Restart: Blogging

Well, I’ve had a nice break from the blog, and I think I’m feeling ready to start posting again.

I’m in a different place mentally than I was a month ago (or however long it’s been since I posted).  A better place.  Much better.

I moved forward over the past month in the post-relationship mental processing — a giant leap forward.  This was really necessary for me, even though it’s been over six months since I moved out – I’d gotten stuck in a place where I recognized that my thoughts and judgements and opinions had been forced into his mold, but I was in denial about how dramatic that was, and I couldn’t step out of the mold quite yet.  Especially since we were still spending lots of time together.  In fact we’d been spending more and more time together, and I’d begun to wonder if we might not have a chance at getting back together.  I initiated a conversation where I started clarifying some of the things that hadn’t worked for me during our time together, and it blossomed into a dialogue of crystal clear communication (VERY rare for us, that was one of my issues actually) which, while encouraging in and of itself, made it very clear we are NOT getting back together.  As soon as that conversation was over, like magic, I felt freed up.  Freed up from constraints I hadn’t even realized I was carrying.  I apparently have a HUGE tolerance for walking on eggshells to accommodate another person.  For taking their perspective and denying any other (even though I usually have a personal view that’s a conglomeration of several perspectives).  I’m not sure that’s a wholly bad trait, but I guess I’d gotten rather carried away with it.  Discarding it, now that it doesn’t serve me, felt really good!

Anyway, so here I am back.  When I first started the blog, I used it almost as a diary, just posting tidbits of what happened each day or every couple days.  I think I might like to go back to that, instead of feeling like every post has to be so SIGNIFICANT.

Unfortunately, my first diaric post is of a vegetative day in which I did nothing except water the garden, surf the web, and make a pseudo-omelet for lunch with eggs (local), avocado (not local) and bleu cheese (not local).  The garlic was not local either, although I do have some local garlic, but I’m using up the pound from the co-op first before I get to the local heads.  Oh, and I added in a half a jalapeno from my own garden too.  As I’ll describe another time, my garden this year was truly a bust – hardly anything grew.  But there are bits and pieces that grew, and three jalapenos is three more than none.   Then tonight I made a salad from store-bought greens and tomatoes, and feta, and another avocado, and some other non-local stuff, but some of my own chard went in, plus slices of a local leek.

Retract, Regroup, Restart

As recent weeks and months have passed, I’ve noticed that my energy for the various challenges I’m supposedly participating in has evaporated.  Lots of reasons all converging:  extra paid work that is taxing my time, much free time spent getting the winter’s wood in (still ongoing), feeling mentally down (variety of reasons but mostly relationship-oriented), and the fact that my garden is a bust this year, with only potatoes and chard doing well.  I might end up with four or five winter squash total, perhaps four beets, two tomatoes, three jalapenos, one bell pepper.  Time just got away from me and all of a sudden everyone else was harvesting, when I was still looking at seedlings.  As for the blog challenges, they were generally sucking more energy from me in the guilt of all that I’m not doing, than they were enlivening me with the accomplishments I was doing.

And, I realized recently that there are some things — personal paperwork, housekeeping, reading list — that I really would rather be spending my time on at the moment.

So, I’m officially cancelling my participation in just about everything:  Riot for Austerity, Independence Days Challenge, Growing Challenge, etc.  I will of course still have a goal of moving forward with preparations and skills learned for the future, growing and cooking new things, etc.  I just won’t be taking much time to report on it on a regular basis.  Every now and then, yes — every week, no.  And I’m sorry to say that I will probably stop reading many blogs too — my blogroll had gone from ten or fifteen blogs to several dozen on a reader that told me when a new post was made.  I could easily pass the evening online just reading blogs.  While I may still do that now and then, I’m going to try to wean myself from that in favor of time spent on my own projects — sorry, y’all, no offense I hope!

Hopefully this new direction will mean that I occasionally have something to say here other than an IDC report or whining about how tired I am!

Overwhelmed

That’s what I am right now — overwhelmed.  Physically, mentally, emotionally, at work, at home, in every direction, it seems.  As a result, some of my Challenges have fallen by the wayside.  But I’m slowly coming out of it, getting back on my feet, back on track.

There are a variety of posts I’ve been meaning to make, but just haven’t spent the time to do the background work (like updating my chart that is tracking the collapse of the economy, or taking the photos of the garden fence I’ve been promising!).  Plus, I’m already spending too much time on the computer, and writing posts takes me quite a long time usually!

Stay tuned, I’ll get my act together again shortly…

Unwritten Posts

I’ve fallen behind on many things this spring, including blog posts.

I know I owe a book-review post for the book(s) I’ve read for Green Bean’s May Bookworm Challenge.

I probably need to write a few more musing-type posts about my mental/emotional adjustments to the stresses I experienced last winter and on into the spring.

I’m *months* behind on my Riot for Austerity tallies.

But this morning I was reminded of another post I forgot to make, when someone found this blog by searching for “I can’t get my gamma seal lid on the bucket”.  During an Independence Days Challenge report last month, I’d described similar trouble when I bought some gamma seal lids and then attempted to install one on a storage bucket I already had.  The storage buckets were purpose-bought for food storage from a co-op from whom that would be the expected intended use.  The lids said they fit “almost all buckets between 3.5-7 gallons”.  My buckets were 4 gallons, comfortably within that range.  And yet.  Even so.  The lids would not fit.  The buckets were too small in diameter. 

This last month I ordered 5-gallon buckets from the verysame co-op, and lo and behold, whaddaya know.  The lids fit!  I didn’t even need the rubber mallet I’d been advised to use — the ring part of the lid was, first of all, quite apparently the same size as the bucket.  It fit easily over the rim.  I pushed down, used a bit of force, walked my hands around the edge, and *snap*!  The ring attached itself to the bucket lip.  So easy!  So obvious!  It’s now screamingly apparent that the other buckets were simply too small for these lids, but since I’d never done it before, I had no way of knowing what was within the “push harder, it will work” range and what was outside it.  Now I know. Hope that helps you too, mystery googler…

Naan Ventured, Naan Gained…

Monday’s trial of “no computer from 10am-4pm” went well.   I peeked at the computer now and then, but didn’t allow myself any online activities other than checking to see if there were work-related emails.  There weren’t.  I didn’t deal with or even read non-work emails during that time.  I did allow myself a few solitaire games though. :)  And once, mid-day, when I needed a rest from outdoor/physical work, but wasn’t “allowed” to go online, I napped instead!  It was nice, and I felt good about the variety of errands/tasks I got done that day.

Tuesday and Wednesday are work days for me, so today, Thursday, was the next chance I had to try it again.  Today I closed the computer just after 9am, which ‘earned’ me a lunchtime hour online, according to my rules.  Of course, is it cheating that 9am was easy for me because I’d gotten up and turned ON the computer earlier than usual?  Hmm, I better check the rulebook on that one.  Today went a little differently than Monday, though it turned out well and I still followed my rules.  What was different was that it was cooler today, not as comfortable to work outdoors except doing something physical that warmed me up, like digging.  I did a little of that today.  But also, my back was in ‘caution’ mode today, meaning nothing was wrong but I felt susceptible to tweaking it the wrong way, and didn’t want to push it.  So, I did no tree pruning today (leaning and reaching from a ladder is a REAL good way to invite Mr. Murphy into my lumbar region).  And I did only a few minutes of garden digging.  Plus, I discovered two different reasons I needed to go to town midday, so I did.  That took a chunk out of my project time, but I accomplished my town tasks, so that was good.

