So at least in the interpersonal sense…

Submitted entry: I just got done making a pile of pancakes for our breakfast and am now sitting on the bed with the alphasmart writing this entry and getting up the energy to go across the room and get my third cup of coffee. You know you’re a coffee addict when you still need to motivate yourself to get your third cup of coffee! I’m listening to Kurt Elling, who Sage and I keep rediscovering at seemingly the right moment. He’s a wonderful jazz vocalist - his tone is as perfect as Mel Torme while he tends to be a bit more free-form and abstract in his singing. I’m so surprised he’s still pretty unknown (as best I can tell).

Okay, I did it - I got my coffee… Anyway - it’s been a wonderful few days here. Two days ago we had Casey and Crow over for dinner. We kept talking about inviting them over but never got around to it. They both got home from work that day and looked so tired that we thought that that would be a good night to do it since we already had refried beans started. It was such a good time - we’re definitely going to have to do that again.

Then yesterday we had our friends from East Wind over for lunch, dinner and a hike. It was such a fun time. Their daughter is about 6 months old and is really growing fast. She & Paul even got to play a little although we had to supervise Paul a bit since he still hasn’t got “gentle” down yet completely - especially when he gets excited about a new person. But surprisingly they got on extremely well and really seemed to notice each other for the first time. After we ate we all went for a walk up the mountain at just about sunset. It was incredible. The leaves are all changing color here and the evening sun brought everything out beautifully. It was a trip to watch the shadow of the mountain (which is to the west of where we live) creep over the landwhere we live as the sun set behind it. It was absolutely breathtaking. I truly apologise for not having brought the digital camera with us. I know it’s been a while since we’ve put up any pictures. We headed home before it got too dark and then came home for a quick dinner and another hangout. We’re planning on going to East Wind in a couple weeks or so to cook a meal with them for everyone. It should be really interesting since we’ll be cooking for 50-60 people. I’ve never cooked for more than 5-6! We’re thinking perhaps of an Indian meal: dal, a couple of curries, raita and a chutney or two. I have to say I’m alternately nervous about cooking for so many and excited about the prospect.

We also tried to get the network cabling done between the houses here. As it stands now the network is working all in one room. Casey and I were to meet for coffee and then we were going to drill holes and string up network cable in order that Casey’s computer could go in her room and her kids computer could go in their house. Well, we couldn’t find the appropriate drill bit so the work side was a bust but we did have a fun time drinking coffee and having breakfast together.

Kitey and I had a talk a couple of days ago about how things are stupid between us. Since the night back in July I’ve felt awkward and crabby and a bit like I was walking on eggshells around her. It was a good blab - she explained the same things she talked about when we had the arguement - that she wouldn’t have chosen to live on the same land as a man and that it’s really difficult for her given the life she’s led. For some reason it was easier to talk about that time than in the summer. But of course we weren’t hot and crabby and flailing around trying to deal with the dogs and the failed water pump, etc. etc…

So at least in the interpersonal sense things here are really seeming to go better between everyone.

Sage and I also had a talk about “where next” and also when it should happen. Okay, it started out as a pretty horrible argument but once we got ourselves together we started to be able to talk sensibly. I told her that I wasn’t really happy not living in a community and that all in all as parts of the country go the Ozarks really aren’t for me - I prefer New England - Vermont (of course), Maine or New Hampshire preferably. She really doesn’t want to leave but could consider it later in life when Paul is more grown up. She suggested 5 years down the line when Paul is 6. It’s a bit of a while to wait but she is right - he really does need his granny around and so does Sage for that matter since she really never had a relationship with her.

So anyway - we’re planning on staying at least 5 more years - as long as Casey plans to stay that long anyway. So I’ve resolved to not have a terrible time of it and do things to make life more enjoyable. In particular I miss working together - having co-workers to chat with and collaborate with is something I miss a great deal. That’s where being in a community would be cool since we’d have that and hopefully like-minded parents around. So I tried to figure out a way to have it both ways. To live here with Sage and to work together with other parents and I think I might have an idea but of course I’ll have to check with the other parents who might be involved.

Nobody around here sells fresh tofu. There really is nothing like the buttery taste that really fresh locally made tofu has. It hardly compares. So I’m looking in to see what it takes to make our own tofu, both for our own use as well as to sell first in town and then later possibly in a nearby small city. In that city there are both health food stores and asian grocery stores. Both of which would be a potential market. With enough parents around the making of the tofu could be combined with a playgroup for the kids and as they get older they could help if they were interested. From what I can see it isn’t terribly difficult to make but I do imagine that like bread or anything else that’s pretty involved like that it does take practice.

