living in the woods

[chelidon]

My morning started with a capsule summary of my world:

Walk, coffee cup in hand, to the end of my road with F to get him off to the school bus on time. Drizzly, and chilly (50 degrees) enough to toss on a good Irish wool sweater. Ah-yup, definitely very Irish weather this week so far, bringing naturally to mind sweetly melancholy trad. Irish tunes and WB Yeats poems in my head. Come back, find the cats playing with a mortally wounded, but not yet dead, mouse, probably driven inside by the wet weather. Go cats (mice in the house is *not* a good thing), but now I have to take said wounded beastie out into the woods and dispatch it humanely (vexing the cats, but being cats, and well-fed, their interest waned as it started to move less). Swing by the stream which is running very high from all the rain, thinking about how lovely it is, and also where best to put in a small microhydro turbine with minimal disruption to the brook trout and other wildlife. Hike to the part of the land over by the "dolmen" where such things (burials, offerings, etc) are done, apologize to the mouse, do the deed, head back towards the house. As I approach our road, I hear a vehicle, which means someone's coming down our drive (otherwise, all you hear is wind and stream), intercept FedEx truck half-way down our road, get a medium-sized package from him, feel unaccountably irritated as he drives off that this truck, bringing stuff I had in fact ordered, actually came down our road and disturbed the peace and quiet. Note that I haven't left my land since my drumming session last Monday night and wonder at how very easily I could become a serious hermit ;> Walk back to the house, note with some excitement that the box is from Bailey's -- some Kevlar chainsaw chaps, a dozen felling wedges, and a videotape on horse logging (using teams of 2-4 draft horses with Amish-style harnesses to pull logs out of the woods -- not for now, but maybe in a few years...). I think I have all the wood for building and heat that I'll ever need right here, just from the deadfall, but I have to get it from wherever it falls to where it needs to go. That's tractor work now, but tractors eat diesel and poop pollutants and used oil, while draft horses eat things I can grow, and poop good fertilizer. I notice with pleasure that the box was addressed to me at "CC Hermitage Farm" (CC is Casa Chaos). No, not a farm yet, unless you count trees, kids and cats as crops, but, perhaps not too far down the line... Dive into the day's writing work, so I can finish in time to install the new oven, take a walk up to the barn, and maybe build a nice fire in the fireplace before everyone starts coming home from work and school and the house gets full and noisy again ;>

Comments

[thefirespiral.livejournal.com]

I am dying in envy here (y'know, where our temp is double yours). Can I just have a little 10x10 hut somewhere? :-)

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Well, y'know, it's not all so rosy -- we're getting a heat wave later this week, it's due to get up to 70 on Memorial Day. ;>

We have pretty cold winters, but the payoff is definitely the very balmy summers (well, that and the 85%+ wooded terrain, no traffic, etc). For me, after living in the steamy, humid swamps of D.C. for 10 years, I'd much rather put on a sweater (they're so stylish, y'know...), or throw a log into the fireplace than miserably swelter even when I'm wearing as close to nothing as I can legally get away with. I adore the Tejas Hill Country in late October, but even then it can get kinda uncomfortable now and again for these northern European and Irish genes to handle -- I can't imagine, say, July or August, yikes.

I did love my growing-up years in the desert in Yuma and Mesa, though, so I guess it's what you acclimatize to.

Can I just have a little 10x10 hut somewhere? :-)

Well, I tell ya, actually we seem to perhaps be moving in that direction -- one of our coven sisters is moving out here from Maryland in another month or two, and other folks are making plans to migrate in this direction as soon as they can...there's some serious flocking going on, and personally, I'd love to live in an expanded intentional community, if it could be set up right. In the meantime, though, we're starting to build the infrastructure -- yurts, cabins, treehouses, hydropower, etc. to be as self-sufficient and minimum-footprint as we can, and offer event space, be a short-term refuge, and generally create as much of an oasis as we can manage. Time will tell where it all goes... :>

[thefirespiral.livejournal.com]

If you ever get serious about the community, I'd love to know. It's something my partner and I have talked about a lot and have even done some research into. Cold winters don't scare me. I love snow and icy winds. Call me weird. And ask me what I'm doing in the desert. ;-) I'll gladly trade you heat waves.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

We're serious about the community, but it's still not clear yet exactly what form it's going to take - depends on a number of things including possible purchase of an adjacent 30 ac parcel of land, zoning, and some figuring among the denizens already here how we want this to work long-term. At the least, we're making the land we already have a place many people can use, with cabins, yurts, treehouses, meeting spaces, permaculture projects, and probably some livestock and subsistence agriculture, etc. The thing we have to work out is how many people will be living here full-time, as opposed to just living in the area and visiting on weekends, splashing in the stream, working the land, growing stuff, making maple syrup and apple cider, etc.

My partner and I have been living in one form of intentional community or another for 18 years now, with the current household of five (soon to be six) who migrated to New Hampshire together actually one of the smaller incarnations in terms of people, though other friends and families we know are also starting to move to nearby towns as well. This area is definitely calling a lot of folks, it seems.

As for loving snow, I'm with ya. I wasn't sure how I'd like the long winters here, but I've found winter is actually close to, if not the very favorite season of mine. Skiing, snowshoeing,skating, no bugs, everything crisp and covered with beauty (http://www.casachaos.net/Casa_Chaos2005/pages/page_99.html), sitting in front of a big the fireplace with a hot toddy... And I find even after so many years living in perpetually-perfect-weather Hawaii, there's a huge part of me that just feels right about experiencing the dramatic change of seasons every year, of being gifted with a period of quiet, of introspection and hiberation after a glorious blaze of glory Fall. And it makes me appreciate the coming of Spring and the gentle warmth of summer all that much more. And...the winter keeps out the wimps ;> If a cold winter is what keeps this area from turning into suburbia and keeps it all covered forever in endless forests extending all the way to the tundra instead of condos and townhouses, I'll take it!

Anyhow, as stuff happens here, I'll definitely be talking about it. I don't know what exactly is going to happen, or how, but I'm open to whatever it is, and I have a strong feeling it'll be good, and it'll be just the right thing, in the right place, at the right time, with the right people.

[thefirespiral.livejournal.com]

As soon as I posted that word -- "serious" -- I realized I used the wrong one. What I meant was, I'd really love to hear more as it develops, especially if you get to the point where you are considering "applications." Seems like another good chat topic at camp. :-)

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Seems like another good chat topic at camp

Absolutely, I'm looking forward to it!