Monday will mark 4 weeks of being snowbound.

Submitted entry: I feel like writing an entry now though I don’t really know why I should - after all it’s just more of the same. I feel like writing an entry now though I don’t really know why I should - after all it’s just more of the same. We’re still stuck - and now there’s another layer of ice and a small layer of snow on the top of what was already there. Monday will be four weeks of being here for me with only a 2 1/2 hour break when I rode last week with a neighbor to town. People on the radio are advising to avoid travel if at all possible. Meanwhile, Sage is just getting over a sprained wrist after she fell down on the ice going to get wood. So it’s definitely been a challenge. I think I’ve reached the point, today, whereI would take the week of summer in favor of another week of this. Sage and I have been talking about leaving for a quick vacation as soon as the roads are passable. Probably visit some friends and family out west. Today I looked at wunderground to see the forecasts around the country and was fantasizing about trips to Death Valley andTucson, Arizona where the possibility of being snowed in is close to nil. Of course there’s that big mountain range full of snow between here and there *grin*.

It’s not really as bad as it sounds- I actually have been doing some productive and interesting work. I’ve been working on my perl skills this week a lot and am far better than I used to be. On top of that I’m getting things moving for the relocation of Baby Tyrtle to it’s own domain name and automating link submission and addition. After that I really want to start promoting the directory. I like the idea so much and I think that once it has more resources it could be really useful for many people - myself included.

We’ve also been working on a redesign for this journal. It is definitely time for a makeover. On that note - are there any features or content you’d like to see that isn’t already here? Something you’d like to see updated more often? A pet peeve about design or navigation? Send me an email. Hey. Send us email anyway - we’re lonely and crabby and a message to me or Sage would be very much appreciated.

So we’re hoping that the weather turns around soon. I’d love to see a nice 60 degree day with lots of rain to wash all this away. As it stands it looks like it’ll be well under freezing for the next week.

Still Snowbound

Submitted entry: All work and no play makes Todd a very dull boy. All work and no play makes Todd a very dull boy. All work and no play makes Todd a very dull boy. All work and no play makes Todd a very dull boy. All work and no play makes Todd a very dull boy. All work and no play makes Todd a very dull boy. All work and no play makes Todd a very dull boy. All work and no play makes Todd a very dull boy. All work and no play makes Todd a very dull boy. All work and no play makes Todd a very dull boy. All work and no play makes Todd a very dull boy. All work and no play makes Todd a very dull boy. All work and no play makes Todd a very dull boy. All work and no play makes Todd a very dull boy.

Yes, you guessed it. Cabin fever has set in big time. No I’m not running around with an axe shouting“Here’s Johnny!” For those of you not familiar with The Shining- go get the movie - preferably both the Stanley Kubrick version and the recent miniseries. Or better yet go get the book. It’s deliciously creepy.)

Anyway we’re still here and still alive and all, and yes. We’re still snowbound. We tried a couple of day sago to get out with the car as we were out of food and propane. But sadlyI made it about 10 feet. We need a thaw and it isn’t happening any time in the forecast. Fortunately a neighbor gave me a ride to town when he went to pick up his wife so I got propane and food and we’re significantly more jolly. The weather isn’t great by most peoples’ standards. The temperature didn’t break 20F today and won’t again tomorrow. Tomorrow night it’s going to get down to -5F, and this morning it was 2Foutside. Wind chills have been in the low -10 to -20 range though we got as low as -50 a few days back which was quite something I can tell you! The result is that our path is glare ice as are the roads. When I went to town we basically skated along in the person’s 4×4 pickup. It did great but a car would have had a horrible time. I figure we could get out today in an emergency with lots of time to dig the car out and a few people to push. The road is clear but icy. The big worry I have is the hill just outside our driveway - it’s very steep and extremely long -maybe 1/4 to 1/2 mile. I had trouble walking down it when I went to town a couple of days ago so I worry that it’ll be a white-knuckled trip down were we not to wait. But we plan to wait as we are well stocked with foodand gas.

Incidentally we now have a new lowfor how low the outside temp has been here. We hit -4 degrees a few days ago. The interior of the yurt in the morning that happened was chilly as the fire was low. Maybe in the mid 40’s which under blankets isn’t bad. However a few small logs on the fire and we were back in short sleeves while the wind howled outside.