And I got the network up and running finally. It’s so cool now to have everyone able to browse the web when they want to. We’re using a software product called Internetshare which has a 30 day demo and is only meant to cost us about $39.95 for the three user license. If it works well we’ll buy it. It seems like it’s working well so far. And you can’t get any easier to set up than this product. The hardest part was getting the hardware to talk to each other. After that it was a piece of cake!

I also got in touch online with my friend Catherine who owns La Belle Cuisine in Allentown. She runs a wonderful store which sells excellent cookware, coffee, tea and other gourmet items. She’s also my Vermont connection. She’s from Vermont too and makes frequent trips for cheese and maple syrup. When we were in Bethlehem I also used to get my coffee there. Sage and I are going to give her a hand getting her site in the search engines since right now it isn’t really being seen the way it should.

So that’s about all that’s new these days. Sage’s birthday is coming up tomorrow (27 years old) and she’s already told me what she wants. A full day of “whatever I want to do” which should be easy enough to give her and also quite satisfying for her too I think. She still will have to nurse Paul but other than that I’m going to do what I can to ensure that she can spend a whole day exactly as she wants. So that said, I’m off for the house to drop off the alphasmart and get my email.

Communities

Submitted entry: Sage has left for town - her first trip away from here without Paul. She’s pretty excited about it. ” Me, I was excited to make it happen and be able to spend some time with Paul. We made pancakes together, eating them as we went then read several stories. When he asked to nurse I reminded him that his mom wasn’t here and he seemed to get it. Since he’d eaten and had enough to drink I figured he was sleepy. Good guess. I put him in the sling and walked through the woods and in about 15 minutes he was asleep. I brought him back to the yurt and put him to bed allowing me some time to write this.

Meanwhile in other news, I’m in the middle of setting up a LAN here at the house. Everyone’s tired of time-sharing the internet so I’m setting up a network with a proxy server (our PC) to administer the dialup networking connection. It’s being pretty fun. I’ve always enjoyed doing stuff like this. There have been a few hardware problems but all in all it’s gone pretty well. We’ll have the PCs working together in a day or two then we’ll run the cable this weekend. In the meantime I’ve set up all the computers in the same room to ensure that it all works.

We’re going to be having guests over on Sunday - our friends from Eastwind are coming over for an afternoon hike and probably dinner. It’ll be nice to see some of our friends here. Casey and Crow usually invite their friends over from the womens’ land every Sunday night but the social contact isn’t the same as you can imagine.

Seems like we’ve been making a town trip every day this week. Two days ago we went to do grocery shopping but forgot cat food so yesterday we went for cat food (and also to sell some of the walnuts that Kitey gathered - $10 for every 100 lbs you gather (after hulling)). Well, we got home from that and as I was cooking last night I used the last onion (nearly everything we eat has onion in it), today I used the last of the flour and last night we used the last of the chickpeas. Seems like we could get better at this shopping thing to make life a bit easier! So I wasn’t up for town today but Sage was and that’s where she is as we speak. She should be arriving back soon, though. It was a relatively short trip she was planning. I’ve joined a few of Meadowdance’s working groups this week. It’s been a lot of fun reading the posts, participating in the discussions and getting to know the other members. I also plan to do their weekly ICQ chat next week which I’m really looking forward to. I am, however, a bit crabby about getting ICQ. It seems so trendy or something. What can you do, though?

I’m almost finished with my next book so hopefully in a few days I’ll have that review up. Sage has also read a bunch of books and I’m bugging her to write her reviews so you might actually see them soon.

So that’s about all the news for now. Hope everyone (at least in this hemisphere) is enjoying the lovely fall weather that we’ve been getting! ”

Blustery and looking like rain (!)

Submitted entry: I’m sitting in the car typing this since Paul’s asleep and lately with all the excitement he has about being able to walk he tends to forget naps and if woken up early from one he won’t go back to sleep. We just got back from a meeting Sage had on the watersheds project. She’s being a design consultant for their web site so once again we’re able to get what we need when we need it. I didn’t want to worry anyone but I wasn’t sure just how soon it’d be before we had the money for the chimney. This job pretty much took care of that today - or at least put us in easy striking distance of it. That’s the last big necessary project the two of us have to do. And just FYI, I wasn’t truly worried - we could always borrow the money we needed but we wanted to do it ourselves if we could.

So that’s been the majority of the day for us - getting there and back. Sage went back to the yurt to work on her latest bag.

Yesterday was a big town trip day. We were out of everything so we hit all the stores - health food, grocery salvage and regular grocery. At the health food store we ran in to Casey who had left for town earlier unbeknownst to us. She was having a lovely time in town. Then I ran into another friend of ours, the owner of the health food store’s son and we blabbed a bit.

