Well the good news is that Paul is still asleep late enough for me to write this (usually he’s up at 6:00). The bad news is that he’s asleep because we were all awake from 3-5 am. He wakes up fast these days, possibly because his teeth are coming in and bugging him some or maybe for no reason at all. The end result is if he’s really restless because of a diaper change, it’s likely that he’ll be up for 2 hours after a change.
However, we’re used to it and have become fatalistic about the whole thing. If he wakes up it’s no longer a tragedy that we’re crabby about and working our damndest to get him back to sleep. Now we’re enjoying the time. Sage made a couple packs of instant black been salsa couscous for us and we listened to the UK top 20 countdown on the BBC (what was it about the singing hamsters in “Cognoscenti meets Intellegentsia” that cracked us up so? Maybe we were just tired…) Anyway, we had a lovely time reading to Paul, hanging out and listening to the radio until he decided to go back to sleep.
And, I definitely think we’ll make it through the winter, heat-wise, everyone. This morning we hit the single-digits and the yurt was anywhere between 90F (when we loaded wood and had it going during dinner) to 55F (after leaving it closed up and untouched for 5 hours).
Well, it’s now noon – Paul woke up then we both got bundle up and walked to the compost pile and emptied our compost buckets. Then we came back and cleaned up the yurt. All the wood we’re bringing in leaves tons of dirt and bark around so sweeping has to happen even more often than it ordinarily does living in the forest.
Well, this may be a short entry as I’m going to put up this entry and work on some christmas presents then we may be off to a solstice party but as it starts at sundown (Paul’s usual self-imposed bedtime) it is not looking too likely. Yes, again, I’m making dinner and Sage is asleep. No complaining, though – I read her to sleep with Pico Iyer’s Video Night in Kathmandu a fun book that we’ll review together when we’re done.
Sunday night it got cold – high 20′s and we went to bed at 8:00 with a warm yurt and crackling fire in the stove. At 1:30 I woke up. The yurt was cold the stove was cold and not any embers to even start it with. So I went outside, gathered kindling and started a fire and waited for the yurt to warm up from 40 to 60. That took 90 minutes so I read while it warmed and went back to sleep until Paul woke up at 6:00 or so.
So motivitated, on the way back from checking email that morning I took the doors off the new, big woodstove which was out by the house about 500′ away and tried to lift it. It wasn’t bad – the weeks of hauling water 12 gallons at a time paid off! So I carried the stove back to the yurt and set it up outside so we could get it ready to be repaired. When Kitey woke up we asked her to help us figure out what needed to be done to it and she watched Paul while we sanded off the old stove cement, carried it into the yurt and put new stove cement on the cracks that it had from a drop several years ago. The stove cement had to cure so we went to town to pick up the new, bigger pipe we’d need and a few groceries. Then we stopped at Sonic for burgers (yes, we’ve really lapsed on the vegetarian thing, haven’t we?). Sonic is so stereotypically american. I don’t remember seeing one back east but they’re all over here. They’re a drive in – pull your car up, push a button and order food then the carhop brings it out to you and you eat in your car. Not only that, it’s “all american” food – burgers, fries, shakes, malts, corn dogs. But for all that formula amaricana it’s a wonderful place and I rate it above any of the other burger places.
Lately we’ve been living a sitcom life, I think. Don’t know what I mean? I’ll tell you. It started when we were sanding the stove and Sage and I were blabbing about ways to make money so that we can eventually not need the money that we get from Kitey. I think we’re close – maybe 1/2 way there but it’d be nice to be all the way there. So we’re talking about the gallery, our web design/computer repair business and brainstorming about ideas for making money from home. So as we were talking about it it felt like one of those old Honeymooner episodes and I started doing Ralph Cramden and Ed Norton impressions – “Hey hey Ralphie boy, I’ve got an idea about how we could get people to go to the gallery” and stuff like that. Yes, it really helps to have a sense of humor when it comes to thngs like this. It’s bad enough that I feel a little cheesy just having commercial content at all but to have to promote it too! Don’t worry, though, I’ll never spam – I promise.
