You see, first there is this: the footer. The solid footprint upon which to build level and square, solid, straight and true.
A slab is poured.
And a rather permanent footprint is created.
This is something solid, serious, the real deal.
It means something, though I’m not sure I can define what.
I know it means it’s happening. We’re doing this. Building a little cabin way out and way high.
But it feels like it means something more.
It’s also about building dreams, a life, hand in hand as we build the walls.
Slowly. Slowed by our aging energies. Slowed by the elements. Slowed by the schedules of others we’re working around.
Is slow such a bad thing?
Maybe it just means more time. More time to consider and refine our plans. More time to hike and explore and ride and write. More time to sit and stare at the view, in silence, together, as our hearts feel as radiant as the sky.
And along with solid grounding, those cement roots we sew into the ground, there lays a message of commitment. One of the scariest things to consider.
So today I’m thinking long and hard about commitment because… well, I’m trying to figure out how committed I am.
Is commitment the ties the bind us – the burden that has our hands held tight behind our back?
Or the devotion and responsibility that keeps us tied, which in kind creates a bond more powerful than that of freedom?
At times, you know, it is both.
Commitment can be our ocean. It is the vastness that holds us up, and that threatens to take us down if we don’t learn to swim. We must soften into the water. Allow it support us, and adjust to its ebbs and flows. That which is dense and rigid is more likely to sink. Like the concrete on the footer. How do we stay afloat in this ever changing world, these ever changing times, my ever changing mind?
Commitment takes time. It can’t be forced, but takes a subtle power and pressure like water sculpting stone. One more reason to slow down. Let it sink into your bones. Let it become you. If it will. And maybe it won’t. See if it will somehow soften you, change you, and move you to evolve.
It is a choice. Dedication, devotion and duty are the glue that adheres us, what holds us to person, to place, to profession. It holds us to center, though sometimes it is just… sticky.
It is not born but comes with time, like a fine wine rolling along your tongue. Committing to growing a garden, a dog, a horse or a kid, a relationship, a book, a building. These things don’t happen over night.
Commitment takes time and work, patience, forgiveness and acceptance. It takes a certain type of kindness that is intertwined with love. And commitment takes change. Yes, to remain committed, we not only grow into it, we flow with it. Thus along the way, something happens. We become more, we become less, we become something a little different. We change.
(Perfectionism is, if not the polar opposite, than the bucket that dosed the flame. Check out what Brene Brown has to say about that in her book, “The Gifts of Imperfection.”
Are you committed? To person, to people? To place? To your craft. To your chosen lifestyle. To your beliefs and creed and faith? To the place that you call “home?”
Red flag warnings flare again today. Strong winds rattle the little camper. Dust devils twirl and dance along the dirt road where the horses run. Logging trucks stir lingering amber clouds in the far distance. Dry and dusty and this feels like the Wild West. And today, it feels like home.
The work site stays somewhat protected against the east facing hill, tucked between the little camper and the new bathhouse. The dirt work is done. Right on schedule for a cement pour happening later this week.
With light frost and ice kicked out of the dog water bowl outside, and inside the little camper the thermometer read 42, I’m excited for solid wood walls and a wood stove.
But we’re a long ways away from that.
In the meantime, plenty to do to keep me busy, and (in theory) out of trouble.
But then there was this.
Trouble.
It’s a thing for me.
Horses.
The livestock auction was this weekend with sixty horses being run through, mostly by horse trainers and traders, and not too many buyers. I could have bought a few.
I refrained.
And limited myself to just this one.
The new boy.
I don’t know what they called him at the race track, but the folks who sold him to me called him Jessie. A good, historic Western name. We’ll see if it sticks. He kinda looks like Cinco to me. See, before him, there was Tres, and there was Quatro, and two other sorrels with stars before that. This guy has a blaze, not a star, but sorrel he is, so we’ll see which name takes hold as he settles into life on this mountain with us.
So far, so good.
Getting a new horse (and this is something long overdue for us) is kinda like having a baby. You’re never really ready, and the timing is never right.
Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do to get through.
And I need horses to get through…
In an ideal world (if there is such a thing), we’d bring the new guy home and put him in a little pen and spend some quality time with him, bonding and getting used to one another for a week or a month or whatever it took before I was certain turning him out didn’t mean he’d run away. But it’s not slick and perfect here. It’s a little wild and western, rough and rustic (and did I mention, very dirty?).