While we were in town it looks like we might have another smallish job helping Teeter Creek Herbs get e-commerce set up on their site (shopping cart and credit card processing). I’m glad to help them, especially after the owner helped us so much in pulling Karma through his case of cytauxzoonosis.

The trip was largely uneventful after that with the exception that I found a few packets of Starbuck’s coffee at the grocery salvage store for $0.69/each which kind of made my day. It’s been a while since I’ve had Starbucks and was it ever good!

Last night was a quiet night at home. Sage crocheted while I cleaned up and watched the baby. Then I made a batch of Jamaican barbequed beans (recipe in another entry when I’m near my cookbook and notes) and rice and started a batch of buckwheat pancakes going (they ferment throughout the night and are cooked the next day).

So that’s where I’m going to leave it for now. Paul seems to be waking up so I should go.

The Pizza Mart is sad that I’ve moved away.

Submitted entry: The weather here can’t seem to make up it’s mind - during the day today it was nearly 80 while it was near 40 at night. So we wear a whole spectrum of clothes - we’ll start the day in sweatpants and sweatshirt - maybe even wool socks be in shorts and t-shirt in the afternoon and be back in sweats by bedtime. Sage, Kitey and Paul were away for the day so I had the first leisurely day in weeks. It was so restful. After I saw them off I replied to my email, did the dishes and made some pancakes for myself. The rest of the day was spent drinking coffee and reading though I did get a short walk in in the mid-afternoon.

The AlphaSmart continues to change our lives…One of the features that they didn’t really advertise on their site is included in an option called the “get utilities” which allows you to send whatever’s in the clipboard back to the AlphaSmart The result is that Sage can now send all my email to the AlphaSmart and I can read it instead of her wasting paper and time printing it all out. It really is a good thing - I’m able to write so much more, and even keep up somewhat with my email - what a deal!

Of course, there is a drawback to my keeping up with journal entries - the entries get shorter as I have less to talk about between entries!

Tomorrow we’re off to town - it seems like we’re out of all the staples - beans, spices, butter, peppers, tomatoes. It’s such a change for us from our life in Bethlehem. Before, we would go grocery shopping, buy a bunch of stuff then eat the majority of our meals out (or takeout). This made our grocery shopping objective more of a change the rotted food in the fridge instead of replacing the eaten food. I can’t believe we were so bad. I think we’re spending less on everything every month than we spent on dining out - and I’m not even including my eating lunch out - that usually was about $5/day. Boy, I bet the Pizza Mart in Allentown is sad I’ve moved away. Hopefully my replacement is a four slice a day man.

That’s about all that’s new for now. I’m a bit sleepy despite the time. I narrowly avoided a migraine (I get a visual aura of flashing lights and dimming vision - if I take Tylenol before it gets bad I’m okay) but whether I get a headache or not it seems to drain me and I’m not only tired but hungry and thirsty after. So until tomorrow… (hopefully - I think I might be making a record number of consecutive entries).

There’s no ignoring Habanero.

Submitted entry: Well, despite what I said yesterday I was cooking late last night. In fact, I didn’t finish making dinner until 10:00! Bad on me for procrastinating and playing with the Alphasmart until late last night! But boy did it get cold last night! We got our first frost of the season last night. We could tell it was cold because instead of the cats asking to go in and out all night (Habanero is particularly obnoxious - he scratches the door with one claw just loud enough to keep you awake and very persistantly - there’s no ignoring him) we had everyone but Karma in all night and sometimes as many as four cats in bed with us (Shelly and Claire under the blankets). The room was pretty cold when we woke up - you could see your breath - but until we got out from under the blankets we were still toasty. It’s supposed to get to 75 today so it’s going to feel strange after this morning’s cold.

Oh, and did I mention this (I don’t have my computer here, obviously so I can’t really check) - Paul is walking! He just stood up a week or so ago and started walking around the yurt as if this were something he’d always done. Of course he was thrilled about it and smiling gleefully the whole time. He’s also learned how to ask to go visit his mom at work in the house. He’ll go to the door, make his nursing signal and then bring me his sling. Alternately if we’re all here he might make his “granny” sign and get the sling when he wants to visit her. He’s also getting really excited about books now and wants to be read to very often. He’ll go to the collection of books, pick one out and bring it to us making his “I want” sign. Often he’ll want to hear the same book 3-4 times in a row. Fortunately he’s getting better about ripping (or not ripping) books and as such we feel a bit more comfortable with borrowing books for him from the library which means that while we’re reading many books numerous times we can inject a little novelty into the experience by borrowing a new book or two. We’ve also taken to doing dramatic readings of books that we’ve read a zillion times - it provides us with some fun, making up funny voices and accents and he likes the books even better when we do that.

