March 24, 2017 by LivingOnTheDiagonal

Getting to the Nitty Gritty: Early Days on the Diagonal, Part 4

(If you’re just now joining this conversation, you may want to start here and work your way forward.)

It’s now been two weeks since we moved here. Now that we’re settled in the shed, things are happening faster. As I continue to chop trees, sling weeds, and shovel clay and gravel, the Gnome swelters in the shed poring over reference books and drawing house plans. We want every detail to be just so—we’ve read horror stories about inspectors who give newbie builders a hard time, so we expect to be unduly scrutinized. The whole building thing is the Gnome’s forte, but we decide I need to get better versed in this area, too, so we can jointly think through design issues.

In retrospect, 2017: Glad we figured this out back then. The second opinion/sounding board role has been essential through the years. We now laughingly say that my job, whenever the Gnome is tackling a big project, is to say, “Isn’t there a simpler way?”

We want large fixed-glass windows across the south-facing side of the house to provide passive solar heat. A local company will make insulated glass panels to our specifications. Our reference books tell us it will be no problem to mount, cushion, caulk, and trim them ourselves.

In retrospect, 2017: Big mistake. Silicone caulking didn’t do the trick; our windows weren’t water- and airtight. Nor did we accommodate for natural expansion and contraction. Within months, several of our big glass panels cracked. We lived with them—unhappily—for years.

A long week later and our plans are finally ready. We nervously deliver them to the building inspector. He approves our permit on the spot, no questions asked.

We start work right away, first measuring our footprint, then digging trenches for the foundation. Before long, the dirt is flying. Literally—we’re digging with only shovels and muscle power. This is more like it!

Digging holes for pier footings

That’s a deep hole.

Cuddlebug digs digging, but it’s a challenge when the holes become as deep as he is tall.

Building forms for our very carefully dug footings.

It’s pretty smooth sailing till we get to the third corner and find nothing but rock. There’s just enough wiggle that we don’t dare incorporate the rock into the foundation. It takes days and a big dose of creativity to break it up and leverage out the biggest pieces. The Gnome demonstrates Archimedes’ physics lesson: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” We feel like we’ve moved the world by the time we get the trench cleared.

We’ve been here exactly one month when my parents come up for a weekend of help. Cuddlebug and Punkin make miniature dams and ponds in the creek while the men dig out the nearby spring that we hope will provide our water supply.

They’ve determined, none too scientifically, that the spring should easily produce enough water to meet our future plumbing needs. That’s great news—there’s something about the idea of getting our water from a spring that feels natural and pure.

In retrospect, 2017: After 38 years, our spring’s still doing its job. It’s never run dry. On the other hand, we’ve had to repair or replace more pumps than we can remember, some due to lightning, some . . . well, we don’t rightly know. We do know it’s no fun to find yourself soaped up in the shower when suddenly there’s no water. Because we’re hardcore do-it-yourselfers, this often means a week or so without water while we figure out and fix the problem. Having gone much longer without running water and survived it, at least we know we can do it again.

(Stay tuned for next week’s Early Years on the Diagonal adventure.)

March 17, 2017 by LivingOnTheDiagonal

Off the Ground: Early Days on the Diagonal, Part 3

(If you’re just joining this series, you really should read this first and work your way forward.)

July 10, 1979: The day we move to the shed. Small as it is, the shed feels immense compared to the tent. And it’s still standing, so perhaps we really can build a whole house.

In retrospect, 2017: We didn’t know how much ahead of the times we were. We built one of the world’s tiniest tiny houses way before tiny-house-living was a thing.

An army cot across one end with another along one side for the children gives us just enough room to lay a double sleeping bag on the floor for us. Putting it out of the way each morning gives us room to dress, eat, play board games, and draw house plans—as long as we coordinate. The cots do double duty as daytime seating. Improvised single shelves along two walls keep some of our stash off the floor. We have no door, just a three-foot wide doorway.

In retrospect, 2017: I wonder why the possibility of intruders never occurred to us. We felt perfectly safe from the human type, but why weren’t we concerned about wildlife? In the years since, we’ve seen everything from snakes to bears. We must have been crazy!