We would like to get out sometime soon as we are getting stir crazy as you may imagine. Mostly it’s isolated to fantasies about pizza or a trip to the library, though a few days ago I was dreaming of a hotel room where I didn’t have to tend the fire and could watch television for hours on end while ordering room service.

This laptop, by the way, is definitely on it’s way out. I had to reinstall windows yet again and it still isn’t acting quite right. Fortunately we won an auction at Ebay and are getting a new Pentium 233 laptop with double the memory. After a P120,it should seem like a speed demon! It’s just going to be a bit of coordination trying to get it here. UPS won’t deliver to us so we’re probably going to have it sent to a store in town and then pick it up there.

And we still have no interest in trading this time for summer. Sage and I were talking yesterday as we were listening to Steven Cravis about this. We listen to that music often in the summer as it reminds us of snow and we can have fantasies of cold weather as we sweat ourselves silly. We both agreed that while we very often fantasize about winter weather in the summer and are sure we’ll even look back on this time fondly and maybe even wistfully next summer, we are not feeling like we wished it were summer. All in all it’s being an interesting and somewhat timeless time. Aside from my short trip to town two days ago I haven’t seen civilization for more than 2 weeks now. I don’t count the last town trip as I wasn’t there by my own transportation. In fact I felt much like a prisoner on furlough, even a bit sad to say goodbye to cashiers and friends I ran into knowing that I had to go back here and be stuck for another week or more. I’m guessing we’re stuck here until 2001. But hey, what a great place to be stuck - it’s warm almost all the time inside, we now have lots of food and there’s internet access. Oh, and coffee -regular for me and decaf for Sage. Who can complain?

Is it spring yet?

I’m not really feeling that way but this week is definitely being a challenge for me. Let’s start with the snow. Turns out the snow fell before we could get some wood in. Fortunately there’s wood at the house we can use. Unfortunately the wood is at the house and needs to be carried 500′ back. And it’s a bit wet. But it’s working out okay as the snow is well packed on the path and so the wheelbarrow goesbetter on the path as the rocks are all buried. And we’ve got a routine down now of drying the wood on top of the stove. It makes it perfectly dry and the yurt smells nice too.

But that’s not all. Yesterday there were problems with the sink drain. Lately it’s been draining slowly and has been freezing closed so we’ve had pools of stagnant water in the sink. Yesterday I had had enough and thought of what I thought was a brilliant idea. I’d move the sink backwards into the yurt, dragging the hose inside where it was warm and it’d thaw. What I didn’t count on was that the pipe would come disconnected under the sink and all the water came cascading out ofboth sides of the sink and onto the floor and the insides of the cabinet. There was a huge puddle inside the cabinet and on the floor. And inside the cabinet was the dry cat food, every plastic bag and empty cat food bag we’ve brought home since summer. Yes, it was ugly. But something was different. I could, and often would have been frustrated and angry about it. Instead it struck me as funny. Paul’s coming over as it was gushing out asking “Who peed?” helped, for sure. Then it just seemed comical - me running over to grab the first thing I could think of to absorb it - a fitted sheet. No dice there, it was useless. Anyway, after a few minutes I’d sopped up the water with a towel, hung the towel outside, emptied the water out and at the same time cleaned out the cabinet which I should have done months ago.

Then Sage came back. And a few hours later I asked if she could go out and bang on the hose outside to bust the ice. She did and I heard the water go out. And I didn’t even notice until she drained her pasta that the reason it all drained was that the hose had come disconnected again. Todd gets another towel and repeats the process.

Then I decided to fix it thinking I might be able to do it myself. I go outside, bang the hose on a tree and hear Sage laughing and yelling“Disaster! Huge disaster!!” Todd cheerfully wipes it all upagain and in fact wipes up the same water twice as I had poured the water I sopped up back in the sink thinking I had it fixed.

This morning I finally think I’ve fixed it. I drained everything and brought the hose in. And lo and behold the plastic pipe had a kink in it. The kink prevented the water from quickly draining and also prevented the pipe from fully draining acting like your finger on the top of a straw full of liquid. So I cut the kink out and rebuilt the whole thing. It works beautifully now. We’ll see how it does tonight with the -20Fwindchills and single-digit temps.