When I came home mid-afternoon, in the midst of doing some indoor projects, I decided to try making naan.  I’d read badhuman’s recipe for it earlier this spring, and had it in mind to try ever since.  I made a few variations — our local grocery didn’t have plain yogurt except in the big size, and even that was nonfat.  So I had bought a small vanilla flavored yogurt to use instead.  Turns out it’s only 6 ounces, so when the dough came out a bit too dry, I added just under 2 ounces of soymilk.  I think a little less would have been better, as the dough went from too dry to perhaps a bit too moist.  Plus, although the yeast bubbled a bit, I think it is not really live anymore.  Perhaps when I realized that, I should have covered my bases by adding a little baking powder, but I didn’t think of it at the time.  Anyway, the bread came out okay, but thick and dense, not light and airy.  It might have benefitted from another 1-2 minutes in the oven as well, even though it browned nicely on the bottom.  Bottom line, I need to try again, but these results are still edible!

Oh, and I will add that I both warmed the bowl (the recipe specifies putting the dough to rise in a warmed and buttered bowl) AND did the rising in the solar oven!  It was cloudy and the sun was low in the sky, but I think the oven got up to 100*F, which was enough to warm the bowl and hopefully warm enough but not too warm for the rising dough.  It was really the only warm place I had — oh wait, I guess I could have set the bowl in the truck, that might have worked too…  I still need to re-establish some wind protection for the solar oven, but soon as I do that, it’s ready to use!

Sloth, and a Strategy

I can say it now, out loud even: I am a sloth. Some might say lazy, though in my defense I’d argue that it’s selective laziness – there are certainly lots of examples of accomplishments on my part, including some that distinctly non-lazy people might respect. Some might think it borders on depression, and there might be a grain of truth in that too, but mostly not – I sleep well, I don’t feel overly or inappropriately sad (relationship breakup notwithstanding), I’m interested in lots of things, and I look forward to the future (though, given the current world, not without some trepidation, for sure). My preferred term for my condition is low-energy. And I have always been this way. Always.

As a child it manifested mostly by being a night-owl; I’d stay up late into the evening, reading or making plans or sometimes even cleaning out the closet. In the evening I’d feel high-energy, mentally – rarin’ to go on whatever had my attention at the moment, except for the fact that it was late and I was physically tired. But oh, the enthusiasm! Then, in the morning? Gone. No enthusiasm whatsoever. I wanted nothing more from life than to be able to go back to sleep. It didn’t take me long to learn that when I did sleep late and got up at noon, once I was up, that felt pretty bad too – I usually went straight from “ohhhh, I feel good but SO sleepy, Must.Sleep.More”, to “ugh, I slept way too long, now I not only feel yucky, but the day’s half over and everyone else has accomplished lots of things already!” However, recognizing this did NOT inspire me to just get up earlier instead of going back to sleep. Somehow that magnetic pull of the head back onto the pillow was just irresistable. I even used to set my alarm on weekends, because waking up early and turning off the alarm and going back to sleep was SO much more satisfying than just sleeping later in the first place! I know, I know, wacky, eh? Anyway, what I remember clearly, and still experience sometimes, is the feeling of high mental energy at night, when the physical energy is low, and wishing “why can’t I just carry this good mental feeling over into the morning, so that I can act on it?” But mornings never felt the same. I don’t know why, they just didn’t.

Over the years I trained myself to be less of a night owl, which made a HUGE positive difference in my life. Now, if I stay up “late”, that’s 11pm or midnight, when that used to be “early” for me. And if I sleep in, that’s until 8am or 8:30, not noon. But the general dynamics of low energy have stayed with me. I have to “make” myself exercise; it’s never what I FEEL like doing. And although I have a rather extreme reverence for the natural world, my reverence doesn’t require much of my direct experience – I’m perfectly happy staying indoors all day, reading or computering, working in an office setting, whatever. I know this is contradictory for many people, but it works for me. My reverence for the natural world is because that’s what I believe is right, not because it meets my personal life experience needs. Don’t get me wrong, I truly enjoy hiking and camping, and I absolutely treasure living close to nature on a day-to-day basis. It’s just that it isn’t something I HAVE to do to be satisfied, and there are so many other things I do feel drawn to do, that I don’t end up spending much time in those activities.

So, back to the present: I’ve been feeling rather overwhelmed. The changes going on in the world are frightening for me to contemplate dealing with on my own, since I just spent four years preparing to deal with these changes together with another person. And, of course, Peak Oil aside, I’m still dealing with the emotions of the end of a relationship – one that had a stronger hold on my views and my habits than I’d realized. I sometimes feel like I’ve forgotten how to think for myself, or how to make a decision on my own. Now, I realize this might not be all that unusual, and I’m sure I’ll be back to myself before too long. It’s just that I feel like I’m racing the clock to decide how to set up my new life, before options (such as jobs, relocation possibilities, mortgages etc) start being removed from the picture. In addition, I had used my relationship, rather successfully, to help me ward off my low-energy personality, to banish that part of me to a hidden memory – I followed R’s lead in terms of activities, projects, etc. He didn’t work himself too hard day by day, yet he managed to accomplish a lot, and usually in a fairly short time period. His secret was to make some progress every day. Didn’t have to be sunup to sundown nonstop, just whatever one could handle, make progress. I still do use that technique and think it’s a gem.  And it was easy to do when there was someone else doing it alongside you.

But now back on my own, I’ve found that I’ve lost my ability to self-discipline: when I have a free day at home, I might think to myself “oh, I’ll do this, and that, and that, and that…” and not pay attention to what’s realistic. Then when the day comes, I’m not “in the mood” to work on those projects, and I spend the whole day online instead, reading blogs or discussion boards or whatnot. Each time I look at the clock, I say “okay, just one more hour and then I’ll go do XYZ.” I can pass a whole day that way! Or, as I did last Saturday, I go outside, spend 15-20 minutes working on a project, then “reward” myself with a break indoors at the computer. Problem was, I was only working 15-20 minutes for each 1-2 hour break! Not the way to get a whole lot done…

I want to give myself permission to feel lost for a while, permission to grieve for my relationship, permission to feel tired from the stress of that and of the unexpected move, permission to feel afraid for being alone. But I also want to reclaim my ability for self-discipline, and to move myself forward with whatever my current plans are. And I recognize that my current weakness is spending time on the computer. In earlier years it might have been TV or reading or coffeeshops or bookstores. Now, I have no TV reception, and while I’m in the midst of reading several books, not to mention behind on my few subscription magazines, and I’m not so much for hanging out at coffeehouses anymore, and the one bookstore in town holds no more spell over me, my truly addictive weakness now is spending time online. That’s where I fall to, instead of focusing on the things I truly want to focus on.