So we bring the new guy home and put him in the corral where I keep my two old horses nearby at night. Leave him there a couple hours while he meets the old guys over the safe panels.
And then we turn him out.
Okay, so it’s 160 acres of fenced off open ground here, crossed fenced to maybe 80 acres. Turning a new horse out onto 80 acres seems a little nuts. And an ex race horse, at that. I expected all hell to break loose. It didn’t.
The old guys met the new guy, nose to nose, ran back and forth once in front of the camp for maybe 100 feet. Then put their heads down to eat. That’s kind of how it’s been ever since.
He’s a sweetie, a little unsure of wild open spaces, but bonding well with the old guys, and learning good lessons from them, from me, and from the mountain. How to cross washes and drink from creeks. How to lay down to rest in the morning sun and graze close to camp in the evenings where you’ll be treated and brushed and put in the safe pen for the night. And most important, of course: How to come to mama when called 😊
This guys is a keeper for sure.
Alright, enough about horses. I gotta get back to work…
In fact, this lesson took me fifty-something years to figure out.
It’s about people.
The photos today may not be, but the writing’s about people.
The thing about people.
See, intertwined with this journey of place is one of people.
Because true belonging is a balance, unique for each of us, of connecting with people as well as with place.
Ones sense of belonging is found with and created by connection.
Connection. Connecting with land has been easy for me. Connecting with people, well, this is the part I’m finally getting.
If you’ve known me a while, likely you know that people were not my thing. I was awkward. Shy. Reserved and withdrawn. At least I usually felt all those things.
And yes, scared.
People scared me. Being around them, talking with them, trying to connect with them. Never belonged. Connection felt like an impossible mission; I felt more disconnect than connection. And then would rehash and ruminate for hours, days and years all the things I surely did wrong in those (rare) encounters.
So in my defense or some sense of self preservation, I became a bit of a recluse, a hermit, a wild woman who lived “way out there.” And I did my best not to deal with people.
I’ve lived like a lone wolf. I’m not saying that’s a good thing. However… I once proudly boasted of not leaving the mountain for five months at a time, and going from fall to spring seeing only nine people, two of which were my husband and son.
It’s not that I didn’t like people.
It’s just that I chose to be alone.
It’s just that…
I thought I’d be better off.
I thought I’d be safer.
I thought I had all I needed, was self-sufficient, could do it all by myself.
And guess what I learned?
I was wrong.
Isolation created separation.
And separation created depression.
And in that self created state of disconnection, I found myself in a rabbit hole that got deeper and deeper and deeper still.
And into that hole I fell, deeper and deeper and deeper still.
Until I finally hit the bottom, dusted myself off, and climbed back out.
It took taking my Long Quiet Ride to wake me up to the greatest truth.
It was a trial by fire.
Throwing myself out there, in front of the bus, being at the mercy of people. OMG.
And out there, I learned two things.
First, people are good. For the most part, I mean like seriously, obviously, good is so far above and beyond bad. The fact that our population has grown to over eight billion of us is proof enough for me. Good wins.
Second, I need people. We all do. No matter how independent we fool ourselves to be. We are interdependent, and that’s a good thing. On that trip, boy did I need people. For direction, for suggestions of safe passage, for companionship, for connection, for some sense of wholeness that was left as a gaping hole while I was out there trying to do it alone.
Here’s the deal. The fear that prompted me to build my armor and protected walls didn’t keep me safe, only kept me separate.
Believe me, I had spent a lifetime of plenty of time alone and proving myself capable. That’s not what I went out there to do. I didn’t know what I was looking for but I figured it out fast. Got the message, loud and clear. And right away.
And from the very first day, I realized, I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to connect.
I longed to share a meal, a story, a hug, a laugh. I wanted to be a part, no longer apart.
Now, some things remain the same. I still choose to live “way out there.”
But some things are very different.
I have learned the thing about people.
And I have learned to love people.
In small doses, admittedly. I’m still not keen on parties, potlucks and group gatherings. One-on-one is more my style. Even if it’s one-on-one with the woman at the checkout or the guy in line before me, tea with a neighbor or a long walk with an old friend, getting the story of the person sitting beside me in a waiting room, or (this will always be my personal favorite) a lingering dinner shared with my husband and son with candles, fresh bread and simple homemade food, and lots and lots of laughter and love.