But that’s not all, either! This morning Paul wanted breakfast. So I went over to the stove, lit a match and turned on the gas. Nothing. Not even a tiny hiss. We’re out of propane officially now. And still I’m cheerful. I just stoked up the woodstove, opened the dome to let the excess heat out and cooked his oatmeal and my coffee on the stove. Tonight I plan to make tofu curry on the stove too. If it doesn’t work great we’ll dig out the fire pit outside and take stove-dried wood out there to make the cooking fire. Either way we’re okay.

But even that’s not all. We’re running low on lamp oil. Probably we’ve got about 2-3 days more available and then the nights will be candlelit. We’re also out of bread which is quite a staple around here let me tell you. We go through several loaves a week.

Oh, and we’re not going to be hearing any CDs for a while either - we’re out of batteries for the boom box. But luckily we did get one thing the day before the storm that will help keep us sane. A windup radio. Crank the handle 60 times and get 45 minutes of AM, FM or Shortwave. It gets great reception and you don’t notice the sound of the hand generator unwinding itself after a while. It sounds like a fish tank air pump. So no matter what we’ll always have music now. And it’s nice to have it be powered by us, too. No batteries to buy, recharge or throw away.

It doesn’t look likely that we’ll be getting out of here anytime soon. Today the forest looks like a scene from the movie The IceStorm (do any of you love it as much as we do?) It’s lovely to look at with all the trees covered in ice, icicles everywhere and the sound of tinkling ice falling off the trees (and the sound of a few trees themselves falling with the weight. I am thinking, though, that I might just try to brave the roads on Monday if we get nothing more in the way of precipitation. I can bring back a tank or two of propane, bread, lamp oiland other provisions. I don’t expect to make it up the hill with the car (we live on a road that has an amazingly steep hill that’s about1/2 mile long. But I can carry everything up if need be.

Actually, it is kind of funny. In some ways I think our life is actually being as physically difficult as many of you seem to think it is. Usually in many ways it feels hardly more difficult than life in the city. But now hauling water and wood through the snow, cooking on a woodstove and soon living without even oil lamps, it could feel pretty rustic. And ironically we’ll still have the laptop and be connected (knock on wood). It still seems odd to me.

And speaking of all that I need to finish up. Paul’s sleeping and Sage is getting water and laptop batteries. When she gets back we’re going to do some work and then I’m going to go out and fetch another wheelbarrow load of wood so we have a good supply of wood to burn while the cold rages outside. Tonight it’s going down to about zero again and again we’re having 20-40 MPH winds.

And you know what? I still prefer this to summer here.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Submitted entry: It finally came - the snow we’ve been waiting over a year for. It started last night as I was answering email. I could hear the whisper of snow on the trees and yurt roof. This whisper continued through the night and by morning there was 8 inches on the ground and more on the way. Springfield, 90 minutes away and the only place I’ve heard a recent tally of the amount of snowfall reports fourteen inches. And true to form, they were crippled. This morning with only 8 inches on the ground Heard them say on the radio that at one freeway intersection there werefifty tractor trailers in the ditch. Sound unbelievable? I agree,but then they really don’t know how to handle snow here.

We were caught a little off guard ourselves. We’d hoped to get a bunch of water out here so we didn’t have to haul it in the snow. We also wanted to bring a bunch of wood back. Neither got done as Sage was late coming back from picking up the car in town. Instead we got enough wood for the night and a little water. Fortunately, though, we have a sled which makes carrying things almost easier than when there is no snow.

But I did feel pretty overwhelmed when I woke up this morning. There washardly any wood, very little water, the sink drain was frozen shut and I think we’re pretty low on cooking gas (Sage got the car too late to pickup our cylinder from the gas place). What a way to start the morning! But I didn’t despair - and believe me I wanted to. Instead we just dove into what needed to be done. Sage took the wheelbarrow through the snow (we didn’t have the sled yet) and got a bunch of wood at the house and brought it to the ravine. I brought it the rest of the way home in boxes. Then I made coffee - probably should have done that first. And we also stoked up the fire and cleaned up inside. And each thing we didmade a huge difference. By the time 8:00 rolled around, it was no longer a dismal winter day but a lovely snow-filled, magical day. Sage, of course, felt that all along. The cats, however, have yet to come aroundto it. They all stayed inside and whined at the door only to give us a dirty look when we actually opened it. However, as the day warmed I just put them outside. Even Claire seemed to be okay with it. She prefers to be outside, anyway - even if she did go under the yurt. Harriet’s the worst, though. She goes out and yells to come back in. Then when she gets back in she yells as if to gretz about how miserable it is outside and how we should do something about it.