Our “kitchen” is just outside the shed on left end. The doorway is also on the left end. Suitcase and canned goods are lined up along our front “wall.”

With all outdoors for living, our little enclosure doesn’t feel cramped. Our “bathroom” in the woods boasts incredible scenery with its huge rhododendron walls for privacy—not that we need all that much privacy up here.

The shed’s plastic walls and roof provide plenty of natural light, but we discover the obvious—it’s either a steam room or a sauna, depending on the weather. No place to spend daylight hours, especially when it’s sunny. Yet, it’s the only suitable spot for drafting house plans.

July 11, 1979: The water inspector okays our septic tank, our first official approval of any kind. It feels like a huge accomplishment. But with one hurdle out of the way, we stumble onto another: the car won’t start. Fortunately, we find the problem and it’s an easy fix, but this experience magnifies our isolation. With only one car, no social support system, and no phone, our existence here is fragile and hinges on lots of things going right. We’ve already discovered they don’t always.

It’s only our second night in the shed and we have yet another heavy rainfall. The accompanying strong wind, which we’re coming to expect as normal, blows up under our plastic “roof” and tears holes where the plastic is strapped to the rafters. We get soaked. (It won’t be the last time.) A few repairs get us through the night.

July 12, 1979: We add a second layer of plastic, hoping it will be enough to protect us during the next big windstorm. We know there will be one.

While the Gnome works on the house plans we’ll have to submit to the county building inspector so we can actually start building, I chop down the few hundred black locust saplings covering our construction area. Everything’s happening a lot more slowly than we’ve anticipated. But it’s all progress.

The Gnome’s drafting table with stacks of reference books to the right. Too hot for a shirt in here. Note upper left of picture where plastic is raised to let in a tiny bit of air. Sleeping gear in background.

(Tune in next week for more adventures in Early Days on the Diagonal.)

March 10, 2017 by LivingOnTheDiagonal

Our First Week: Early Days on the Diagonal, Part 2

(If you’re just joining this series, may I suggest you start here.)

July 2, 1979: We arrive at what will be our forever home around mid-afternoon. We’ve not seen it since things turned green. What a surprise to be greeted by acres of my favorite flower, wild daisies.

We hop out of the car and sit on the ground to take in the beauty that surrounds us. And what do we discover? Scrumptious little wild strawberries—so much sweeter than the hybrids you find in the grocery store or even in a well-tended garden. We’re in heaven!

Wild strawberries!

It’s almost impossible to comprehend that we’re able to sit among these flowers and berries in a giant meadow against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains able to say, “It’s ours!” Butterflies dance through the air from one wildflower to another, fluttering around us as if we’re not here.

We set up our 8×8′ canvas tent. Punkin and Cuddlebug thrive in the adventure of it: being outdoors in pajamas, cooking over an open fire, teasing each other when the wind changes direction about whether smoke follows beauty or weirdness.

Punkin (red) and Cuddlebug (blue) investigate smoke in front of our first home on the diagonal

We get the lay of the land, set up outdoor toilet facilities, check out our creek and spring, and generally adjust to living in the wild.

Our creek in the woods is too far away to hear its burbling but it will become a crucial part of our new lifestyle.

It rains almost every day. We’re soaked, the tent’s soaked, our sleeping bags are soaked. It takes a trip to the laundromat half an hour away to dry them—over and over again.

Soppy kid; soppy tent (upper right), soppy soil

There’s lightning, too. When that happens, the only safe place for us is inside the steamy car.

We’ve been here barely a week, and already we have to reprioritize. We need more protection from the weather, and fast. Instead of clearing land for the house, we have to do it for our temporary living quarters, which we dub “the shed.” But boy, oh boy, does it have to be simple: just 8×12′, plywood floor, studs, and rafters—all to be covered in nothing more than plastic. Barely a shelter at all, but cheap, quick, and off the ground.

Cuddlebug tries his hand at digging post holes.