I believe it is a universal truth that everyone wants to belong, to be accepted, and to be loved.
Hatred is a defense. I know all about that. It’s armor. It takes more courage to drop it than to hide behind it.
But in doing so, in freeing ourselves of our so-called protective shield, we lighten our load.
Only then can our wings unfurl big and bright and wide. Only then can we rise and soar.
I’m living proof that we can learn, we can grow. We can forgive. And (I humbly bow to those who have) we can be forgiven as well.
I’m sharing this because I wish others wouldn’t make the same mistakes I made. But I know life doesn’t work that way. We have to make mistakes in order to learn. We have to live to learn. What we’re told or taught may be intelligent, but it is not wisdom. It becomes wisdom when it soaks into our heart and soul. Then we really get it.
It took me a helluva long time to learn what a lot of you knew all along. That’s a lot of unnecessary pain, for myself, and for others. That’s a lot of loss, because really, I did miss out.
But I got it.
Finally.
A late bloomer.
Better late than never.
What does this have to do with the adventure we’re currently on, building an off grid cabin “way out there” in Colorado, while still wondering where the hell we’re meant to remain?
A lot.
Because people matter as much as place. Because people are a part of the place. Because people fill my heart in a way that the wild world cannot, and hopefully I can fill others’ hearts along the way. Because connection matters, belonging matters, and no place will ever be “the” place without that bond and love and connection with the people around you.
How can I love a place without loving (at least most of) the people who live there? Am I so shallow as to love a pretty view but not the people, the stories, the interrelation of the people who are there?
The thing about creating or finding community and the place where I belong is ever present if not on my mind than in my heart.
I don’t want to ever be isolated, separated or lonely again.
I may not be totally rocking the social scene. I’m still a quiet, wild woman, silent sort that needs more time in the trees than in town – but finally I learned I do need that time in town. With people. Connecting. Belonging. And much to my surprise, it feels so good.
Yes, it’s scary. Yes I am often still afraid.
But I have to. That’s the courage I’m building.
Though I may choose to live “way out there,” reaching out regularly allows me to live as I do, and be a part, not apart.
I am a part of humanity.
And it’s a good place to be.
Wherever that physical place may be.
And yeah, that’s the biggie I’m working on.
People are basically good. Everywhere. And I can find my people where ever I go. If I have the courage enough to open.
So the question in my heart now is, how do I figure out that balance of loving the land and the people who live there, and choosing where we are meant to remain?
How can I choose one place when I find a connection with people I meet all over the place?
Oh, that’s a biggie. I’ll save all that for another time.
I’ll conclude with a few updates from the past few days. Nothing ground breaking quite yet. Soon. Believe me, you’re not near as anxious as we are to get moving forward on this big job. But before working there is living, and right now, we’re still working on those details, and there are a lot, because it’s not just about building, it’s about living, and living takes a lot, and living does come first. A lot of little details, and some big ones too, like working on the road to access our camp and worksite with some seriously Old Iron and gravel from our land.
And the shed. Oh the shed! The shed is an amazingly awesomely wonderful gift from Bob’s sister that is turning into something we didn’t know how bad we needed, and now wonder how we’d manage without. It’s got enough room to house all our tools on shelves in plain sight, have a work table out of the elements (and elements are a thing up here, with rain and hail a daily thing). And though the shed also serves as safe storage for all those things we managed to stuff in the horse trailer on the way out here, we’re finding it even provides us with a mud room – a place to leave our muddy boots and hang out weather gear, and up here, that’s a mighty appreciated thing. It’s huge – big enough to live in, far bigger than our humble camper. Though rest assured, it’s not going to stop us from building. Just help us along the way.
The things that were easy and reliable for me to share back in California – the constant and reliable beauty and abundance of the garden we created – well, not so much here. Between the mice and mornings still freezing regularly, my so-called garden, though covered with agribon and a heavy tarp at night, is not a happy place.
Though the rest of the wilds here are. And wild it is. With endless room to roam and mountains to wander and treasures to observe. All in all, it’s big and wide and wild and my heart and soul are soaring with the ever-changing but all the same expansive view before me.