Then yesterday it got even more sitcom like. This time it was “I Love Lucy”. In this episode, Lucy and Ricky install their woodstove. After it’s put in place, Ricky looks around to find bricks to put under the stove where the missing leg was and Lucy screams as the stove falls over on it’s side making a huge crash. (Here’s the part where the muted trumpet wah-wah-wah-wah-wahhhh comes in). Then when the stove is righted, Ricky looks around for the pipe and finally giving up, squats down to talk to Lucy and sits dead on the pipe which mashes his tailbone (trumpets again…)
Yeah, it’s been one of those weeks but we’ve had a great sense of humor about it so it hasn’t been a problem.
And the good news? We ran the stove last night – I put a huge piece of red oak in at 9:30 PM that lasted until almost 10:00 the next day. The yurt was so warm all night (while the wind blew and it was 30 degrees with 15 degree wind chills) that we slept with hardly any blankets on and t-shirts (this after other days of sleeping in 2-3 layers and wool blankets to boot. Now it’s in the low 30′s (maybe high 20′s by now) and it’s about 80 in here. The stove is damped way down so that the log is burning not unlike a cigarette. We should be warm all winter with this one. So seriously, are there any Sage & Todd winter pools going on as to whether or not we’ll give up or freeze? Sometimes I get the feeling there are having received several letters expressing great (and friendly) interest in how we’ll do this winter. Hey, I’m interested too so don’t feel bad but I think we’re going to be fine – the yurts, after all, are in the Colorado rockies and Vermont and New Hampshire where the winters are much more harsh than here. That said, the record low for today, set in 1989 was -6F! So it can get cold here.
Dinner’s done now – BBQ soybeans again. I’m going to wake up Sage and have dinner.
Submitted entry: Okay, maybe it only snowed enough that we only had to run the windshield wipers once or twice but it was lovely nonetheless. Perhaps more importantly, weatherwise, is that it rained, and quite a lot at that. Enough that the formerly dry creek here is running a little.
Paul and I have been having really wonderful walks these past couple of days. Since the rain came the forest seems magical and more of a full sensory experience. While most of the leaves are gone, the trees, rocks and leaves make a landscape of hundreds of shades of grey and brown. After the rain the lichens and mosses have turned a brighter green and everything glistens. Probably the most noticable thing to me is that the forest smells again. For a long time it just smelled a little faintly of dust. Now the air is full of brown and green smells, the leaf mold, lichens, and probably not a few molds and mildews. I think it could be overwhelming if I were more perceptive. I think having lived in even a small city for so long I am no longer as sensitive. Think of it, if I noticed every single car honk, conversation, radio, television, etc. I’d be nuts, and in fact the one time we went to the nearby city that was just what we noticed – too much stimulation.
Our walk yesterday started with a hangout in the then-dry creekbed. At one point I looked out and saw what had to be one of the last persimmons of the season – a small blue smudge in a bunch of dead leaves. Paul and I shared it then I looked for more. There were none on the ground but looking up I noticed three more in the tree. Leaving Paul on the ground I climbed up a few feet into the tree and shook it bringing them all down and sharing them with him. It was a lovely time and was followed by a great walk around hanging out and wandering through the forest.
I then spent a little time on the conputer, finishing up the Teeter Creek Herbs redesign. They’re a big fixture in our town and (not to be too commercial in this entry) make wonderful herb extracts that have saved me from several colds and saved Karma from Cytauxzoonosis. I encourage you to check them out. The owner, Bob Liebert is extremely knowlegeable and the herbs are all from right around here.
I also did a bit of work on the gallery – this next exhibitor is a local musician – a little change of pace. I spent some time editing sound clips and making them into mp3′s. Her stuff should be up soon.
In the woodstove department, we’ve been learning a ton. This stove seems just the right size for the yurt if we were to tend it frequently and only use hot-burning woods like hickory in it. So we found another stove that we’ll need to do some work on (and also haul out here – it’s quite a bit bigger and heavier) but it will hold some big logs and if we can close it down well could get us through much more of the night. As it is now I have to feed the stove every 2 hours or it goes completely out.
Well, as much as I’d like to write a long entry it’s almost 9:00 and I just finished a big bowl of tomato soup (made with heavy cream!), the fire’s roaring and we have to get to sleep.