In Paul news, things are going great. The hitting has stopped completely and we’ve found some more fun things to do. Lately his big thing is toplay with the CD player. We have all our CDs in one of those flip-books so we can store them in a small space as opposed to what it’d take were we to keep them all in jewel cases. He loves the arrangement and spendshours (not all at once, but throughout the day several times a day) just putting a CD in, playing it for 10-20 seconds and then putting another in. I can tell what he likes, though, as he’ll actually listen to it for more than that. He loves the Ladysmith Black Mambazo CD that he got as a gift and plays it often. He also is very fond of Mimi and knows what the CD looks like enough to play it when he likes to. He’s also fond of his cousin David’s CDs. It’s obvious from the last two that he really thinks it’s cool to be able to listen to people he knows from real life singing.

The other thing he’s really getting into is reading. I think he’sstarting to understand about words and letters. He knows most of his upper and lower case letters and knows that they read left to right. Lastnight he had the CD player down and started pointing to letters and reading them out to me: “M, A, G, N, A, V, O,X…Music!!&148; Either he hasn’t quite figured out what all the sounds the letters make are or he is working on an ad campaign. One never can be sure with him.

So here we are. We’re looking at probably another week or more before the roads are passable enough for us to get to town. Fortunately we have a fair amount of food. And if we’re really hard up and need to get that propane we can probably catch a ride into town with a neighbor with a four wheel drive.

But fortunately, everything else seems pretty much intact. There’s electricity and phone at the house and net access is still reliable. I think in some ways that feels really odd. It’s odd enough to live without electricity and still be very much on the net and relying on email. But to be physically isolated from the world - unable to actually get to a grocery store, or more accurately we probably could get there, just getting back up the hill might be a pain, but at the same time to be in close contact with lots of people. Very odd. It’s one thing to have television and radio in the midst of a storm but to have two waycontact feels strange. Hey, there’s always mail service. We could just order out for food and supplies and maybe they’d deliver it next day. *grin*

Coldest Night at the Yurt: Film at 11

Submitted entry: What a difference a day makes. I had an absolutely great day which I attribute almost exclusively to the fact that I didn’t have any syrup on my pancakes. After all, we very rarely let Paul have sugar - do I really think that I have different metabolism than he does? Does sugar only make children behave differently? I should think not.

It’s bitterly cold outside tonight. The coldest night we’ve ever experienced since moving to the yurt. It’s in the single digits now outside and might hit 0 degrees F by morning (don’t roll your eyes, Andrea - it’s cold to us*grin*). If that’s not enough, the wind is really howling outside which is meant to get the wind chills down to thirty below. How is the weather inside you wonder? Heck, everyone wonders I think. “Are you staying warm?” is the most asked question about yurt life we receive. Theanswer is it’s beautiful. I’ve been feeding the stove every few hours and as a result the temperature inside is about 70-75 most of the time. I’ll probably set the alarm to get me up in the night so I don’t sleep too late and have the stove go out in the night. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, but waking up at 5:00 AM to a 20 degree yurt and needing to start afire from paper and kindling wouldn’t be my idea of a good night. It’s beautiful outside, though. I just went out a few minutes ago. Because of the cold the air is so clear. All the stars are out and the moon is as bright as ever. The chimney is putting out a storybook plume of smoke and the golden glow of the oil lamps makes it look as cozy inside as it really feels. (And now I hear some geese running late honking their way south. I bet they feel motivated to get moving quickly now!)

People in this area really don’t do winter well, though. This weather that will probably be par for the course when we head north next month is a shock and will probably set records. The funniest, though, was when we got a dusting of snow last week. I swear the people in Springfield drive worse when it snows. Get this. Springfield got 1 1/4 inches of snow. We turned on the radio to hear reports of two tractor trailers overturned and power lines knocked down. The traffic reporters were talking as if they were in a war zone. And the tally for accidents that day? Between 6 and 2:30, in a city of160,000 or so there were 36 accidents reported to the police. What’swrong with these people. Sage wrote a cosmic on the subject…

Tiny snowflakes are drifting down in Springfield, Missouri. If this were rain, it would be called a drizzle. The town falls apart. Six car accidents by 5:30 AM, power lines down in the streets, and Canada moves in with a brilliant coup and takes Springfield over. “We were defenseless!”screams the mayor, “It was SNOWING!”