“Hold that post steady, Punkin.”

With posts and joists in place, it’s time for the floor.

All this work is with human-powered tools; we have no electricity. And we’ve just discovered that the site for our septic tank must be approved before we can get a temporary power pole installed. We schedule the inspector for next week.

Ready to move in.

In Retrospect, 2017: In general, we’re not big risk-takers, but this risk turned out to be a life lesson about what’s possible—not just for us, but also to our children. They got to see creativity in action, how to make do, and how to forge ahead, unafraid, in the face of the unknown.

(Stay tuned to see what happens next in Early Days on the Diagonal.)

March 3, 2017 by LivingOnTheDiagonal

Early Days on the Diagonal: Part One

(The first of an eight-part series on our first steps toward modern homesteading.)

It had been building for years, this desire to make a bold move. The mountains had long ago wrangled a home in my heart, and they weren’t moving out. I yearned to make my physical home in the mountains, too. The Gnome’s long-term fascination with architecture was just itching for some creative expression.

We both imagined a bucolic life in the country, away from little houses all in a row where bedrooms were so close to the neighbors’ living rooms that they could hear every snore. We were two introverts leaning hard into recluse territory. The Gnome wanted to give our children an outdoor life, and he wanted to play in the dirt and build things. Me? I’m my mother’s daughter: I needed some elbow room, a place where no one was likely to drop in to borrow sugar or gossip over coffee. I dreamed of the freedom to roam the land, to run around outdoors naked if I wanted to (which makes me my father’s daughter, too).

So it was really no big surprise that in early 1979 we decided to make all our dreams come true at once. The only surprise was how long it took. But we’re not innately risk-takers. It was a slow, labored journey to convince ourselves we could make such a big change in our lives.

Once we got ourselves on the change bandwagon, the big question was where. Ultimately, we settled on western North Carolina, much closer to family than our current twelve and sixteen hour drives from our home in Louisville, KY, but still far enough to maintain our independence. The Gnome recalled a summer science camp he attended at a mountain college. That sounded like a good beginning point.

In April, we took a week’s vacation to look for land. Our good friends marveled at our daring—to leave secure jobs with no prospects, to take on a major designing and building effort with only books for guides, to move where we knew no one and had no support system. Yet, more than one of them admitted some envy and a secret wish to do something similar.

The local realtor who specialized in rural land took us all over the place, but nothing satisfied. Too steep, too near the highway, too close to neighbors. We were feeling pretty let down. It had never occurred to us that we might be unable to find anything suitable during our one-week window of opportunity.

We were ecstatic when Realtor John remembered one more piece of property. It met all our needs. At almost ten acres, half woods and half open meadow, we could count on privacy. The place was about a third of a mile from the graveled state-maintained road.

Portion of the meadow. In April, Spring’s still waiting in the wings.

Not a house to be seen. Exactly as we’d imagined. We had just enough time to sign on the dotted line before heading back home to prepare for the biggest move of our lives.

All manner of mosses, mushrooms, and lichens awaited us in our woods-to-be.

The locust rail fence along our eastern boundary captivated us.

We were delighted to find this creek on our property.

(Stay tuned for the next installment of Early Days on the Diagonal.)

February 20, 2017 by LivingOnTheDiagonal

Found Art

A few weeks ago, I shared some found poetry on this page. That’s when you pull words or phrases out of newspapers or other documents to form their own story in verse. Today’s post is short on words but full of another find—found art. I’ll tell where it was found at the end. Bonus points if you figure it out before you get there. (No peeking!)

Group I:

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Group II:

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Group III:

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found-art-boat found-art-ghosts

Anyone?

The Gnome gets credit for finding all this art and photographing it. Actually, he had two sources. But both come from the same event: what we call Grandparents’ Camp. That’s when we host our grandchildren for a week of pure fun. Every year, the number one item on each of their lists is painting. The Gnome took a closer look at what might pass the rest of us unnoticed. (That’s the way he is. It’s one of the reasons I love him so.) And this is what he found.