So I came up with a strategy for my at-home days: no computer between 10am and 4pm.

Now of course the very first thing I did after coming up with this strategy, was to come up with the exceptions to the rule. :) First exception is when I have work-related reasons to be on the computer. Second exception is, if I shut down by 9am instead of 10am, then I can have a lunch-hour check-in from 12-1 (or whenever I stop to eat).

So, today’s “make progress” projects to choose from are: garden beds, garden fence, pruning fruit trees, kitty door, making naan. Other projects I might work on: setting up the solar oven and the food dehydrator, putting the bags of bulk beans/rice into mouseproof buckets. And of course there are daily tasks like doing the dishes, putting away the laundry, a little cleaning, not to mention some generic unpacking/rearranging tasks still left undone.

It’s 9:45 am.  I’ll sign off shortly and be back at 4pm.  Wish me luck!

Burning the Burl

This morning I put a ’special’ piece of wood in the fire, as a sort of catharsis. It was a fist-sized burl of wood that looked a lot like the face from Munch’s ‘Scream.’ The eyes were made of knots, and the mouth was a fallen-out knot, an actual hole in the wood. Not a happy-looking fellow, that’s for sure. Wish I’d taken a photo of it now. I’d had it for years, up on the wall in the shed, as a form of art. But I didn’t like looking at it, at least not lately. It reminded me of a girlfriend – it might have been she that found it or gave it to me – who used to be perennially cheerful but who is going through some really tough times right now. I only see her occasionally as she lives 40 miles away in CountySeat and doesn’t use email, but I’m pretty sure she’s returned to drinking, after decades of teetotalling, and I think she’s in a bad spiral down.

I decided that burning the burl would represent declining to fall into that downward spiral of depression or discouragement. I’d also felt, in recent weeks, rather anxious about the junction of leaving a relationship and making my way alone, together with the apparent speeding up of the world’s economic troubles. While I definitely see the direction things are going, and I expect certain outcomes that might cause some to call me “doomer”, I nevertheless do not find useful the “next week it will all come unraveled” theme that R likes to focus on. (And yesterday I had an online conversation with him that ended with more of the same, so it was fresh in my mind). So the burl-burning would also represent my refusal to let the arrival of a scary future be too overwhelming for me. I keep reminding myself that 1) it might just take a lot longer than we think for things to get really bad, and 2) if everything *does* crash tomorrow, I’m in better shape, preparedness-wise, than most people – a combination of being mentally prepared as well as having actually done some physical preparations such as having stocked up on selected items. And, of course, burning the burl also counts as decluttering – one less thing to move next week!

So I made the morning fire (15 seconds of wood and paper + one match = heat, as it is most mornings, as opposed to the frustrating occasion such as I wrote about earlier, when no amount of fussing seemed to keep lit paper lit, or to transfer flame from paper to wood…) and when it was going well, I carefully propped Mr. Scream on the burning wood. He was resting directly on two pieces of burning wood, each of which had other burning wood beneath it. I sat back to watch the flames. After a while, his edges rounded and glowing, his mouth agape wider now, Mr. Scream seemed on the verge of tumbling to the floor of the stove, and I began to wonder what little change would send him over: would the mostly-burned wood under his left side break away, even though it seemed sturdy at the moment? Would the piece under his right side, also mostly burned now, with only two little spires of remaining wood holding him up, fail? That seemed likely. Would Mr. Scream simply dissolve into ashes in place? Or maybe a rush of wind from a *pop* elsewhere in the fire would blow him over before his time had come?

I began to feel the analogy to watching the world these days. The house of cards that is our economy has many similarities to my morning fire. So many factors in play at one time, only some of which are we, as observers, aware. Some relevant things we know with certainty, such as whether our firewood is wet or dry, oak or balsam, and how the different attributes of the wood make it more or less likely that this or that piece lasts longer against the flames. But so much of what is happening is unclear to us – either because the science of it is beyond our knowledge, or because it’s simply unpredictable in terms of too many forces acting on it to know for sure in what order the outcomes will happen.

Eventually, of course, Mr. Scream did fall. The cause isn’t even important (though, for the record, he broke and fell on his own, the burning underpinning logs still offering support). But it really impressed upon me again how pointless it is to obsess over the minutae and to work oneself into a tizzy being *so sure* this or that will happen by Wednesday noon. I don’t really know how to do it, but I am ready to add some positive vibes back into my view of the coming times.

Third (and Final!) Bulk Post

Mar 5 OMENS

I’m struggling these days with some really mixed feelings about the new house, and it’s got me thinking about those little voices inside our heads that tell us “this is the right thing” or “this isn’t the right thing.” I’ve never had a comfortable relationship with those voices. I don’t think I’ve *ever* been on a plane when I didn’t have the voice in my head saying “I just know this is the time it’s going to crash – maybe you should treat the mere fact of having had that thought as a sign not to get on the plane.” I’ve never gotten off the plane or cancelled a trip due to those thoughts, but I have them, every time (fortunately I rarely/never fly anymore). On the other side, when something is happening that is good, the voice returns with “ooh, this was meant to be!”, and all sorts of situations present themselves just begging to be interpreted as signs of such fate. (One recently-joined couple I know apparently found the fact that the anniversary of HER sister’s death is the same date as HIS birthday, to be compelling evidence that their relationship was meant to be) So, I find that I’m anxious and worried with regard to the new rental arrangement, and my internal voice is trying to tell me “this is a sign, it’s not a good plan, go somewhere else.” But when I stop and think about it, I just don’t really buy that those things constitute some kind of mystic palmreader – rather, I think, there are just a few specific things I’m worried about (keeping the dog sufficiently constrained, making sure KH’s projects don’t turn into problem livestock, broken fences or neighbors annoyed at the noise or smell) and a few specific things I don’t find especially appealing (orange shag carpet, not to mention the general concept of renting someone else’s house as opposed to owning my own) and then there is the baseline bad vibes of the moment having to do with the end of a relationship, anxiety about the world crashing down around me, etc. It may or may not turn out to have been a mistake, but I prefer to make my choices by weighing the pluses and the minuses and identifying what risks are acceptable, rather than by guessing when the universe is or isn’t sending me a sign. And in this case I’m sufficiently interested in being a part of promoting a shift to a local food economy (which is what KH’s projects in the fields are generally about) that I’m willing to risk spending some time in a situation that I might end up changing again in six months. Besides, none of the other rentals I found had any lesser downsides. OK, I feel better now.