I am back in the mode where I can’t get information in fast enough and my eyes are being the limiting factor. I have several books I want to read: The Unschooling Handbook, Real Boys - Protecting Our Sons from the Myths ofBoyhood, Unjobbing, three programming books and two or three travel books. A week ago I felt like I had nothing to read. I have to remember to write these books down and get them a few at a time instead of having a big haul from the library of books I won’t be able to read in the time allotted. That, or buy them. I think I might want Real Boys- it’s utterly fascinating. I did buy the Unschooling Handbook,Unjobbing and one of the programming books so that’s something. But the thing is I want to actually know what’s in all the books now. That never happened to me when I was working - I never had time for more than one book at a time.

Speaking of working I am going to get going soon and go to sleep - I have work to do tomorrow to wrap up one project and then I have another new, and fortunately small, project that I want to finish before the holidays.

BOOM!

Submitted entry: Seems like I’m always cooking chickpeas while she sleeps without fail and this time is no exception. The pressure cooker should be done in about 10 minutes and then once it depressurizes it will be another 20-30 minutes before we eat. Today was lovely - we started the day off early - I worked 7:30-9:30 and Sage worked from 10:00-1:30 or so. During Sage’s time Kitey arrived and came out to see Paul. He was really missing her this time. Then we all went to the house where I dealt with the laundry and then all came back here where Paul nursed himself off for a nap. And hurrah, I dozed with him until a call came in - a lawyer in town’s computer got zapped by a power surge. Someone was coming to look at it from the local ISP but they’ll call if they need it fixed.

While I was dozing Sage was sawing away at a big dead tree that fell down about 40 yards north of us (kind of in our front yard you might say). When I got back from returning the computer call Kitey and Paul were awake and they headed up to hang out with Sage. I grabbed my bow saw and started cutting wood down here. Now we’ve got somewhere between 3-5 days of wood stashed inside which is a pretty great feeling for us who rarely have more than a day’s worth. Once we get the new stove hooked up we’ll work with Crow and the chainsaw to cut a bunch of wood so that we have enough stashed away for a longer time.

Sage and I have been working a bunch not only on promoting the gallery and Teeter Creek Herbs sites (still figuring out the ins and outs of getting noticed) but we’ve also been working on a major revamp for a section on the tyrtle site which might even be up by the time I put this entry up. We’re both pretty excited about it - it was fun to work on and will be fun to update too.

Tomorrow we’ll be having a friend and her baby over to the yurt for a little playgroup (and maybe another mother/daughter too). We’re really looking forward to it.

More big rains came yesterday - it’s nice to have that for a change. The creek is running pretty well now and it’s nice to see that the ground under the leaves is no longer dry. Yesterday was also the first time Paul really noticed a thunderstorm. He was thrilled. In a book he got from the library, Calling All Toddlers there’s a cartoon of a boy hanging out with his stuffed animals on a blanket when a rainstorm comes. He goes under his umbrella and is happy until “BOOM!” thunder comes. Paul is quite fond of that story and booms along with it. So yesterday he was booming around the yurt and pointing up at the dome and clapping for the rain, doing his rain sign. He’s also starting to talk more - we’re not only hearing “mama” and “dada” anymore but he also has times of pointing and asking the words for things and has since said “ox”, “arm”, “turtle”, “dulse”, “out”, “book”, “bowl”, “pillow” and several others. He’s really thrilled with himself when he does it and we both love his little voice which seems surprisingly deep for a little one.

Okay, that’s about all for now - it’s nearly time to cook dinner…

I’ve died and gone to sugar hell.

Submitted entry: It’s been a weird day to say the least. It actually started sometime last night when Paul had a late nap -as in waking from it at about 6:30. I saw that it was potentially going to be a late night so I had a cup of coffee at 6:00 PM and prepared to stay up and planned to allow Sage to go to bed if she’d let me sleep in in the morning. It worked great - and Paul (and I) were both asleep by 9:00anyway. Which is something of a late night by his standards. He goes to bed anywhere from 5:00 PM (no nap) to 8:00 PM (an early nap) We’ve definitely got it easy compared to a friend whose son decided to stay up one night until 2:30 AM just for the heck of it.