The art you see in Group I came from a piece of foam board that supports canvas panels on an easel, usually with binder clips or painter’s tape. What you see above is nothing more than where the artists’ strokes have extended beyond their work of art and onto the foam board.

The art you see in Groups II and III came from a palette that in a former life was a plastic fruit platter from the grocery store. (It’s all about recycling here on the diagonal.) And next summer as more painting takes place, we’ll have a whole new selection of found art. Pretty cool, huh?

Look closely. Can you find any of the art the Gnome discovered?

February 17, 2017 by LivingOnTheDiagonal

Food in the Forest

This is the time of year when the Gnome and Crone’s fancy turns to thoughts of maple syrup. Yes, we make our own. It’s foraging at its sweetest and just one more door to modern homesteading.

It’s no way to save money, though. There’s a reason real maple syrup costs more than the gooey stuff made with corn. We figured our first cup cost us a hundred dollars in materials alone. If we factored in labor, the real cost would quadruple—or more.

First we had to buy taps (or spiles), blue sap collection bags, and metal bag holders. There are cheaper ways, like making your own spiles with sumac stems and hanging buckets under them to catch the sap. We tried that, but the buckets filled with bugs and bits of bark, and the sap didn’t always make it into the buckets. So we opted for a closed system.

Our sap-collecting system at work

Nor did it take many days of standing in the rain, wind, cold, and snow to decide that there had to be a better, if more expensive, way to monitor the heating and evaporation process.

Boiling sap in the snow didn’t last long.

We bought a turkey fryer and a couple of twenty-pound propane tanks and moved the operation to our covered deck.

With glass doors leading to the deck, we’re able to check on the syrup-making progress from the warmth of indoors, and it also allows us to do a few other chores during the hours and hours of watching the pot boil. It takes a lot of boiling to turn tree water into syrup. Ten gallons of sap will make only one quart or so of syrup.

The Gnome hauls eighty-five pounds of maple sap with each trip from the woods to our deck where it goes into the pot to boil. This amount will yield about a quart of syrup.

But you can never take your eyes off the pot for very long, especially as the sap begins to thicken, or you’ll find yourself with burnt caramel seriously stuck to the bottom of your pot. (Ask me how I know.)

Of course, our cost has dropped with each batch since most of those supplies were a one-time expense. Our method will never win any awards for efficiency, though, partly because of the on-going propane expense. Still, we keep at it. At the end of a good season, we find ourselves with twenty or thirty pints of that sweet amber liquid, enough to enjoy a year’s worth of maple syrup over pancakes, on yogurt, with acorn squash, in smoothies, and still have plenty to share with friends and relatives.

The syrup-making season is short and unpredictable, especially where we live. Conditions for collecting sap have to be just right: night temperatures in the 20s and sunny days in the 40s, all before the trees begin to bud. The last couple of years haven’t been good ones.

So, why do we do it? While living frugally is part of our mantra, homesteading—modern or not—isn’t always about frugality. It’s more about being in touch with nature, about discovery, about doing for oneself, as well as the self-confidence, knowledge, and self-awareness that go along with all that. We like knowing that if we have to, we can. Whatever it is.

Besides, there’s nothing quite like the light, sweet taste of warm maple syrup you’ve cooked up yourself.

One pint of homemade maple syrup coming up

January 30, 2017 by LivingOnTheDiagonal

One Word

Have you heard of it—the One Word movement? It’s been around for awhile now. The idea is to choose just one word that represents you or the way you’d like to be and then to bring a laser focus to that word, that overarching goal, throughout the year.

It’s an alternative to the typical New Year’s resolutions. The One Word concept feels friendlier than resolutions. And more concise. It’s about positivity instead of the negative-based self recriminations inherent in typical resolutions: lose weight, be nicer, make better grades, be a better parent, eat less candy—the kind of thing that suggests you haven’t been doing such a great job of being yourself.

The movement takes many forms. Google it and you’ll find One Word sites ranging from faith-based (“God wants to use one word to shape your decisions”) to frivolous (“a fun take on New Year’s resolutions”). Most are trying to sell you something, often books: religion, get rich quick, self-improvement. And more than a few people claim credit for thinking the whole thing up in the first place.