Speaking of runaway dogs, about 2pm this afternoon the herbal business where I work received a call from a neighbor, telling us that Luna (my dog) and Ellie (the ranch caretaker’s dog) were at their house. That’s about twelve miles from the ranch! I’d watched the dogs carefully when I drove off at 7:30 in the morning – I even closed the gate behind me, which is unusual, because MB (the caretaker) had left earlier on an errand and it was a situation the dogs weren’t used to, for him to leave first and then me to leave, with them remaining home alone. I certainly didn’t see them following me, and when I talked to MB later he confirmed that the gate was still closed when he arrived home a few hours later. So apparently, the dogs went out through the back meadow, which is fenced only for horses/cows with typical barbed wire that doesn’t even slow a dog down. How fortunate that they ended up at someone’s house where they were recognized! It all ended well – I went and retrieved the dogs and they sat in my truck for 2 hours until I returned home – but it did add to my anxiety about making a new place work for a dog. When I first got Luna, the issue of how to keep her contained in the yard was a big deal for me – I had fence built at two different houses, and at both locations it would generally hold her but she would occasionally escape and run playfully around the neighborhood, not hurting anyone or anything but thinking it was a game to not let herself get caught. And she’s good at that game! It was such a relief moving out to R’s where there was no one else for miles around; no need for a fence. And even there she ran 3 miles to the neighbor’s house on several occasions when we were both away from home. I definitely have more to learn about keeping a good dog-house!

 

Mar 4 I GOT THE HOUSE!

I never did like calling it “PricyHouse”, even though that’s an accurate description – it just didn’t feel nice. Anyway, now I’ll get to call it “Home” instead – I heard from the landlords and they’ve agreed to a six-month lease! In the late afternoon, KH and I walked around the yard and talked about which fields she plans to use for which purposes. She’s getting more and more excited about doing a small-scale CSA. She also has a friend with six “pet” cows that might end up on one of these fields. I’m not thrilled about cows, but I have to remember not to lump everything into such black and white terms. This *is* cow country out here, and I’m well aware that six “pet” cows is not the same as “running cows” and trampling and trashing the whole landscape. As long as she is responsible for the fencing and other aspects of the project, I need to just pretend that the fields are leased outside of my control. This is simply part of what’s involved in making the house affordable.

 

Mar 1 PUTTERING DAY

I suffer from that unnamed (but common, I think) ailment described partly by a feeling of perennial lack of time on a busy day when I leave early for work and get home with just enough time to unwind but not enough time or energy to accomplish many home chores. But the counterpart experience that defines this ailment is that, on a day when I actually *can* stay home all day, nowhere I need to go, plenty of time, theoretically, for all that knitting, reading, paperwork and bread baking that I never seem to have time to do on other days – on those stay-at-home days, I somehow feel so aimless, almost depressed, that I rarely have the energy to do any of those chores. Recently, I’ve dealt with this ailment by mostly just accepting it – allowing myself to wallow a bit, rewarding myself for every little chore I do. My reward is, sometimes, a little time I allow myself to sit and read, or play some computer solitaire or just listen to the radio. Last Thursday I got *many* chores done in the morning and mid-day, so my reward was that I allowed myself to go to town for a few hours in the afternoon and sit at the WiFi Cafe with my laptop, checking email and generally doing the online surfing thing. Today is another one of those days, except that I don’t plan to go to town today *or* tomorrow, and maybe not even Monday. We’ll see, though – three days of puttering in my current limbo situation, without internet access, might just be too much. However, it’s not like there’s a shortage of things to do at home. I have a stack of unread magazines about two feet high (mostly some recent issues of *High Country News*, my favorite publication, and some back issues of *The Sun* which a friend offered me). I have about a month’s worth of expenses to record, and two months’ worth of Riot for Austerity data to consolidate so I can report to the group. I also have about three rows started on my first knitting project, not to mention all the ingredients needed for some trial loaves of bread. I could be planning this summer’s garden, even though I don’t know for sure where I’ll be planting it. I have, in short, no shortage of home-things to do. Not even counting computer journalling or blogwriting (which often overlap but are two separate documents).

 

Feb 29 PENDING

No reply email from PricyHouse owners yet. I’ve double- and triple-confirmed with KH that she’s still enthusiastic, and that she’s willing to pay X per month to lease the fields, for a year at a time if that’s the lease the owners want. She says yes, she’s in. I’m still wary of all the things that could go wrong with her plan – anything from deer or wind making the growing impractical (I think these are the most likely situations), to there being something chemically unsuitable in the well water (it’s hot, and sulfur-y, that’s known so far), to her getting a great job somewhere else and moving away, or otherwise abandoning the project for personal or financial reasons. I’m prepared to continue with the lease even if that happens, but I like the prospects of her plan enough to accept those risks. There are plenty of personal gardeners in these parts, and a handful who grow to sell at the farmer’s market or to friends, but I think we would be the first attempt to seriously think about the need to expand the local food economy for reasons of future necessity. KH used the phrase “CSA” this afternoon in her description of her plans. It sounded like it was a new idea to her, and she was exploring it – having her potential customers pay her in advance in exchange for fresh produce throughout the season. And on such a small scale of only a few such ‘customers’, she’s talking to them ahead of time and finding out what they like as a part of figuring out what to grow. I keep thinking that I’ll identify a few veggies that she is NOT growing for sale, and perhaps try them out myself. Beets, maybe, and chard? Those grew well at R’s, and I can’t assume the soil is the same (R’s place is essentially on ancient lakebed, PricyHouse is up against the base of the mountains), but it’s a place to start.

 

Feb 28 WINTER READING/DECLUTTERING PROJECT

One project I started several months ago was a winter reading/decluttering project. My goal was to read twenty books off my shelf that I would want to get rid of afterwards. I’d long ago decluttered by getting rid of what books I had that I simply didn’t want anymore. And, of course, this is all separate from the books I have that I think are worth keeping – either as a helpful library for the future, or that simply mean enough to me to be worth the space they take up. After the latest decluttering, I realized that I had a pretty large stack of books that I was pretty sure I wouldn’t feel the need to keep, but didn’t want to get rid of them yet, as I’d not read them yet! (Over the past 30 years, I’d rarely passed a used-book store without finding at least 1-2 treasures to buy. But I hadn’t read my gems at anything approaching the same rate. So the unread pile is still rather tall.) So I decided in late fall that I would undertake a winter reading/decluttering project by reading twenty of those books, and then, unless in the course of reading them I decided I wanted to keep them after all, then those books would be passed on to others – either given away to individuals or donated to the library. Of course this project got delayed by the unplanned happenings of this winter, and it may well turn into the spring reading project, or even the 2008 reading project, but I don’t plan to abandon it. So far I’ve read and decluttered two books (titles already forgotten) and am in the process of reading numbers three and four: (*On The Shred Of A Cloud* by Rolf Edberg, and *Second Nature* by Michael Pollan).

 

Feb 26 DECISION

Finally emailed the owners of PricyHouse and told them that if they’d agree to a six month lease, I’m ready to commit to the house. In truth I’m ready to commit to the house even if they insist on a yearlong lease, but I’m hoping they’ll be willing to start with the shorter commitment. Now I just need to hear back to know it’s a done deal!

Second Week

Feb 18: I BET YOU’VE NEVER DONE THIS

Last time I went to R’s I remembered to take my various clocks from the storage shed. I set them up around the Schoolhouse. Two of them work fine. One of them runs, ticks pleasantly, but doesn’t keep the right time. But, I keep it in the bedroom anyway, just because I like the ticking sound. Just have to remember not to look at it!

Feb 17: LEMON OR LEMONADE?