Well, having just written an entry only a few hours ago I’m a bit at a loss for new material to add so I’ll make this a somewhat short entry. With any luck I’ll write a new one tomorrow too. Sage and Paul and Kitey are all going to the womens’ land so I’ll have ample time for writing and catching up on things, maybe a long walk. I can walk with Paul for a good distance but have to stay close enough to home that I can quickly get home if he needs a nurse. On the other hand I can carry all the food and water I need for hours of walking…I’ll try to bring the digital camera - it’s been a while since I put up any photos here. There may not be an entry on Saturday - town trip and a guest coming in the evening and a couple days next week we’re going to visit friends so I might miss an entry here and there. But I’ll do my best to be a bit more regular about the entries.

I ran into Sage twice.

Submitted entry: The leaves have all seemed to change at once. One day we were surrounded by green and now there’s green, gold and a little red. With every gust of wind more and more leaves fall. Soon we’ll have the view from the yurt that we expected back in April when we found the site for it.

Of course with the leaves turning comes cooler weather and we’re getting ready for that too. We’ve bought about 1/2 of our chimney - I know, that’s not very helpful now, is it, but it allows us to make sure we spend our money on the chimney when we have it and not to go out and buy something frivolous because we have the money. It isn’t really necessary yet - we’ve had some 40 degree nights here and the yurt has been toasty all night (okay well maybe not by your standards - it was 50-55 in here but it was comfortable to sleep in) and the gas stove is enough to warm the yurt up just by cooking breakfast or making coffee. What can I say - it’s a small space with good insulation and hardly any drafts to speak of. Needless to say we are still going to get the wood stove installed before it gets really cold.

Meanwhile in other news, the alphasmart is here thanks to one of my readers. I have to say in the 24 hours that we’ve had it it’s already changed our lives. Sage and I have been able to write letters and email out at the yurt with ease. The keyboard is quiet enough that both the baby and I can sleep through it (Sage used it before I awoke this morning). It’s definitely a happy thing.

Also, I got over myself about the “exile” thing from the last couple of entries. My brother sent me an email after he read it saying “what’s the worst thing that could happen - you’d see them and get a chance to get things off your chest” and advised me not to let them hold me back from doing something that I wanted to do. I don’t see us leaving the Ozarks any time soon though.

Also contributing to my rut was the feeling that now that I don’t have a job I no longer have a calling or a particular thing that I do well. My presence in the house while not expressly prohibited makes people there uncomfortable at times so my being on the computer is not always an option and really only happens once a week or so. For the past ten years or so everything that I’ve done well, that is to say my job, has involved a computer. So as you can imagine no longer being able to be on the computer all the time (or even some of the time) has made the number of things I can do well here small. Not only that I’ve been pretty uninspired about what to do even if I were to learn something new - nothing seemed particularly interesting and given my limited time as a parent of a one year old I wanted to be sure what I learned was of value either monetarily or otherwise. So that kept me in a rut until I talked with Sage about it for a while and we both came up with the fact that there is something I do well that I enjoy that is practical and that can happen at the yurt. I cook. And even since I’ve moved here I’ve learned to cook even better. So I plan to do some culinary traveling (at least until Paul is old enough to travel for real). I’ve always enjoyed ethnic food, both cooking and eating it. This time I really want to devote myself to learning whatever I do really well. Not only that, as I spend time learning how to cook, say, Chinese food, I want to spend time learning about Chinese culture and history. It’s a pretty intriguing idea to say the least. It’s one thing to know how to cook a meal, another entirely to know how to serve the meal and something about where the meal came from. Call it an independent study course or something or don’t call it anything at all. And I plan to share my recipes and menus with you as I go.

We had a funny night last night. I was making a chickpea curry and was deep in the middle of it all when I realized we didn’t have enough tomatoes to finish the recipe. I knew there might be a few tomatoes in the garden so I suggested to Sage that we walk to the garden by the house through the dark without a flashlight (we didn’t have one out here) to find some tomatoes. So we left the yurt and started on our way. The moon hadn’t risen yet so it was pitch black. I ran into Sage twice before my eyes adjusted enough to even be able to see her. So we shuffled down the path slowly navigating by feeling the path with our feet and by memory. We only got a little lost toward the end when we lost the path but by that time we could see the lights of the house. So we got our tomatoes and grabbed a flashlight from the house and headed home. When we got home (boy was it quicker with that flashlight!) we noticed that the two oil lamps we had lit were dimming rapidly. We were out of oil. I lit a third one and within a minute it too was out of oil. So I finished making dinner by the stump of a candle and a flashlight. It tasted wonderful by the way despite my not being able to really see what I was cooking or eating.