But the idea has merit, I think. It’s a form of commitment that builds on the foundation of living intentionally. It lets you zero in on one big concept that matters to you. Your choice. A one word motto. And if you feel you’ve maxed out your word’s potential, there’s nothing to say you can’t tack on a new one if that’s what you want. Or change it if it’s not working out for some reason or other.

As a word person, I can’t help but be attracted to the idea (though picking just one word is nigh unto impossible for this word lover). My last post, The Winter(s) of My Discontent, may have sounded an awfully lot like a resolution, but I think I’ve found the perfect word to sum up where I want to head this year, and it feels better than a resolution. More inclusive, more opportunities, more interesting. (Patience, readers–I’ll get to my word momentarily.)

There are lots of words to choose from. Here are a just a few I came across on some of those websites I checked out: joy, more, balance, silence, truth, expand, create, appreciate, strength, gratitude, simplicity, trust, release, delight, heal, adventure. See the possibilities?

I got called out once for not following the One Word rules to the letter (based on one of the many One Word websites’ directive). But I don’t work that way. I don’t automatically follow someone else’s construct. My approach is a bit more casual. I see an idea, I adapt it. You can, too. Go ahead. You have my permission. (Wink emoticon)

My one word for 2017 is move. It’s so simple it’s elegant. It can mean so many things: change your address or your job or your relationship—no, I’m not doing any of those things, thank you very much. Or it can mean go, change position, exercise, progress, alter your course.

I’m moving, right?

Move is the perfect word for me right now. An action word in a season where I’ve gotten sort of stuck, both physically and psychologically. Maybe come spring, that veritable season of action, I’ll be ready for a new word. What do you think? Do you have a word you’d like to serve as your beacon this year? I’d love for you to share in a comment below. It’s not too late—the year’s barely gotten started.

(p.s. Already, winter is testing my resolve. Today welcomed me with almost six inches of snow, temperatures in the low teens, and big winds. But I’m up for it. Yep, I grabbed my big winter coat and pulled on my snow boots and headed for the big outdoors before coming back inside to move in completely different kinds of ways.)

January 28, 2017 by LivingOnTheDiagonal

The Winter(s) of My Discontent

I get along just fine with the rest of the seasons, but winter is my bugaboo. We’re in a constant tussle.

It hasn’t always been that way. For most of my life, it was a given that I’d bounce out of bed, dress, and head outside in winter just as in every other season. I never minded, barely gave it a thought. In fact, if I had a least favorite season, it wouldn’t have been winter as it is for many, but summer—often too hot for me, even in our relatively cool mountain climate. And definitely too humid.

But it’s been different for the last five winters. If you know me well, you know that timeline matches the number of years since I left the world of employment. In all this time, I still haven’t learned how to get comfortable with this season. I can’t seem to find my rhythm. It’s not that there aren’t plenty of things to do. Winter calls me to certain tasks—I just don’t always hear the voice. It’s a little too easy to curl up and forget to uncurl.

See? Even this little guy is begging to come in out of the cold.

If I don’t absolutely have to, I find that I’m disinclined to pull on snow boots and wrap myself up in a knit cap, heavy gloves, wool scarf, and a quilted coat that makes me look like the Michelin Man all for sake of stepping outdoors. Frankly, it’s hard for me to imagine anyone other than a winter sports enthusiast voluntarily making that effort only to be accosted by frigid temperatures, cold wind and sleet blasting your face while your freezing, boot-clad tootsies struggle to safely navigate ice and snow. It seems so … unnecessary. Why not just stay indoors under a nice fluffy comforter with a mug of hot chocolate and a good book?

Who wants to go out when it looks like this?

I think I must be part bear. Winter fills me with an urge to go primal. With days that are shorter and often grayer, my instinct to hibernate is strong. I want my comfort foods. I want my warm blankie. I want a rest after three seasons of outdoor physical labor.