Anyway - Paul woke up this morning at around 6:00 I think and so did Sage. I dozed on the couch. I couldn’t really sleep soundly in as Paul missed me, I think. When he first woke up he brought me over my glasses and a few minutes later came by with my hair tie to pull my hair back. (I usually don’t feel human until my glasses are on and my hair is out of my face). He and Sage sounded like they were having a great time, though.

When I finally woke up at about7:30 I got up and went to start my coffee. It was then that I noticed something was starting to go wrong. It was as if someone turned up the contrast on my eyes. Everything seemed stark. I figured then that it was the beginning of a migraine aura and took two Tylenol and willed my coffee to brew faster. A few minutes later the real visual disturbances came -dimming vision in one eye and flashing floaters. After about 1/2 hour they were gone and I was left with a dull headache that would have been pull the shades and hope to die headache had I not had coffee and tylenolbefore it hit.

The thing about a migraine -whether it hurts like hell or not - is that it leaves me feeling“off”. There’s not a great way to describe it. Sort of adisconnected, otherworldly feeling that doesn’t leave until I have a night’s sleep. And I didn’t help matters today by having a big late breakfast of lots of pancakes drowned in maple syrup. It doesn’t matter that it was a natural sweetener or whatever - I ate too much. And so hereI am, just at the other side of a sugar crash. An hour ago I felt completely dismal and hopeless, as well as really tired. It wasn’t until about 15 minutes ago that I made the connection. And I even managed to remember to think that the sugar might be a problem when I waseating it. I just didn’t think of it when it was actually happening. Not that it makes it much easier to live with. But it is always a nice feeling to realize that the problem is chemical and not thefact that my life actually does suck or anything.

Paul actually went to sleep on his own tonight. Sage was too tired to keep going tonight too and actually fell into that funny state we both enter in to when trying to tell stories to him to get him to sleep. The stories start out great “Once upon a time there were three bears, Papa bear, Mama bear, and Babybear…” But after a few minutes you know you’re falling asleep when you hear yourself saying through a fog “Then baby bear flew toCalcutta where he found his guru.” It’s funny to listen to Sage doing it though I do it too I found out last night. Anyway, after Sage nodded off he wanted to go to sleep so I pulled up his covers and then he wanted a story. Intelligently, I sat up this time so as to not tell myself a story and put myself to sleep and miss the opportunity to keep upwith this journal and my email. After a few minutes his breathing slow ed, but he was still restless so I switched to reading aloud from my “Tootired to really think” book of Dear Mr. Rogers - letters to and responses from Mr. Rogers (of Neighborhood fame). And after a fewmore minutes he completely fell asleep. I fed the cats, went outside to go to the bathroom (gorgeous night - bright with moonlight diffused through clouds but warm - in the high 40’s) and am now writing this. Of course I don’t know how much more I’ll manage. I’m fading fast. If I don’t return your email tonight, I chose playing Nethack instead. (sorry!)

Is the chaos created by me?

Submitted entry: At the beginning of the day things were looking bleak for what it was going to be like about this time of day. We woke up remembering that we needed to get food for ourselves. We had about two things to eat -oatmeal, and some veggie chili without beans. Sage ate the chili, I ate nothing and then I went to the house to have a shower and get ready to goto town. Then I had to be back before 1:00 to have a phone call with Julie Jordan Scott and then I knew I had to get wood because while we have 55 degrees outside today (it feels positively balmy) it’s going down to 30 tonight and only will get to 40 tomorrow. As we are out of wood that meant at least an hour. And all that had to be done quickly so Sage could get an acupuncture treatment and give a photoshop lesson. All basically before dark. It sounded more crazy when we woke up at 5:30 than it actually was and I think I did the right thing by doing my best to just stay in the moment, take one task at a time and move on to the next rather than sit and be overwhelmed at all I had to do. All that said, I have to get more groceries from the car soon. Of course it can all wait, too as it’s going to be like a refrigerator outside tonight and we don’t even have one anyway.