So today we went to town and got some staples with the last of this month’s money (fortunately we get more on Friday). Included in those staples is oil. A big bottle. No way are we getting stuck like that again!

Oh, and the day after the last entry we had a lovely time - I almost forgot to tell about it! I woke up pretty awake at about 4:00 AM just as the moon was about to set and didn’t feel like going to sleep. So I thought what the hell why not see what a sunrise is like from the mountain behind our yurt - about a 45 minute hike from here. So I got dressed and told Sage where I was going - she was half asleep at the time. I started off and she called me back - she wanted to come with (and Paul, of course). So we packed a bag with water and sandwiches and bundled ourselves up - it was a cold morning - and took off. Well, the moon had set and the sun wasn’t up. The good thing about it was that the stars were gorgeous. The bad thing was that it was pretty tough to see where we were going. So we took it slow and had little trouble knowing pretty well which way we were going even in the dark (down to the creek, up the other side to the field then across the other creek then up the mountain). But as slow as we were going, two of the cats, Habanero and Anita, were encouraged to come along with us. Things went fine until we got to the field. Then both cats got a bit worried about all the open space. Anita stayed where she was mewing the whole time (we found her mewing when we got back, poor thing!) but Habanero came along and though he whined the whole way he trooped up the mountain with us. It took us probably about 2 hours to make it there - I said we were going slow! But the rewards were great. We made it to the top to watch the sky light up and change to all sorts of different colors while lights in the hills below went on and off. This was the first sunrise Sage and I had ever paid attention to and was it a treat. Even Paul loved it, pointing and laughing when the sun came up. When it finally came up (Sage and I both are so trained by TV and movies that we were expecting music!) we started down the hill. Paul kept pointing and laughing and we had a jolly time the whole way home. We got home at about 7:00 and all went back to sleep until 11:00. Definitely a good idea. My advice: every time Sage and I come up with some crackpot early morning trip (for example we went to see the tall ships in Boston a few years back when we lived near there long before the traffic got to town) just do it. You’ll only get one chance to do it and boy will you regret it if you don’t.

Okay, now I really have to finish the dishes and get dinner started or I’ll be cooking at 9:00 tonight. With any luck there’ll be an entry tomorrow.

Things are looking up.

Submitted entry: Well a good night’s rest really helps a great deal. I spent much of yesterday in the mood I ended the last journal entry in. A severe case of the “nothing’s funs- everything sucks” and nothing-will-ever-changes. Today and most days I still miss my friends and brother and the Vermont in general but it isn’t an unpleasant sort of feeling as it was yesterday.

So anyway it was much better to be me after a good night’s rest. Oh and a couple of cups of coffee. Then I took some rice that Casey gave us and made Thai fried rice. I chopped an onion and cut several chili peppers into slivers - most sweet but not too hot though one was extremely hot. I sauteed them in oil until they were soft then added a spoonful of yellow curry paste. When the paste dissolved I fried the rice in it. A thoroughly yummy breakfast. Next time I might add some tofu or egg to make it a bit more substantial though.

Which makes me think — both last night and tonight I felt way better when cooking. But then, when don’t I enjoy cooking? So perhaps the answer to getting out of my “I’m an exile” funk is simply to cook nonstop until it passes : ).

So that’s about all that’s going on since yesterday at about this time. I’m going to read to Sage until 1:00 when I can put this entry up. We’re on a Claus von Bulow binge now -first reading “The von Bulow Affair” and now “Reversal of Fortune”. We’ll let you know if we think he’s guilty when we’ve read both. OH! and thanks to a reader an Alphasmart is on the way. We’re so thrilled! This will really revolutionize how we are about updating the site. Both of us are already thinking of more and new content to add.

So I was rather frustrated.

Submitted entry: It has been a lovely week here weather-wise. Days have been in the 70’s and nights in the 50’s. The yurt holds the day’s heat pretty well through much of the night but even in the cold of the morning it is toasty under our big pile of blankets. We have our wood stove and nearly enough money for the chimney so in the next week or two we should be burning wood to keep warm. ” Meanwhile, Paul is growing up so fast. He’s figured out signs for granny, nurse, “”I want”", yes, no, hat, water and has been making dog and cat noises when he sees them. But the big news is that he started walking there days ago. He just stood up and all but gave up crawling for good! It’s amazing to see all he learns and how quickly he figures it all out.

Sage and I also finally got the site revised and added some more non-commercial content and have plans for adding even more soon. Aside from adding new artists to the gallery we haven’t any plans for adding more commercial content which we are glad about as while we need money to keep doing what we’re doing we do feel guilty that the site has commercial content at all.

That’s what’s been going on around me. Meanwhile, here’s what’s been up with me lately.