Plant trees. Got a dozen in the ground on our fifth day here. Native aspen and baby blue spruce planted on the hill behind the outhouse. Just feels good to give back to the land, whether we are here to enjoy them, or someone else is.
Second thing is this. Get the garden in. Well, it’s not much of a garden. Eight feet by thirty inches. “What are you gonna grow?” our neighbors back in CA ask. “Radishes?” Not much else would fit in that space.
But I’m hoping it’s just enough space to fit in the plants I started and brought. A little kale (admittedly, the chickens “pruned” these plants rather severely). A few pepper plants, a zucchini, some herbs A half dozen tomato plants already laden with green fruit because they were born in raised in California. Don’t know if they’ll ever turn red, but a gals gotta do what a gals gotta do. And this gal grows things. And yes, maybe I’ll get a few radishes going because seems like you always can grown them.
Admittedly I’m missing the abundance of fresh veggies I was able to provide for us year round, but Bob reminds me: There were no fresh veggies when we moved to California either. There was no garden! These things take time.
You gotta start somewhere, so this is how we’re starting.
A chilly 33 degrees this morning, but chillier when I walk the dog at dawn down by the creek and spook off a couple of cow elk bedded in the frosty bunch grass.
Now the sun is up and our world is already warming. In this elevation, that sun is intense!
So is the elevation.
My nose bled last night (again) and this morning I have (another) headache. I’m surprised and disappointed to be having trouble adjusting to the elevation, after living at 1,500 feet in Northern California for the past six years. I think we’re at 10,200 feet here. I spent 17 years living year round at 9,800 feet and didn’t have trouble then. Does this additional 400 feet really make such a difference, or am I getting too soft and old to handle this?
~
Now that more is going on here –with both building and writing – I will try to post twice a week, Mondays and Fridays. It’s good discipline for me to finish my thoughts, as well as a challenge to honor and hone my craft. Plus it might keep my ramblings a little shorter each time. As always, my hope is that you will enjoy reading and seeing as much as I enjoy sharing with you. I’d really appreciate your feedback – please let me know.
On the road with the rooster crowing at every truck stop and sleeping beside the horses at night.
The sound of the familiar, the feel of home. It’s not our first time on the road.
With a load containing chickens, horses, hay and hoses, tools, bicycles, the quad, a dozen pots filled with tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and kale, and the last of the lumber we milled – this is our most eclectic load yet. Our rig could be a site riding across Highway 50. Only there, we fit right in.
Two years ago, when I set out across this West with my horses on a Long Quiet Ride, what I wanted most was to fall in love with life again. I did. And in the process, I fell in love with this country, more than ever before. Being on the road again brings that feeling back again. Love for my country. Love for the ever changing beauty of the land, and of the people I get to meet. Love for the man beside me.
Funny it takes driving a little bit back east from California to breathe in the essence of what I expect the West to be. Maybe because the first place out West that called me was Santa Fe. Thus the smell of sage brush, salt flats and juniper berries, pinon smoke and a film of fine dust open my heart with a wakening surge of spaciousness that few times and places before allowed me to feel.
Wide open spaces, wild horses, a seemingly endless horizon that our rig chases through dusty air with not a tree in sight. Big trucks, fine thin dirt coating every single thing you touch, and dust devils out in the open brush, turkey vultures effortless soaring, and some indescribable feeling of freedom found under these uncontained wild skies.
Out there in the middle of this big open sky and seemingly endless air of spaciousness, it feels like your heart and mind, your spirit and soul, are all ripped open boundless as well.
I wish to live with a heart wide open where wild horses can roam free.
And then we are there.
Another hail storm passes through and I’m holed up in here writing to you inside what will be home for this season – a 14 foot camper circa 1964 with a pan on the little bit of floor between me and the pup, catching water that drips from the skylight, and a little counter cluttered with stuff that hasn’t yet found a place to reside for the season in the already stuffed shelves. There’s a small bed we can spoon sleep in (sometimes with the puppy as well), and a little table that will serve as kitchen, drafting table and writing desk for the season. As for plumbing, there’s a nearby outhouse, and when we finishing unpacking the trailer, a little wooden shed in which we can bath out of the cold which this place just is. As for electricity, we invested in a small portable solar system just big enough to (hopefully) keep our power tools in power, our devices operational, and provide the occational, luxurious StarLink connection. The nearest cell phone service is down the dirt road a good fifteen miles or so, but that’s nothing new for us.