Submitted entry: Yes, I mean almost everything. On the day before Thanksgiving, Sage and I went to a nearby country store (a little closer than town) that also has a post office inside to get a few essentials and send off some Ebay packages and payments (we sold our propane lights – we’re satisfied with our kerosene ones, bought a book about how to make tofu for $2.00 and a damper for the stove that we probably don’t need). Anyway we knew that we didn’t have much of anything to cook since we were out of most staples – peppers, onions, tortillas, sour cream, salsa, all the essentials (all but one – fortunately we were not out of coffee). We picked up ingredients for the bread I baked that day (for the next day’s dinner) and a bottle of cooking oil to make our morning pancakes with.
This store is a trip – it’s as organized as most peoples’ garages are – things on top of one another – and packed full of just about anything you could want – feed, chain saws, food, clothes, etc. But I think some of it doesn’t move so well. They’ve still got “Brim” instant coffee – something I haven’t seen anywhere else in about 10-15 years – I think they don’t even make it anymore.
So that all got us through Thanksgiving and breakfast today food-wise.
We also managed to run out of wood. We’re surrounded by dead trees waiting to be split and as we get to know the stove better (and as we ensure that it’ll be the right size) we’re planning on getting together with Crow to have a chainsaw lesson and cut up a bunch to length. Then we only need to split them which I love doing. There’s something so satisfying about how wood just cleaves apart with an axe (or in our case with the small stove – a hatchet). So anyway, we cut a bit of it with a bow saw and hatchet the day before thanksgiving but it didn’t last through last night. We were sparing with it but by 4:30 I put the last stick in and it got really cold – like 45 inside. Under the blankets it wasn’t too bad, though with all our shared heat. Then when we woke up I sawed a bunch up and about 30-40 minutes after we started the stove it was a lovely 60 degrees inside. Funny how your tolerance for heat and cold changes. It really matters what you wear. 60 degrees indoors isn’t bad at all if you’re wearing a sweater just as 100 wasn’t bad this summer with one’s feet in bucket of cool water and no shirt.
So I made three loaves of whole wheat/oatmeal bread on Wednesday. I had a ball doing it. Paul was with Kitey and Sage for much of the beginning but he was around for the kneading and shaping of the loaves. He was so enthusiastic about punching them down – it was really fun to do with him. Then we all had dinner at the house – pasta with eggplant sauce. It was divine. I don’t know how people cook eggplant. I try it and it comes out as bitter mush. Everyone else does it and it is ambrosia. No matter – there is more than one person on the land here who can make it without messing it up so…
That night Sage woke up at 2:30 and had to eat. Paul had been nursing for a really long time and she was starving. So she woke up and made herself some fried potatoes (carbohydrates stick with her best) and I read to her from our new cheesy book – Howard Hughes’ biography by some guy who insists on making half of the book speculative (“Nobody confirmed his having slept with the guy but how could he have resisted – he was gorgeous!”) It was a blast and made what could have been a crabby hour of wakefulness a good time.
The next day we got up and ate a little at about 6:30 but by 10:00 Paul was napping. Instead of staying up like we usually do we all slept for nearly two hours. Good thing too since we were up relatively late that night!
This had to be the best Thanksgiving in my memory. My usual recollections of family thanksgivings were that really wonderful food was served but after that it often decayed into the family talking about whomever didn’t show up for this year’s celebration (“Did you hear about Aunt Bertha’s oldest daughter? She’s having trouble in school. Bertha’s not much of a parent so I’m not surprised…”). This time was different. It was a potluck with maybe 18-20 guests with every dish that was brought being wonderful. From a culinary standpoint it was wonderful! You could eat your first plate, then go up for seconds and notice whole dishes you hadn’t even known were there before – and don’t get me started on the desserts! Not to sound like our local paper, but an excellent meal was served and good cheer was held by all.
Kitey, as Sage tells me, isn’t particularly fond of large gatherings and tends to avoid them and/or be on the fringe. She did hang out with Paul for a great deal of the time giving Sage and I a chance to be social for the first time in months. It was such a blast to be able to just hang out with people. I’d never want to do it all the time but it was very much appreciated. Then Paul wanted to go to sleep at about 7:30 and couldn’t do it anywhere but home (who could blame him – it was a madhouse at the house) so we all went back to the house and arranged for Kitey to hang out at the yurt with Paul after he nursed to sleep. Sage and I were so excited! It was our first date since Paul was born. We went back to the house and – surprise – everyone had gone upstairs! We were a bit surprised and a little disappointed at first then thought – hey! we could be on the net together. So we went to Yahoo’s games section and started playing backgammon against someone and had a blast (and won too!). By the time we got done everyone was back downstairs and we went back to our social lives.