A couple of days ago I was browsing through intentional communities on-line to see what was out there as possible next moves in the event that we have to move which looks to be no sooner than a year away and no later than 4-5 years away. Casey and Crow agree to give us adequate (like 6 months) notice so that we can organize our next move. Me, I’m of two minds. On the one hand we just got here and are just settling in to a routine and I’d like to enjoy this routine. On the other hand being pretty sure that some day we’re going to find out that we’ve got to go makes me feel on shaky ground so I think let’s just go and get it over with while having the decision to move be our thought-out decision rather than a reaction to “”oh no where do we go now?”". Or I should say, wait out the winter and go in the spring when building and moving would be easier. I’m really glad we have the yurt. No matter what happens we have a place to live - it’s just a question of moving it.

So the idea of finding or starting a child-centered community has been on my mind for a while since my goal in our next move is to have parents and children around nearby - preferably close enough that the kids could get together under their own power without waiting for apparent to drive them. I’d definitely appreciate being around more men and sharing more work with whatever people we live with so that instead of six people making six meals washing six dishes there’s one or two making and cleaning up after everyone’s dinner allowing more people to do more things -for example activities that could eventually result in the group of people supporting itself.

So imagine my surprise when I found Meadowdance. It sounded like what I was imagining. Then I saw that it was forming in Vermont -one town away from where I grew up.

So I was father frustrated. One by the fact that we’re about 1,200 miles away, that Sage has little interest in leaving the Ozarks and most likely her mom who really feels tied to the community she has here and wouldn’t consider moving away. Then there’s the issue of my parents whom I haven’t had contact with (my choice) since 1992 and have no interest in establishing communications with. Living there would make accidental contact more likely.

When I stopped talking to them they were heavy drinkers -both drinking 6-12 beers on the average day. Sometimes six in the morning then a nap then 6-12 in the afternoon and evening. In the middle of that they made my brother and I miserable with their constant fighting with each other and us too if we happened to be in the way. They’d been like that for at least 10 years prior or that is to say from when I was about 10 to when I stopped talking to them at 21 (or more sadly from when my brother was about 3 to 13) and that’s just what I was aware of. By their own accounts that had been going on to some extent since at least 1975.

Well since 1992 my parents divorced, my dad remarried and according to my brother my dad’s a new man -he no longer drinks or smokes and is an all around nice guy. I don’t hear much about my mom since my brother says he rarely sees her as he is no longer bound by a custody agreement and hasn’t been for several years.

All that said I have zero interest in getting in touch with them not only because I thought the parents I knew pre-1992 were assholes but also if they’ve changed I don’t care to know them. They’re strangers. Not to mention that they had their other non-chemically related problems.

Discipline for example. My mom’s idea (even when sober) of how to tell a 10 year old she was worried that I was several hours late from coming home from my friend’s place next door was to beat me on my bare behind with a leather strap. My dad who rarely hit me but did occasionally was tolerant if not encouraging of her disciplinary methods (to give her some credit she did have terrible teachers herself - her parents’ idea of how to keep a rowdy youngster under control was to chain him outside like a dog - and this is a “”funny”" story they tell!).

When I was 12 or so she told me that my brother no longer was hurt by her beatings and since I was stronger I was to take over for her in that department. It took me a year or two before I had the guts to challenge her authority there (probably since by that time I was “”too big to be spanked”")

All that story serves to say that I strongly disagree with my parents’ ideas of parenting and want them to have nothing to do with my son.

Which brings me back to the initial story - a community almost exactly what I am looking for is forming in what I consider to be my “”homeland”" and one of the most beautiful parts of the country - one that my parents aside I would love to live in again -probably for life. And here I am feeling like an exile from my home country since there is a “”hostile government”" that I am petrified of moving there for worrying about an impromptu family reunion in the grocery store where my parents find out they’re grandparents all in front of Paul. Of course living in a somewhat self sufficient community would minimize my needs for going where my family goes so that could possibly work.

Of course Sage has put up with this from me for years and is pretty sick of hearing how I’d like to live in Vermont again. And I feel bad that she has to deal with it. I feel almost a visceral draw to the lands and forests there where she has none. And of course I could, and probably am, idealizing the place. But I miss it a great deal nonetheless.

And what I have such a hard time convincing everyone around me is that I’m still having a good time here enjoying my life and living in the present. I just have my moments where my imagination can run away about how wonderful a particular situation would be.

Fortunately for me, Sage has a wonderful degree of patience and an excellent sense of humor about it all and continually jokes with me about Vermont’s perfection - “”Nobody gets sick, nobody dies, everyone’s friends with everyone else…”" and we often have a good laugh about it all.