Yesterday ended with store bought cheesecake (nothing like the kind Lisa makes back in CA) shared in that little bed while over Bob’s shoulder I watched a band of cow elk meandering along our path. This morning started with two big bull moose crossing pasture so close I thought it was my horses. It also began with ice in the dog water bowl and a heavy frost across our land. If you don’t think I’m regretting leaving that heavy chore coat back in California… I should have known better, but it’s hard to think of frost and freezing and chill when you’re sweating in shorts and flip flops.
Warm coats and blankets and a sense of patience and humor and we’ll get us through this season well.
Before we begin building, there’s the all essential setting up camp, our living situation, ensuring a safe and warm place for the dog, horses and chickens and us. No bragging rights here; it’s boring but necessary and stuff we forget how long it takes. But you can’t get to work without having your make shift home life function. So you gotta get camp set up and situated with things like unpacking the trailer, building shelves, clearing a work space, gathering fire wood, putting up corral panels, setting up water systems, a place to bathe (we still haven’t done that, so if you’re thinking of visiting, you may want to wait). Stuff like that. Not the exciting stuff to share, and certainly doesn’t feel like “progress” but it’s all part of the process.
Part of the process of arriving, too, is connecting slowly with the land around you. Where to look for the elk and moose. What wild flowers here are beginning their bloom. Who are the nearest neighbors and what blessings of connection do they share. What’s the best way to dip water from the creek for our camp. And of course, setting up camp.
These things take time. Now I’m kicking myself for taking more time getting the garden in and our caretaker set up back in California than anticipating what we would need here. But that’s part of the process too, part of the journey, figuring it out as we go along. And knowing we’ll be just fine.
The chickens settled right in to their new digs, They’re out there scratching in some newly leveled dirt, and didn’t miss a day laying eggs even on the road. It takes us longer, but we’ll get there too. Not laying eggs, of course, but we too will be scratching around in the dirt for sure.
Adjusting. Like a snake shedding her skin. Leaving a land already sizzling in heat waves and where fire danger is the hot topic around town. Returning to the high, wild, rough and rugged… and yes, just about always cold. Trading in those flip flops and shorty-shorts for wool socks, down vest and mittens. Yes, even in June.
Even in the trailer, my hands are cold and it’s a little hard to type. Oh, those poor tomato and pepper plants. They survived the trip. We’ll see how well they fare now living in Colorado’s high, wild country. For now, until we build a make shift greenhouse (one more project on the list), we’re putting them back in the trailer at night and covering them with cozy row cover, which comes in handy outside during the hail storms too.
Of course it’s rough to begin with. We’re used to that. Sort of. Funny we kinda forget just how hard some days can be.
You know how it is – we look back and remember the good stuff, allowing memories to be colored rose. It east to just reminisce on the laughter, the adventures, the stories, the love. And good, because there is always a lot of that too.
This time twenty something years ago, our first season together, in the one room cabin, the two of us and a nine year old boy, three cats, three dogs, and as usual, an outhouse near by.
That summer and for years afterward, living and working together, in tiny cabins, tents and construction zones, has been the norm for our home life. And often on the trail, guiding trips in the high country where we’d sleep under a tarp because tents were luxuries reserved for our guests.
When one house was done, before we even got a chance to settle in and unpack, we’d be back at it again.
This is the guy I married and the life I chose. The rough and rugged, high and wild, simple living is all good with me. The moving around, well, not so much. We’re both thinking that choosing to settle down might not be a bad idea after all. Mind you, the gypsy life is not what we wanted. It’s just that finding the place to remain forever never came to be. Life happened. Shit happened. And we moved on.
Will we have to again?
For now, all I know is, here we go again, said with both a bit of a heavy sigh and a little laugh upon my smiling lips.
Covered in sawdust and gear grease and dressed in baggy shorts not long enough to hide skinny white legs sticking out below, scraped up knees and all. Skin like rawhide and at times, admittedly, a personality to match.
This is no hot date.