One of the things we talked about in the call today, which I forget now what got me on the subject of it is the fact that life is seeming really busy right now - almost as busy as it did when I was living in the city. Except now there’re playgroups, trips to Springfield, wood gathering, town trips and the like. It’s so crazy that there are oftendays where we don’t even get a chance to do dishes or cook. So I was wondering out loud how much of this chaos is created by me and not actually part of reality. Know what I mean? I wonder if I’m not, after years of city living, and years before that of living with alcoholic parents, very much used to living in a chaotic environment and that perhaps anything less than complete chaos can seem boring. I know that at the end of a day like today I feel pretty great that I managed to get through it successfully. But I am pretty sure that if I were more with-itI could avoid the chaos more often and just live slowly. Perhaps Sage andI are on some level fond of fast living.

In the realm of fast living, we had pizza delivered last week. Okay, not like we used to - where the person drives from the restaurant around the corner and gives us a pizza in 20 minutes or so. No, this takes moreforethought. First we need money - well, actually not, we can right a check. Anyway, after that we call the pizza place in town and they tell us when they can drive up. Usually it’s about an hour after wecall. Then we wait and walk out of the woods to the car and drive about 3miles to within the delivery range (they do a 10 mile radius of town),pick up the pizza and walk it home through the woods. All told, about 11/2 hours between the idea of pizza and the reality.

And now I think I’m turning into something of a noodle. I’ve been in and out of this entry several times when you weren’t looking and now it’s about 8:30 PM.

Cold and Pre-Dawn Light

Submitted entry: I think after these couple of 20 degree mornings I can safely say to those of you worried about our ability to stay warm this winter that we’re going to do just fine. I’ve got the tiny stove cranked up with a bunch of hickory and it’s getting warm fast. With that big new stove we’re going to be just fine. Once we get it in Crow and I have a chainsaw date to cut up some of the dead trees nearby for firewood. There are so many around that it may be several years, possibly never before we have to worry about getting wood from any source other than dead wood from immediately nearby the yurt. There are about three big trees within 100 yards that are in great shape and need only be cut to stove lengths.

There is definitely something special about wood heat. I don’t think anything heats quite like it. Someone we know who just switched to gas heat from wood told Sage that gas was alright but it doesn’t warm your bones like wood. Further along those lines, Kitey asserts not only that but that wood from where you live heats better. Whatever it is, put me in three 70 degree rooms with gas, electric and wood and the wood will feel more cozy. And again, there’s that full sensory experience that I didn’t have an appreciation for while in the city - it’s not just warming, it crackles and looks pretty and smells wonderful inside the house and out. The preceding paragraph has been brought to you by the American Council for Wood Heat.

Crow loaned me a book recently - Flat Rock Journal by Ken Carey. I plan to write a “real” review later but before I do I want to recommend it here. It was written by a man who lives a ways east of us here who did something like what we’re doing (but with way less help). He moved to 80 acres with his family and did much more homesteading than we’re even dreaming of doing. The book itself is a journal of a single day’s walk around his land - not just hearing about what he’s seeing but flashbacks and such telling about himself and how he got there. He writes how I wish I did in this journal and gave me a feel for how my journal might be inspiring to someone as far away from what we’re doing as I am from what he’s doing.

Well, Paul just woke up - I may post this as-is or add more depending on how the day goes…

We would spend money when we felt down.

Submitted entry: I’m taking a break between chores.Sage usually gets water while I get wood but she has pretty bad crampstoday and so I’m going to do both. Paul and I did wood (good thing, tooas we didn’t have enough to get us through the night) for about 90 minuteswhile Sage had a chiropractic/acupuncture treatment from a friend of ours.The wood’s all lined up on the path with enough inside to get us throughthe night - if I’m motivated, I’ll get the other boxes and if I’m not I’llget them tomorrow. And in a little while I’ll be getting wood - beforedark, if I’m smart.

We’re all over our colds now which is a real blessing. Paul can gooutside and so he won’t be so restless. He really loves to spendhours outdoors but with his cold and the weather being cold he hardly gotout at all. And he (and the rest of us) got really stircrazy as a result.