This morning I got to see the inside of PricyHouse, and meet the owners. I left after the visit feeling quite discouraged and thinking that house probably wasn’t the way to go. The folks are nice enough, but they are pretty mainstream folk, and this isn’t a career rental but rather the house they plan to retire to in ten or so years, so they really want things kept up and more-or-less as they are. Which is fine, I guess, it just gave me an odd feeling. He said “we’ve got a bit of a thistle problem, and I encourage tenants to just go out there with a hoe and get them while they’re small.” Then the wife said “or you can just have the County come up and spray them..” Horrified, I said “oh no, I’d much rather dig them,” but immediately I’m wondering how much herbicide is already in the soil from earlier tenants having chosen the other way. On the plus side, I told them I’d be willing to pay the whole lease’s rent up front, if they’d be willing to drop the rent a bit, and they seemed willing to at least consider that.

The other thing that discouraged me was the interior of the house. It just seemed kinda tacky to my taste (disregard what I said a few days ago about having a tolerance for everything :-). Plastic edging on the wall corners, fake wallboard, and orange shag carpeting in nearly every room (okay, maybe that’s just in the bedrooms, but there’s *some* kind of carpet just about everywhere in the house except the kitchen and the bathrooms). I hate carpet in general, and shag carpet in particular, and I won’t even comment on the orange. If I was buying the house I would tear out the carpet before I even moved in, no matter if it was the depths of winter. But in a rental, you can’t do that. The other thing that didn’t especially warm me to the place was its size. It’s huge. Nice size kitchen, three medium-size bedrooms, two bathrooms, and then two large other rooms. One is certainly supposed to be a living room and I guess the other would be a dining room or family room or some such. The living room and I’ll-call-it-a-dining room are fairly central to the house and you have to go through one or both of them to get anywhere else. I almost got lost in the place.

So by the time I left the visit, I was feeling pretty ‘yuck’ about the whole scene – I mean, if you’re going to pay top dollar, you should get something *more* appealing instead of *less* appealing, right? The current Schoolhouse arrangement that is costing me AlmostNothing suddenly started to seem not so bad, and I could just go visiting friends in another town for a few days during Spring Break when the owner and his family needs to occupy the place.

But… You knew there was going to be a “but”, right?

That afternoon when I stopped by to see KH to see how she felt after having seen the place and mulled it over for a day, I got a total surprise. She’d come up with a compromise idea and was totally excited about it. She was disappointed when I told her how unappealing the interior is to me, but after she described her idea, it began to grow on me. Here’s the gist of it – KH wants to farm. She moved to ThisLittleValley largely so that she could pursue this dream. The kind of farming she envisions is growing part hay and other animal feed, and part market crops. She has some fields associated with her current rental and in fact was reluctant to consider leaving (in spite of some indoor problems with the rental) because she’s excited about the kind of hay production she says she can get off the acres there. She was looking at PricyHouse with the same eye, looking at the fields and thinking about how productive they could be. So here’s her plan: rather than moving in with me, she’s interested in *leasing* most of the acreage from me (PricyHouse has 40 acres attached). She’d stay in her current rental, but she thinks she can grow enough on the fields at PricyHouse to allow her to pay me a modest amount per month. If the landlords give even a small discount for my paying the whole lease up front, and then I add in what KH is offering per month, that brings the PricyHouse cost down smack dab to the same as what I’d expect to pay for *any* rental house in this area. Plus it lets me keep my privacy, or have the option of renting out a room (or even two) if the right roommate comes along. In our area the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management hire lots of summer help, and there are always lots of folks looking for rooms then. Although most of them are young kids, lots of partiers/drinkers that wouldn’t be suitable for me, I can always keep on the lookout for the older/quieter folks that might be just perfect. This idea is starting to grow on me! In addition, KH will help me prune the orchard trees (apparently there are apple, peach and apricot). KH and I will mark off where I want to have my own garden, and we’ll agree what areas are hers. She plans some dryland feed crops that don’t need to be irrigated, plus some market crops that do (strawberries and maybe tomatoes). The key to her plan is something I haven’t mentioned yet – the well that feeds this house holds water that is 126 degrees F in the ground. There is some kind of cooling system so that you get cool water when you turn on the faucet indoors, but if you let the tap run it eventually warms up to about 105F. KH wants to use hoop-rows and drip irrigation and take advantage of the soil that is warmed by such hot water, to grow crops that are not currently or largely grown in this area due to our very short growing season (we get hard frosts well into June, and they start up again in October if not September).

Suddenly the ugly carpet seems so trivial! If KH does this, it will inspire me to plant “for the market” as well as for my own use too. I do have some more questions to ask KH about her plans (I think it gets pretty windy there, how will her hoops hold up? and more along those lines) but the idea of pushing into the future of a local food economy *definitely* sounds like something I want to be a part of, even if there are some risks involved. KH has already talked to several local restaurants/caterers and they are interested in using local produce if they can get it. Our farmer’s market is pitiful (half an hour max, once a week for just a few summer months, usually only 3-4 vendors with just a few items because they know they only get a few customers) and any produce KH or I can offer there would be a big boost. Can you tell I’m excited about the possibilities? Oh yeah, and KH would probably *not* put her horses there, unless she needed to separate one for illness or something. But in the summer when school’s out (she’s a teacher, currently, at the high school over the hill in CountySeat) she would put some goats in a movable pen there. She’d come by every day to move the pen. This would give her some extra feed for the goats once it’s run out at her place, plus help dramatically with the thistle problem the landlord referred to at PricyHouse.

Okay, I need to settle down and just mull this over for a few days, see if it still feels like a good idea. The landlords seemed pretty willing to rent to me, though they were worried about whether it was too much for me, both in size and in price. If KH can show me that she’s prepared to deal with my concerns like wind, etc, then I think the price is not a problem anymore. And as for the size of the place, I’ve already started to envision – close off all three bedrooms and maybe the back bathroom (I don’t think I have to worry about frozen pipes with hot water in the lines, but will have to check on that). The dining room becomes my office, and the living room becomes my bedroom/living room. Instant cozy cabin with three storage rooms – er, rental rooms – er, root cellars in the back! Say, does anyone have any good ideas about workable coverings for shag carpet? I have a dog and a cat (and might add kittens) and we all shed. Including me… :) I’m thinking throw rugs, big enough to cover some ground, but light enough to be taken outside and shaken out every few days. Too bad I can’t just plank over the floor and then remove the planking when I move out…

 

Feb 16 FIREWOOD

Today a local gadabout and all-around Helpful Fellow (as far as I know that’s all he does) named JA went with me to KH’s house, where there are lots of downed tree limbs 6-8” in diameter, including some that blew down across a fence she needs to repair. He chainsawed up some of them and she and I split the pile for firewood. Mostly box elder, we think. I haven’t burned that before, will see how it goes. It’s very dry, so should be fine. I bought him lunch at the WiFi Cafe after. Then she and I headed over to PricyHouse to look around. The owners weren’t there even though we expected them to be around this weekend, cleaning up after the last tenants left. But just walking around the outside and chatting with neighbor BH who stopped by when she saw our cars, KH was encouraged, looking at the fields and fences, and the road, which she’d been worried wasn’t good for her low-clearance sedan, but turns out it is not a problem.