And I feel bad that I want that so badly - like here life is giving me nearly everything I want -a life so lovely that I am astonished every day and I still want more. How ungrateful is that? But then I’m spoiled - over the past several years - maybe my whole life I have gotten exactly what I wanted soon after I wanted it.

That said I’m not feeling terrible or anything and I don’t hate it here. In fact -I’m going to end it here and walk in the woods with Paul and revel in what life has given me to date instead of spending the day working on my wish list for the next 10 years. ”

A Small Potbelly

Submitted entry: As you might have guessed things have been pretty nutty around here thus I haven’t done a whole lot of writing — email or otherwise until I caught up on mail yesterday. Much of what we’ve been up to has been playgroup-type opportunities. We had a playgroup early last week followed by a trip to Eastwind Thursday, a town trip Friday, a potluck Saturday the usual Sunday night get-together and another town trip on Tuesday. Whew — seems busy just looking at it written down.

Thursday’s Eastwind trip was a good time. As usual we spent much of the time blabbing with friends and being led around by Paul who is still getting his nerve up to go walking on his own. Also as we were unsure as to how long Casey will want to wait before moving from here, we asked about the possibility of our living there. The answer — possibly if they approve another child (Paul) which meant that they’d have someone who worked less than a non-parent. Also, we’d have to give up two cats. Well, we talked about it and giving up two cats was not an option. Fortunately the next day we left a note for Casey and Crow covering several general issues [Sage adds: like sorry for leaving tons of gaggy coffee grounds on top of our fridge in the basement for months, we really MEANT to clean it up] but also asking if Casey knew how soon she’d be wanting to leave. She got back to us later and assured us it wouldn’t be for a long time. During that time, things could change at Eastwind that two extra cats might not matter. In the meantime we might figure out other options including getting our own more family-oriented community going. That idea sounds at times simple and exciting and other times so difficult — getting land, finding people, converting uncultivated land to something that could feed us and perhaps even a community, supported agriculture (CSA) project, figuring out transportation and electricity and phone/net connection. None of that is a huge deal but it is an issue nonetheless, and when I’m tired and feeling incompetent it is extremely daunting.

Friday we went to town to get copper pipe, and fittings for our stove. We got the pipe, had it flared at the ends. All we had to do was hook one end up to the stove regulator and the other to the regulator on the tank. So I thought until as I was hooking it up I bent the tube and couldn’t get the fitting over it. I fought with it as I was hooking it up and I bent the tube and couldn’t get the fitting over it. I fought with it for about an hour until sweating and crabby I gave up and decided to get the pipe flared and a new fitting up on after breaking off the bent part. Very disappointing.

Tuesday we went back to town and had a huge shopping trip and got the pipe. Having hooked up the stove we’ve been cooking fools. Not what we have a big gas tank we can cook dried beans which are cheaper, tastier, easier to carry and leave no packaging behind to dispose of. We both felt that our “Civilization Quotient” (CQ) went up a great deal. I can’t tell you how much easier it is.

We also got our wood stove last weekend — a small potbelly that should be just the right size for the yurt. We plan to get pipe for it soon for the chimney. This is the last project I’m really daunted by — constructing a large chimney. The pipe isn’t cheap either — metalbestos at $75/three feet. Probably the whole thing will cost about $400 to do just in time too since nights are cooling down — 52 this morning. We were snug in our bundles.

I got a start last night. I went outside to pee at about 3:00 AM or so (I’m guessing) and as I finished I heard aloud barking really nearby. It wasn’t one of the dogs that live at the house — I know their barks and they know me. One of the house dogs barked back at this one. I’m guessing that it was a neighbor’s dog far from home or a wild dog. I didn’t see it not having a flashlight and also having run like hell back into the yurt!

Oh — relative to my last entry’s notes about house sitting - a friend of mind passed this link on to me.

Oh, and I guess I never finished my story about our moving, really. It isn’t happening soon — we’re staying here for the foreseeable future and figure when we need to move we’ll find the right place — either on our own, in an existing community or creating our own. No worries here…

Meanwhile on the Paul front we’ve been having a ball. Not only did I just read John Holt’s How Children Learn and get really inspired about how we interact with him (most helpful today paraphrased) “Persist in trying to communicate with him — if you give up, throwing your hands up saying, ‘I don’t understand you’ he’ll get the idea that communication doesn’t work.” To help with his communication we’ve also been learning some sign language — he’s really seeming to understand it — especially when combined with signs of his own invention. We’re more and more able to understand each other. Not to mention that it’s being way fun to communicate with Sage that way.

Sage is about to go to the house to be on the computer so I’ll end this here.

Maybe even building PCs.

