meditation room is crazy, sexy, amazing!

Simplicity Update: We will be opening our sweatlodge this weekend.

My first week

Well the big move happened, but only with the generosity of friends and family. It took eight friends and 2 sisters to make it work, but we’re here. I was “can’t get out of bed” ill for the big moving day, so my dearest girlfriends finished packing up my house and cleaned it, while another cooked for all our volunteers at the farm. My sisters and the rest of our friends finished the floors and trim in the farm house and unloaded the truck. All of this happened while I was sleeping and trying to get healthy…

Everyone was sweet and gracious, but imagine my horror! I could not make myself move, but had to continually remind myself that if these women were this sick, I would gladly pack their crap and scrub their tubs. My parents sent a cash gift with a nice card. I would scrub their tub too!

I started full speed at my new job on Tuesday, only to run out of ink in my printer and have to make a 2hr round trip to get more. DH and I started our list of “things we can never run out of” on Wednesday night. We are not on a deserted island or anything-I mean one can have a pizza delivered here, but it’s 14 miles to gasoline and groceries, and almost an hour to the nearest office supply or discount box store, so it’s not financially or ecologically responsible to make too many trips. In the City, we were seven blocks from Target (from which all good flows) so learning to stock up and get everything we need when we’re at the store is going to be a big shift for us.

I got six laying hens for an early birthday present from DH, he built the coolest coop for the gals, but I won the recognition of being the most fearless chicken wrangler. As soon as I unpack my camera, I will post photos. We feel like real farmers now with our garden, our bees, and our chickens!

Voluptuous Update: This one is hard this week, there is nothing sexy about the amount of phlem I am producing…DH made breakfast sandwiches that we packed with coffee, water, and cherries in a basket for our chicken field trip.

Simplicity Update: The wood scaffolding was reinvented into our outdoor shower. I still have to boil water for our solar shower to make it warm enough though!