 

Feb 14 IT’S JUST NOT RIGHT

No one should have to spend Valentine’s day moving their stuff out of their ex’s house. I’m just sayin’…

 

Feb 13 ABUNDANCE – OF COMMUNITY, OF OPTIONS

Today I am in awe, of a couple of things. I am in awe of the support I am receiving from my community, and I am in awe of the apparent abundance of housing options that have started to appear out of the woodwork, when three weeks ago it seemed there were only three houses available for rent in all of ThisLittleValley. The “moccasin telegraph” has kicked in big-time around here. That’s the term (from some movie I saw not long ago but have already forgotten which one it was) for the local word-of-mouth news-spreading ability. It seems that half the town is looking for rentals for me. Yesterday there was a message at the herbal shop to call friend SS because she knew of a mobile home for rent (turns out it’s one I knew about already, but still…). Then today I get an email from BH, who I had not told of my plight yet, saying she heard a rumor I was looking, from KnittingTeacher over at the weavers/yarn shop (who I *had* told), and there’s a dandy ranch house available across the way from her, and she would sure love to have me as a neighbor! Now, I’ve seen BH and her husband several times recently, since they are regular library patrons. But I have a sort of special relationship with BH and I was reluctant to appear too ‘drama queen’ to her, so I hadn’t told her yet. The special relationship is that BH runs a graphic design studio and has provided me with several proofreading jobs over the past year or so, ranging from a postcard, to a brochure, all the way up to a full-length book. She’s also very active in local community government, and overall just a very appealing, stylish, dignified kind of person. Not someone I want to whine to about my woes. On the other hand, I really *did* want her to keep her ears open for me, plus I also wanted her to know that I’m trying to increase my income, just in case she has any potential jobs for me. I was just waiting for ‘the right time,’ as they say, and I waited a bit too long and the local gossip – er, I mean moccasin telegraph – got to her first.

Anyway, the house available near her, which is quite big (and pricy) for one person, brings up an interesting dilemma for me. I have two personal attributes – positive ones, I think – that are coming into play as I try to decide on a place to live. The first attribute is a very large flexibility/willingness to accommodate a living environment that others would find unbearable. Construction, for example – when I lived in my fixer-upper over in CountySeat ten years ago, there were unfinished floors the whole ten years I was there, except when I finally finished them right before I put the place up for sale. Lack of visual aesthetics doesn’t bother me much – I don’t much care if the walls are OSB, or the windows are missing their trim, or if the siding looks odd, or even if it’s a trailer with zero aesthetic appeal. Er, well, I suppose I *do* have a threshhold there somewhere, because the plasticky interior of most trailers does turn me off. But for the most part my tolerance for fixer-upper-ness (or, let’s just call it what it is: decrepitude) would incline me toward seeking out the absolutely cheapest rental I can find that meets my other needs (basically, my “other needs” are: reasonable proximity to the places I go, safety for the cat & dog – ie a fenced or fenceable yard if near traffic or neighbors – and room for a garden). But the other attribute I think I have is a high ability to set a personal goal and meet it. I don’t mean magic airy-fairy stuff like winning the lottery, but if I were to commit myself to, say, increasing my income by $x per month in order to pay for a fairly high-priced rental, I’m quite confident that within some reasonable timeframe I could accomplish that. So *that* would incline me to take the most *appealing* rental regardless of price (within reason) and then make it my focus to increase my income so that I can afford it without dipping into savings any further.

Right now I’m most tempted to take the latter option, get into a nice place, and then focus on the money. But that’s not the frugal path, it’s a bit of a “buy now, pay later” attitude and I want to be very cautious. I also want to not forget the other attendant expenses I need to be thinking about, such as utility bills and heating costs. Part of me thinks it’s not a sufficiently frugal attitude. Another part of me totally relishes the idea of setting an income goal and moving towards it.

When making a decision like this, I always think about the worst-case scenario. What’s the worst that could happen? The worst that could happen if I rented PricyHouse, is that I might fail at increasing my income sufficiently, which would mean the difference would come out of my savings. Or, I suppose if it really turned out to be a mistake to have gone there, I might have as much as a year’s rent at risk, if they required a year lease. Although a year’s rent at their asking price ain’t nothing, the thought of possibly forfeiting that amount “if the worst should come to pass” isn’t making me less interested at this point.

One more thing here – I have indeed thought of, and am even pursuing, the idea of renting PricyHouse and then *sharing it.* I fully know, as we’ve been discussing over at the Riot for Austerity among other places, that sharing homes may well be the way of the future. There is one girlfriend here, KH, who is looking, and I’ve told her about this place, and she’ll check it out and see if she’s interested. But I gotta say, I *TOTALLY* hate the idea of sharing my home space with someone who isn’t “family”! Just hate it! KH is the only person I know here (who’s looking) who I think I’d even consider sharing with. In fact, I know a few other people who are looking – a somewhat elderly man who just lost his rental in a fire (and who is just getting to the point of it not being such a good idea for him to continue living on his own anyway), as well as a young girl barely 20 who works at the local cafe. If I were a really good sustainable community citizen, I’d offer them each a room in PricyHouse, but I just don’t think I could handle it. It’s one thing to wave at someone when you pass on the street, or to chat with someone a few minutes each week; it’s another entirely to find out that they smoke, and how much they drink, and what kind of junk they eat, how late they like to stay out at night and what kinds of friends they bring over. This sounds horrible, I know, and the kind of thing that we’re all going to have to get over, soon, when few of us can afford to live alone any more. But as much as I’d like to be an “early adapter” in that regard, I just don’t think I can do it quite yet. Maybe I can share with KH. Maybe. Or maybe I’d rather have my private space even more than I’d like to have half the rent and the ability to say I’m a good sharer. Hmm…

 

Feb 12: THE “P” WORD

I had a flashback to someone *else’s* high school experience today. A woman who is more-than-an-acquaintance-though-not-quite-a-friend was offering me encouraging words about my search for a house. She was assuring me that I’d find something soon/good, because, she said, “you’re very popular.” You could have knocked me over with a feather! Immediately I was back in high school, roughly the last time I heard anyone use that word to indicate anything meaningful. But if you’d asked people who knew me in high school, you would have found some people who said I was ’smart,’ even a few people who thought I was ‘nice,’ but you would *never* have found anyone using the “P” word to describe me. It just wasn’t my path. What an odd feeling to hear her say that, and know that she meant it as a compliment, and it might even be true in the sense that she meant it, but – it’s just a concept I’d long ago stopped thinking mattered. No way to stop that flashback, though….

 

Feb 11: MY FIRST STASH

I opened the knitting care package my mom sent a few weeks ago, that I’ve been saving to open “in a good space.” She sent me a bunch of knitting needles and yarn she had stored away from back when she used to do that kind of stuff.

Thanks Mom!