Submitted entry: Paul had a big sleep last night -from 7:00 PM to 8:00 AM. He never had much of a nap yesterday. Lucky for me too - I got to sleep in with him, and even to wake up enough before him to ave a little coffee before he woke up. He’s in a lovely mood today - not as grumpy as he has been - hanging out with Sage watching her crochet and playing with yarn of his own and the dinosaurs he got for his birthday. Oh, and singing to himself.

Lately I’ve been getting a fair amount of email from people dreaming about starting simpler lives. I have a few suggestions -take them for what they’re worth, though - from someone who while living simply did not have to buy land, didn’t do a garden or any other homesteading activities. But that’s part of my point - there are a lot of ways to get to a simpler life without being like Grizzly Adams, Thoreau or any other figure you’d care to name. So here are a few ideas that may get you moving or at least give you some ideas of your own.

Try house-sitting -lots of people need people to watch their homes, feed the animals, etc. while they travel. I know of two people who are going this route. One is in the cabin we visited on Tuesday (in the last entry). House-sitting isn’t just a matter of watching someone’s development house and their toy poodle Mitsy in Westchester County, NY. Most will not pay but will offer free housing in exchange for your watching their stuff.

What would really help find this for you would be if Mother Earth News still ran it’s “Positions and Situations” classifieds. The ones from the 70’s and early 80’s had pages and pages of people looking to house-sit, buy land, sell land, home exchange, whatever. (Does anyone know of this sort of thing - like a neo-hippie “trading post” on-line? Should we provide one here?

Communal living. The Branch Davidians, Elizabeth Clare Prophet and Jim Jones among others kind of ruined the reputation of this way of life but for many this is the easiest way back to basics. Established communities exist around the world. You can find a list here and many like East Wind welcome visitors and are looking for new members. If you’re not sure about that way of life with strangers you may have friends or relatives who would be interested in pooling resources for land and housing. Heck, this isn’t only practiced in the country. Several such communities exist in cities as well.

A key to the way we live is decreasing our monthly expenses to a minimal level. This, almost as much as being independently wealthy, provides one with freedom to travel and live where and how they please.

As for communal living, I, myself have something of a vision. Casey, who owns this land, doesn’t plan to stay here forever but would prefer to move back across town nearer the womens’ land. When this happens, Sage and I will pack up our house and put it somewhere else in our neck of the Ozarks. This probably won’t happen for some time - possibly years -but it is a reality nonetheless. Lucky for us we have a portable house! Anyway, one of my visions for our next living situation is something of an intentional community of parents and children. Food Could be grown as much as possible but cash would be generated from technological pursuits - web design, programming, maybe even building PCs. Something of a techno-commune I know -sounds kind of science-fictioney or something. The world might not even be ready for it yet but there you are. And maybe not -communities have already developed on-line between like-minded people in listservs, chat, MOOs and MUSHes and I’m sure that business ventures - successful ones - have begun that way

Okay, I should wrap this up and start the day soon but first let me pass on a few things.

Parents and parents-to-be may want to check out John Holt - he’s got some really fascinating ideas about homeschooling and child development. I’ve been reading some of his articles and soon plan to get a book or two of his through interlibrary loan.

And less seriously - here are some recipes for what we had for last night’s (extremely yummy) dinner.

Chickpeas

Brown one onion cut into crescents in a medium saucepan with 3 TBSP oil. When onions are golden brown add 3 TBSP butter, margarine or (YUM!) ghee and as much hot pepper powder as you like -we used a teaspoon of African bird pepper powder. When the butter is melted add cooked chickpeas - we wing it with amounts - you will want to add enough to eat along with a little cooking liquid but not too much as you want to have lots of juice for every bowl to sop up with rice or bread. Cook for 20-30 minutes on low heat until chickpeas are soft but not mushy. Serve with rice and/or bread.

We weren’t up for making rice so I made chapatis - Indian flatbread. It’s a really quick and easy way to serve fresh bread with nearly any meal. I like baking bread and all but that’s such a full-day project. Anyway - here it is:

Chapatis

Mix 2 cups of whole wheat flour with 1 cup of water. Add more water or flour until it holds together and knead it until it forms a compact ball and is really smooth and elastic. Let it set for 30 minutes and then knead again and divide it into 9-10 pieces. Roll each into a thin 1/8″ thick pancake. Heat an ungreased skillet (cast iron is best) on medium-high heat. Put the chapati on it and cook until the top looks dry and small bubbles start to form (about a minute). Then flip it over and cook until more bubbles form. Flip it over one last time and (here’s the cool part, I think) press lightly with a towel. The chapati will puff up. Serve hot dry, with ghee or butter. Can’t bread much cheaper or easier than this.

Okay - it’s 10:00 now - time to get moving…