My journey from living in town back to living in the country. Starting at the very beginning.
Downsizing,
Homesteading,
Green Building,
Flinthills,
Kansas,
Spring has sprung and school is done, despite today's chilly weather. This season's kale, chard, spinach, tomatoes, peppers and herbs combined with the returning strawberries, blackberries, catnip, and marigolds are saturated with excessive spring rains. The ponds and rivers are abundantly full and flooding. I borrow views of the green Flint Hills while training for my first century bike ride and spend time coveting others' farms. With reasonable confidence, we hope this will be the summer we get back to the country, satisfying our urge to roam and root.
The contents of our refrigerator include greens and herbs from our garden, foraged wild onions, lettuce from the EHS greenhouse, and eggs from G&L Whole Food. It will be a few months before my own three backyard hens are laying, but even observing them seems nutritious.
This time around I have noticed and given appreciation to the softness of spring; and while some areas have too much, I am so thankful for rain and mud and having enough.
Every time a rural property within 20 miles of Emporia comes on the market, my husband gets an email. We've driven to look at numerous properties: some land, some houses. Each one we being to consider changes our specifications. Each one has its own pros and cons. Just when we think we've made a decision about how things will be, something entices us to rethink our wants and needs. So for now, we're hunkered down in town, waiting out the winter, wishing we were planning a move, but practicing patience until we find (decide/manifest) the right time and situation. As country friends are hatching springs chicks, I'm nurturing a volunteer tomato plant, the seed of which hitchhiked on a worm from the compost into the salamander tank. There is hope. Spring will come. The pasture will green. And one of these rotations, we'll get back to where we want to be.
I was born in July. I like to be warm. I like blankets and thick socks. Our current home in town has central heat and a/c. Our first winter here, the thermostat seemed really luxurious--not having to cut, haul, split, stack and carry wood inside--except when we burned wood for heat we also spent time together. It took cooperation. It also kept us close together. Literally. The wood stove was the warmest place in our home so everyone (dogs and cats included) wanted to be near. If we got too hot we moved away. Before a shower I'd hang my clothes near the stove to warm them so after the shower I had toasty clothing with no additional energy cost. Warm towels, radiant hair drying, clothes racks for drying laundry, a pot of water to humidify. With central heat, just when I grab a blanket, the furnace kicks on, I get too hot, ditch the blanket, then it kicks off and I'm chilly again. Too cold. Too hot. I have serious "Goldilocks" syndrome that would be instantly cured by returning to a constant radiant heat source.
I recently came across the idea that a wood stove warms you while you're cutting, loading, splitting, stacking, and carrying, not just burning. I look forward to next winter when wood will warm us.
"Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water."
Zen Proverb
Also missing from central heat is the gentle source of flickering firelight. Long winter nights leave me yearning not only for warmth, but light. My friends and I have a tradition of celebrating the Winter Solstice, that hopeful return of the light. We exchange homemade or re-gifted gifts, eat, drink, reflect and plan. My husband and I anticipate the Solstice by limiting the use of electric lighting in our house the week prior and instead using oil lamps and candles. Being extremely busy through November and December, I don't have the motivation to do much seasonal decorating, but I do keep an upside-down tomato cage adorned with chicken-wire and Christmas lights complete with a star on top. This year, we've decided to keep the tree until the Spring Equinox, a sure sign that something is missing from our home.
Perhaps the building plans for our off-grid, forever home won't even include overhead electric lighting. Perhaps we'll be able to heat water and a radiant floor with our wood stove. Maybe our dogs and future children will rest comfortably on an earthen bench warmed by a rocket-mass heater. Whatever the case, it will be just right.
Spending time with friends who have been traveling the world is motivating in more ways than one, the less obvious being blogging. Nevertheless, that's what's happening. One of those inspiring comrades reminded me to write throughout the process of my next big adventure: getting back.
My garden is the Flinthills of Kansas, where my mothers' family has for seven generations called home. I am one of but a few in my generation with a need to nest among these deepest of roots. Fortunately, I found a partner who, despite his relative newness to the area, feels the same.
We came to town almost three years ago to save time and money previously spent on highway 50 in an effort to birth a new and much needed business in the perfect community for us. The transition to town was easy and fun for while. The grocery store and the school where I teach are five minutes away instead of twenty and thirty-five. The heat in our home comes from a box on the wall and a mysterious machine in the basement which require no participation, thought or effort. Quickly running home is possible. But I'm done. I'm over it. I've had enough. Living in town has been convenient, but both of us are ready to get back to the county where we can begin building our off-grid straw-bale uber-hyphenated dream-home.
A big turning point occurred this fall when I told the husband I don't want to move to a comfortable, livable, regular, existing house in the county. If we did that, it would be too easy to take too long making design and construction decisions. We have agreed to place ourselves in a temporarily uncomfortable living situation in order to drive our process. Currently, we don't know the details. We're not even sure which county this will lead us to with a few options within our proposed radius. Maybe we'll find a run-down farm house we can patch up and stay in while we build, or perhaps well buy land with no existing structures and live the RV life. Maybe we'll practice green building techniques on a smaller dwelling that will become guest quarters and someday house an angsty teen or two.
Knocking on the door of 2015, I am reminded of my 2006 goal to be off the grid by 2010. But better late then never. And what does a twenty year-old college student know about her future, anyway?!