First Week’s Posts All At Once

Written Feb 10:  BRRR… (SORT OF)

My first night here at the Schoolhouse, a week or so back, the temperature dropped below 0F.  Just what you’d want for your first night in an unfamiliar house, using an unfamiliar woodstove, and burning an unfamiliar kind of wood.  Fortunately the woodstove is good, as is the insulation here, plus there is the nice benefit of 70F water running under the concrete bedroom floor, keeping it – while not exactly *warm*, definitely *not cold*.  That’s a very nice touch.  Since that first night, the temperatures  have warmed up from such extremes.  Yesterday the weather was downright mild.  So much so, that I headed off to town in late morning for my final knitting lesson without even a jacket!  As afternoon turned to evening it got chilly, but there was cloud cover, which would keep it from getting really cold overnight.  It seemed mild enough that I decided to see if I could get away with not building a fire last night.  I’m rather short of firewood since the move, and having a hard time finding anyone with any to sell in the middle of winter.  There is some firewood available here on the Ranch, and some I can, if absolutely necessary, take from R (once the roads are not so muddy) but in both those cases I want to deplete as little of that as possible.  So, I didn’t make a fire last night.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t figured out the oven yet and so didn’t have any major baking or other toasty oven-cooking planned, which would have helped heat the house “surreptitiously.”  No, I had a salad and a bean/rice burrito for dinner, which was made from leftovers and only required reheating the beans briefly.  I’m not even sure if I made any tea last night.  I just bundled up under blankets on the sofa, reading, eating, listening to the scratchy radio broadcast of that darned pledge drive.  Eventually I switched from under the sofa blankets to under the bed blankets.  And I found that I got unbearably sleepy, before 8 pm even!  Now, I can think of a variety of reasons why I might have needed an extra several hours sleep – stress, a few nights recently when I didn’t sleep too well, even the fact that I have no clock in this house to help me keep my usual time context, (not to mention no internet, which is how I usually spend my evenings getting slowly sleepier as I make my rounds) all might have contributed.  But the cold and the bundling up sure seemed to be a part of it.  So I gave in and shut down barely after 8pm, and actually went to sleep.  And slept most of the night soundly.  I guess I really did need the extra sleep.  And as expected, it was CHILLY in here when I got up in the morning!  And Murphy’s Law strikes again, for the first time since I’ve been here, I’m having trouble getting a healthy fire going.  Looks like I finally got it, but it will be mid-day before the house is toasty warm again.

On another note, MB (the ranch caretaker) stopped by, our first chance to visit since I moved in, and he explained to me that the oven actually was working all along!  It just wasn’t making the sounds or sights I thought a propane oven was supposed to make, so I was turning it off after a few seconds, thinking it wasn’t working right.  So today or tonight I might just try it for something.

 

Written Feb 9:  MURPHY’S LAW

So, I’m living in this neighbor’s guest house and trying to get adjusted to new routines, you know?  I’m feeling a little lost, because I don’t like upheaval in general, and all my comfort routines have been disrupted by this change.  I’m used to getting up the morning, turning on NPR (which, as far as we knew at R’s, we were the only people in the valley to be able to get – there is no local translator and his house was just at the exact right magic location to get the feed anyway – even our neighbors two miles away couldn’t get it), powering up the computer and going online, making my rounds of email, discussion groups, blogs, news sites, etc.

Probably the hardest adjustment for me in my situation is the fact that there is no internet service at the Ranch – supposed to be within a week or three, but not yet.  I’m using to spending lots of time online, and it would be a big source of distraction/relaxation/comfort to me right now if I had it available.   But it’s not, and I’m trying to adjust, so that’s ok.  I even realized that going without internet would mean I’d have more time for reading (which I’ve felt a real lack of lately), more time for knitting (which I just learned), and more time for baking (which I want to do but haven’t put much effort into in the past since we didn’t have a convenient oven).  Those opportunities are appealing to me, but still, I’m feeling out of sorts about the disruption of so many routines/comforts all at once.

So, you can imagine my pleasure when, after spending a lot of time making really minute adjustments in the tuning knob on the radio in the guest house (and ignoring all the country stations and right-wing talk stations which abound out here), I discovered that I am able to receive an NPR feed from Oregon – an entirely different feed than the one we received six miles north of here at R’s place…  How sweetly comforting to hear the familiar music at the beginning of the news and know that I’m not entirely cut off from my familiar world out here.  The background static is loud but I can make out the words just fine.  So, you ask, what’s the problem?  Where’s the Murphy’s Law?  Well, of course, the very day I discovered that I could tune in Oregon Public Broadcasting, just happened to be… …the first day of their winter pledge drive. :o  So, I found my news station, except that for the next week I’ll get 5 minutes of news for every 25 minutes of pledge drive.  Or so it will seem.  Oh well, such is life.  At least I can hear the familiar music.

 

 

Written Feb 8:  THREE WORRIES AND SOMETHING NICE

I’m not usually a highly-stressed person; I’m generally pretty mellow – maybe too mellow.  But earlier tonight, all at the same time, I had three stresses going – an upset stomach of unknown cause; a big piece of wood in the woodstove that made me *sure* I was going to have a flue fire (my first ever); and the dog was outside somewhere in the dark in a fairly unfamiliar yard and wouldn’t come when I called her.  Eventually, of course, my stomach settled down, as did the fire (and warmed the house, nice side effect :), and, well, there is just something inordinately comforting to me about the sound of a snoring dog…

 

Written Feb 7:  LIMBO

That’s the way life feels to me these days.  I’m not a fan of being in limbo; in fact I really hate it.  My limbo consists mostly of living in a “temporary” location, knowing that by the end of March I need to be somewhere else.  There are some possibilities, but none of them are very appealing or workable.  There is one rental possibility that seems just about perfect, but the person offering it to me has kept his offer tentative, and it will remain tentative until mid-March or so.  So, unless I find something wonderful in the next few weeks, I will remain in limbo until my tentative offer either materializes, or disappears, in which case I’ll be scrambling to take one of the unappealing offers.  [Update: it appears now that if I don't have a place to go by late March, I may not need to be out of the Schoolhouse yet, though I will possibly need to vacate it for a few days while the owner and his family converge on the place for Spring Break.  The idea of moving myself and the animals and an undetermined portion of my 'stuff' out of a house *just for a few days* and then back is not, understandably, very appealing, so I will still strive to have another arrangement by then, but just in case I don't, it doesn't seem I'll be out on the street.  Er, except for those few days of Spring Break :)]

 

 

Written Feb 6:  WASTING ELECTRICITY!