I think we’ve figured out more of his motivations for hitting, too. Itdawned upon me last night. He hits Sage but hardly ever hits me ever andeven when he hits Sage it isn’t malicious. And I realized last night hewas restless - partly from being inside and partly from the fact that Sageand I prefer to interact with him in different ways. When he and I hangout we often do active things - go outside, run around, play tag, or hislatest thing, dancing to “Who’s Afraid Of (The Art ofNoise)” which he calls “Hey! music” as there’s a personsaying “Hey!&148; several times throughout the song. He asks to hearit several times a day now and as it plays he runs about, dancing andjangling keys or beads and shouting 0. He usually takes myhand and wants me to dance with him and we have a great time. So Isuggested to Sage that she be more active - she would prefer to read, ordraw with him. She said, sadly (she was tired and morose at the time asher period was about to start) “I never liked playingactively.” But despite her cramps she did a great job today and itseems to be working. Once, he came over and started hitting and shesuggested dancing and he stopped immediately and did that instead. Ithink a few weeks of redirection like that and he’ll be over the hittingof other people.

Oh, and I think perhaps there might be a misunderstanding between you -readers, and I as to my motivations for living like this - simply and in ayurt. While we love the yurt and would hate to move, we didn’tmove here so much to live simply for simplicity’s sake. We didn’t comehere to renounce society (though that needs doing, too I think) and liveas Amish. We did it because we could live cheaply enough that we couldlive our lives more intentionally in ways we wish to do it. We couldspend the majority of our time raising our son, for example, instead ofworking. I still decry consumerism and advertising and mindlessacquisition, not because I think that in and of itself it’s evil, but thatI think that most of us would like to live in control of our livesand spend more of it doing things we enjoy and less time in the officeworking (or pretending to work and actually browsing the web and writingemail). And I’m writing this journal not so much to say that everyoneshould move to the country and live without indoor plumbing so much as toencourage those of you (particularly those who have actually written andsaid this) to actually go and try to do what you think is right with yourlives. Dare to do something a little different (or a lot different) foryour own and your family’s good. Start that home business (or thatnon-home business), move to Florida I’m not saying that everyone has tolive without electricity, or telephone or the like, so much as to say thatsurely there’s something eating your money (or time - cable tv forexample) that you could cut out to spend more on things you reallywant. Of course, what you may want could well be knick-nacks andthe like in which case more power to you! However, Sage and I were verymuch of the type in the city (and some here, still to this day) who wouldspend money when feeling down to get the high of acquisition to deaden thefact that we were down, or just plain bored with what we were doing at themoment. Those of you who read coffee shakes probably remember how oftenwe’d go out to dinner or get pizza. That was very much in that vein.Sure, we often get lazy even here and don’t want to cook and so we orderout, but in Bethlehem we were so without friends that most of the timewe’d go out to dinner for the social contact with the 1 that recognized usfrom so many visits.

Oh, and on another note - did I ever say where the name of this journalcame from? I think I should add this to the FAQ. The name came from anemail that we got from a friend of Sage’s after we told her that we weregoing to move here and live this way. She said that it sounded much likethe people who move to the country to get back to basics - well, exceptwithout the guns.

Speaking of guns, I’m going to be so glad when hunting season is over -guns have been going off all around lately (not too bad today,thought). One day Sage and Paul were walking down the road to the mailboxand heard a shot just inside the woods right nearby and she got so worriedthat she started singing “Old McDonald” just so they’d know theywere there and I was outside on the path wondering if I was beingshot at too. Paul won’t walk to the mailbox now because he’s scaredthere’ll be guns being shot again. It’s a bit unnerving living in a housewith fabric walls with people with guns around I’ll tell you and it makesus wish we actually did get the purple yurt with the yellow roof byspecial order instead of getting the one we did “off theshelf”. And let me just register my opinion that I don’t really givea damn about the second amendment and if guns were made illegal tomorrowI’d cheer and help at the collection stations. I think that they’re a bigpart of the problem with this country and are good for nothing be ithunting (unnecessary for any reason), or “protecting” one’s homewhich more often results in someone in the family being shot than anyonebeing saved. Not to mention the fact that mostly people are worried aboutprotecting their stuff which is such a stupid thing to risk one’slife for by having a gun at home. I think the NRA is one of the more evilorganizations in the country - or perhaps evil is a strong word - howabout misguided and deluded.

Okay, enough ranting - I seem to be doing that quite a lot lately. I’mgoing to go get water and see about making up some dinner (chickpeas,probably). Maybe I’ll put this up soon for a change too. (Note as of12/8/00 - HA!)