Still, winter has a lot going for it: it’s a contemplative season. It’s the perfect time for all those things that were set aside when the days were longer and the sun shone brighter, those days that were filled with the frenzy of planting, growing, harvesting, and preserving the garden and the challenging, seemingly never-ending task of home renovation. No, winter’s the time for reading, writing, thinking, playing, visiting, learning a new skill, playing a musical instrument, making gifts, knitting and crocheting, solving puzzles, putting all those snapshots into albums and scrapbooks, organizing that last cabinet. The list goes on.

Here we are again, winter and I—pulling at each other’s hair, scrapping like puppies over a bone. So far, our sixth post-retirement season together is stacking up to be just like the previous five. I’ve appreciated being able to stay in bed until the sun comes up and not having to travel icy roads to get to work. It’s a joy not to be tethered to a rigid schedule of someone else’s making. But a little self-imposed structure isn’t a bad thing. December’s fine for chilling out, playing, and connecting. But December’s long gone and already January is about to join it in the land of past tense.

I’m tired of the sluggishness. I know, it’s all my fault. Winter is just being winter. I’m the one who has to make some changes. And I’m ready. So, here I am, Winter. Ready to embrace you and your chilly rhythms. Ready to pull on my bulky coat and snow boots and get myself outside every single day. A brisk walk in the bracing cold should give me the energy to get a little cleaning and organizing done before starting in on writing or some other mental floss, followed by an afternoon break for cooking up something delectable. Sounds like a plan.

Me, embracing winter!

When I feel keyed in to Nature’s patterns, I’m more whole—and more wholly in the moment. I think we’re meant to slow down a bit in winter, but not to shut down. Surely, I can get outside and have my hot chocolate, too.

January 12, 2017 by LivingOnTheDiagonal

Let Me Tell You About My Books!

I’m tickled to pieces that I currently have two books in print. My most recent, pretty much hot off the press, is Boyhood Daze and Other Stories: Growing Up Happy During the Great Depression. Clearly, it’s not about me. A combination biography-memoir, this is the true story of my dad’s childhood and (very) young adult years. It’s based on stories he told and wrote, interviews with his siblings and my cousins, and a lot of historical research about the time and place where he grew up–rural Johnston County, NC, just east of Raleigh.

What really sets Daddy’s story apart is the time he spent living in the poorhouse. (I’ll say no more about that–it would take too much fun out of reading the story yourself.) What makes his story universal is that the pretty much everyone who lived through that period had similar experiences. If your parents or grandparents grew up during the Great Depression or during World War II, you’ve probably heard a few stories yourself. If you have, some of these stories will have a familiar ring. If you haven’t, this book may give you a lens through which to learn something more about what life was like for them. It was, to say the least, an interesting time in our history.

As the title suggests, Boyhood Daze is mostly a lighthearted story that will make you chuckle. It also contains a few life lessons. And like any honest true-life story, there are some hard times: times of sadness, pain, grief. (But not too much.)

I had a lot of fun writing this book. People who’ve read it have told me they had fun, too. That makes me happy. And it would have made Daddy happy. His clown persona, Joco, had a slogan: Keep on the funny side of life. Daddy was always looking for ways to make people laugh. With him or at him–didn’t matter, as long as they laughed. Maybe this book will make you laugh, as well.

(In case you wondered, that’s Daddy on the cover riding one of his favorite mules. Yep, she’s in the book, too.)

* * * * *

My first book, Living on the Diagonal: Mountain Musings, is a small volume of poetry and photography. Title sound familiar? Actually, credit for the title of both book and blog goes to my cousin Becka. She lives in the land of prairies. Our mountains must have made an impression when she visited a couple of years ago, for she dubbed our lifestyle with the words (you guessed it): living on the diagonal. I grabbed them with gusto.

Like this blog, the poems in Living on the Diagonal are sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes lighthearted. Many of them explore my relationship to nature, to family, and to my writing. You can find a tiny sample here. More to come at some point in the future.

Both books can be purchased on Amazon.com. If you’re local, I also have copies of Boyhood Days available for purchase, at a discount.