Living in a house that’s powered by microhydro has some important differences to R’s off-grid system, which was powered by solar photovoltaic panels and a windmill.  The important thing there was to fill the battery bank by sundown each day, and then be careful not to use up too much before sunrise the next day, when power input resumed, in the form of sunlight on the solar panels.  The windmill was mostly for backup on cloudy days, though we did get enough wind for it to make a big difference lots of times.  On the other hand, hydro power comes in 24 hours a day (er, as long as the creek doesn’t dry up…).  So while both systems have similar limitations against high-draw electrical devices (no electric heaters, for example, and items like power tools are used only with careful attention to not depleting the batteries), the need to avoid small power draws doesn’t exist here.  It’s ok to have an electric clock, for example, or to leave a laptop or radio plugged in even when they aren’t on (using a tiny amount of electricity, generally referred to as a phantom load, since the device doesn’t *appear* to be on, but it’s still using some juice).  It just feels so decadent!  Why, last night I had *two* lights on most of the evening, *and* the laptop *AND* the radio!  What luxury!  What – I won’t call it “waste”, since the electricity is being produced by the turbine in the creek anyway, and it will either be used by some device here at the Ranch, or it will be diverted away and “wasted” anyway.  I realize that for Riot reporting purposes, I won’t be able to track my electricity usage while I’m here, since the production and overall usage on this Ranch, even if I had access to that data, are not proportional to my personal usage.  Not to mention that I’ll be doing laundry at a friend’s house, using the laptop at the wi-fi cafe, and all sorts of other situations where I’m deflecting some of my usage onto other systems.  I think the most I’ll be able to do is to estimate based on my experience at R’s, where we produced (and thus used) about 1.5 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per day in the winter, and 2-3 kWh/day in the summertime.

 

 

Written Feb 5:  INTRODUCTIONS

I suppose I ought to explain about the name of the blog.  It goes back to when I first got introduced to yahoo’s political chatrooms, about two elections ago.  The way chatrooms work, for anyone who isn’t familiar, is that there is a chatroom window open on your computer screen, and each time a person posts to the chatroom, their name and then their comment appears at the bottom of the page.  When there are many people in the room, the page can scroll pretty fast.  Sometimes there are several unrelated conversations going at once.  It sounds confusing, but you get used to it fast.  Of course, you never want to use your real name in chatrooms, so you make up a name and get a yahoo ID in that name and use that to log in to the chatroom.  More than you ever wanted to know about chatrooms, right?

Anyway, one of the first chat names I used was “untied_dyslexic_church_of_dog.”  It fit me in many ways — I’m irreligious, I love dogs, and I love puns.  But that sure is a handful to type, and pretty soon it turned into just the nickname “Dog.”  I even took pleasure in the odd-ness of a woman intentionally using a name like that — really caught lots of people by surprise!  I took the pun-ness part of it to the extreme, often posting comments like “I believe in Dog” and “there but for the grace of Dog go I”, etc.  It became a big part of my identity, always on the search for more/better Dog jokes!  And there are still certain friends from the chatroom who call me by that name, in person even!  (A story for another time is when three of us met for dinner and persisted in calling each other by our chat names in the restaurant — Dog, Bird, and Fly :-)

Anyway, put that history together with my seach for a place to call home, and “Dog’s Little Acre” just seemed a good fit.

For a little further introduction,

this: 

is Bear, 

and

this:

 

is Luna.

They are my family of the moment.

 

Written Feb 4:  

 

WELCOME!

So, I thought I’d give this blogging thing a try.  The list of blogs I enjoy reading is getting longer and longer, and through my participation in the Riot for Austerity (explanation below, and links to come, soon as I learn how to do links in a blog) and the great people participating in it, I’ve come to realize that a blog is a very fun and convenient way to keep track of what’s happening and how things are going in someone’s life.  So when I found myself in a Very Interesting Situation, it occurred to me that a blog might be a useful way to share it as it unfolds.

What, you might ask, is this Very Interesting Situation?  Well, you might say that I’ve been in a Very Interesting Situation for several years now.  That’s how long I’d been living off-grid in a tiny house in the high desert with my boyfriend R.  For him, “homesteading” (which for the moment we’ll define as a household more-or-less independent of “the system” — no electric grid, no municipal sewer system or water system, no next-door neighbors to borrow a cup of sugar from, etc. – and where one generally creates one’s own solution to problems, rather than “purchasing the solution” ready-made as the world of marketing would have us believe we are obligated to do).  For R, this kind of homesteading was a lifelong dream that he slowly moved closer to over the course of many years.  For me, it was a sudden immersion – just over three years ago, I quit a career-level job with the US Forest Service and moved out to this little isolated valley in the Western Great Basin (roughly at the Oregon/California/Nevada junction) to live with him.  I found a few part-time jobs, more for fun than for income, since I had very few expenses – no mortgage, no utility bills, mostly just gasoline and food.  I began learning to split firewood, to garden, to find useful things at the dump.  We were already, based on our worldview and personal preferences, fairly focused on minimal-impact living.  Then came Peak Oil, and after that came the Riot for Austerity.  But I’m getting ahead of myself: as R and I learned about Peak Oil (which I use as a catchphrase for the coming economic collapse, which may well be caused by Peak Oil itself, but which might just as well happen even sooner due to effects from the housing bubble collapse, or the dollar devaluation, or shenanigans in the Middle East, or…  well, you get the point) – as we learned about Peak Oil, we began to feel more urgency about preparing for whatever changes come.  We were already more independent of “the system” than many people, but there were several arenas, most particularly having to do with growing/preserving food, where we were not well prepared at all.  We bought some tools and some seeds, dug a root cellar, planted a garden, as well as learned a little about politics, about the fiat dollar, about the geology of oil fields and the obfuscation capability of the US Government…  We slowly became more prepared to weather an uncertain future.  OK, on to the Riot.  Last year when the Riot for Austerity began (again, links as soon as I know how – for now just google it, or search Yahoo Groups for “90% reduction”) I joined up eagerly.  Partly to offer my perspective as someone who is already living a pretty low-impact lifestyle.  Partly to get motivated to move further in those areas where I’m not much if any reduced from average (gasoline and food, mostly).  Suffice it to say that the Riot for Austerity is about reducing one’s resource use (proxy for carbon emissions) to 10% of that of an “average” American. Hence the “90% Reduction” name of the Yahoo Group where we encourage and support each other. [Update: Link to the Riot Yahoo Group is now in the sidebar!] <<–  Woo hoo, look at that, I made a link!  Yay me!

Fast forward to a week or so ago.  R and I have now decided to split up.  Although we agree on many aspects of basic worldview, we have differing ideas about what is needed to make a relationship work.  So, here I am now, looking for a place to live, seeking a place to be “settled” before the world comes crashing down.  And I realized that I don’t want to abandon my attempt to keep my ecological footprint low just because I’m dealing with lots of stress and changes.  And *then* I realized that someone dealing with all these changes while still trying to keep a low footprint (and possibly continuing to lower it further) might make an interesting story.  Hey, I should keep a journal.  Hmm, how about a blog?

So, that’s the background.  The nutshell of my current situation is that I’ve found temporary housing, “for a month or two”, at the guest house (known as the Schoolhouse because it used to be one) of a microhydro-powered ranch 6 miles down the road from R’s place.  I’m seeking a cheap place to buy (get real, Sue!) or a reasonable place to rent, in this remote valley with little of either to offer.  I’m attempting to expand my work enough to cover my increased expenses.  This includes increasing my hours at my current local jobs (library assistant, herbal business office help) as well as establishing some regular clients for my freelance proofreading and transcription business.

There is no internet service out at the Ranch yet (satellite service should be up within a week or so), so I’m writing posts offline and uploading several days’ worth at a time when I’m online in town.  Bear with me.