There was a particularly funny moment when I was asked “Does it feel weird to be the only guy here?” This question always takes me a little off guard and I’m often asked it as I am the only adult male on the land here. The answer last night as it always is is “I’m the only guy?” I just don’t really notice it. In fact I notice more when I’m at somewhere like Eastwind and notice that wow – I’m not the only guy. I don’t feel relieved or anything or like hanging out with guys is missing from my life – mostly I find typical “guys” to be pretty repugnant and even some of the atypical ones can surprise me with a small piggish streak that takes me aback. That said, I was truly flattered when a few people remarked that they really didn’t think of me as a guy. I felt like hurray! I’m becoming the way I want to be – not a male (and as much as possible not a typical ones) and not a female but a human being with compassion and caring and hopefully something (someday?) a good head on my shoulders.
So we had a ball that night – ate ourselves sick, got to hang out with people we really like and for me anyway, to feel the most comfortable I’ve felt hanging out with people since probably college (and that was often chemically assisted!)
So today I worked on the gallery site – trying to get it a bit more noticed. Sure we’d like some income from it but more so I’d rather see the artists there do well. So it was a morning of META tags, search engines and rearranging the site to make the gallery our entry page. Not to get our usual readers to notice – or to force them to – feel free to bookmark one of the other pages inside – but to get a bit easier URL to type in.
Then we went to town to get our food. Somehow $30 magically appeared in my wallet so we went out for chinese buffet then finished our trip. When I got home Casey had a couple of visitors and their little baby. Unfortunately they had to leave soon after we got back – it would have been fun to hang out.
Then we brought all our groceries out to the yurt while Paul decided he wanted to hang out with his granny. So Sage put away the groceries and I sawed a big box full of wood for tonight and tomorrow (at least!) then carried 21 gallons of water out. We should be set for a while.
Incidentally, don’t let that last entry fool you – I’m not this physically fit/active woodsman. I was thinking today that I should do these activities more regularly as I feel better when I do – more motivated, especially. So I don’t haul water every day or cut wood. I do carry Paul every day, though – and that dropped 3″ off my waist, and I have got in better shape. I don’t have to rest as much when carrying water. I’ve almost got it down to a science. That’s probably because it will all change soon – a big ice storm will come or something and make it impossible to do things the easy way I figured out.
Okay, I’m fading fast – I have to make Sage dinner (she’s asleep now) and then I’m going to eat a little and go to bed too…
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Submitted entry: Perhaps it is – it cooled down a lot today and is going to drop to 30 tonight. The wind also has a sort of bite to it that it didn’t have yesterday. I’m thrilled – it’s about time we got some real weather. I feel like I struggled through this past summer knowing that there was winter coming. Then when fall wasn’t coming I felt cheated or something. So anyway, it’s looking up – the weather’s getting cold just the way we like it.
This morning I did a bit of web work, took a shower and then went back to the yurt to relieve Sage who had three people coming over from the Bryant Creek Watershed project to talk about the web site redesign that is in progress. Sage is doing most of the work and nearly all the working with them so I was going to hang out with Paul for the afternoon.
So when they finally got here we all had a sort of impromptu potluck followed by a little indulgence in chocolate cookies (we don’t do desserts here like we used to!) and then the meeting started.
Paul, Kitey and I went for a walk for much of the time through the woods until it got so cold that Kitey went home leaving Paul and I to go on our own. We went to the creekbed again and spent quite a while hanging out there until a couple of shots rang out nearby (it’s deer season) and we thought it best to go home.
Sage and I went back here and fed Paul some of the leftover chickpeas and pasta from lunch followed by some green beans and rice. Well fed, he went to bed shortly before 7:00. Our dinner of refried beans still had another 90 minutes to go as the beans were still soaking.
So that brings us to now when Sage is asleep and I’m nearly so. Another short entry but what can you do? Tomorrow’s another day – and what looks to be a busy one. On top of the computer work we’ll do we have to do a ton of laundry including nearly all the diapers, cut a bunch more wood, empty the compost buckets and empty the poop bucket where we compost it in the woods (too much information?) – hey, it’s not all Grizzly Adams out here, you know. Somebody’s got to do that.