These are two videos I took yesterday of us at the mill for anyone curious what our hot times look – and sound – like. In this case, loud. Yes, we wear ear protection. Bob is already hearing impaired. I can’t afford to be too.
My cinematography sucks, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s just an attempt to show you how it works.
There’s a sign I found a few years back that I just had to have and hung at the entrance to our ranch.
“Beware of the wife,” it reads, and if you know, you know it’s no joke. Depending on what mood I’m in, how tired I am, how late it is, and how late you are.
Still, I’ve been told more than once,”She cleans up well.” I think that was a compliment. I think?
In any case, this week found us dirtier than usual, arguing out of short tempters and frustration, not with one another but from working with rotten wood, in the heat and wondering why we’re doing this – and how the hell are we going to make it work. And of course, taking it out on each other. That’s the downside of partnership, of working with the one you love. They get the brunt of it, whatever “it” may be. We both are guilty of this. And working alongside one another as we’ve done for over twenty years, when the going gets rough, you can’t just walk away.
I wouldn’t want to if I could.
The comfort in commitment. The joy in being able to make each other smirk and smile, laugh and long, even during a downright dirty day. That’s good stuff.
Comfort in commitment… above and beyond love, and that’s the absolute essence. There’s commitment to habit and routine as well.
This is mine.
Early morning.
The alarm rouses me before the roosters. Right now that’s just past five. Slowly outside shapes emerge in shades of gray. Colors are slow to awaken. It’s a while still before sun graces the top of the farthest hill I can see from this little land tucked in as womb along the untamed river.
Now is the quiet time after frogs have settled and before robins wake. Even the dogs still sleep. The only sound is the river, humming as a steady wind. It is a time of tranquility, as if life on hold, the pause between the inhale and the exhale. It is a time to get in yoga and meditation practice, sharing the mat with two dogs and two cats. It is a time to softly putter about the cabin, often lit only by the setting moon or a single flickering flame. Time to get the wood stove going and the kettle on, coffee ready before Bob wakes, then time to write (often by candle light) before heading out to care for chickens and horses and walk the dogs.
Comfort comes in the familiar, in sounds like rain on the metal roof when I’m still in bed and the ticking of the cast iron woodstove contracting, a signal for me to put another log on the fire.
I like routine. It’s a safe place. In a world filled with chaos and conflict and unknowns, this is my solid ground, my foundation, a cradle that gives me some sense of stillness and calm. A time to be and breathe before the dirt and grease, sawdust and sweat, grit and grind.
The quiet before the noise.
(If you saw that video of the mill, you know what I’m talking about.)
Late afternoon.
Taking a break, laying back on lush grass, together with a couple of dogs.
Long golden shadows. Big cumulus clouds like plumes of smoke growing and gathering. The air is perfumed with blossoms of wild madrone and apple. Oak leaves suddenly full and waving in the wind as abundant undergrowth comes to life. The first of the turtles and gopher snakes cross the dirt road. Wild geese have come to rest among chickens and horses on pasture of the greenest grass I’ve ever seen. The puppy plays with the big old dog (funny because the big old one was the young one just a few years ago), and mama hen pecks in the grass with her five little chicks around her.
Sawdust and the sound of the mill feel far away. This feels like a dream. A dream I didn’t know was in me.
Get real. It’s unreal.
Who’s to say what’s real?
Living in a place which most days feel pretty dreamy, we’re often told this isn’t real.
Okay then, what is?
“It’s not the real world,” they may say of this kind of life, this place, how folks like us chose to live.
I get it. Growing up in the suburbs just outside “the” city, I didn’t know a life like this was possible, didn’t know this world existed.
“Grow up and get a real job,” you’re taught.
“Wake up and get real,” people tell you.
“C’mon… get over it… join the real world,” is what you hear.
Took growing up for me to figure out what “real” really was.
Am I living a dream? I dunno. Pinch me. I’m awake. Seems pretty real to me. And at the same time, sure enough, this is a dream come true.
Guess you gotta start by having dreams. Boy, did (and do) I.
I dream. Then get to work. Hard work. Willing to live with dirt and bugs, blood and bruises, and regular cold and wind; live in cars and tents, mud shacks and mobile homes in someone else’s back yard; live without indoor plumbing, central heating and heaven forbid, luxuries like hair dryers, coffee makers and cell phone service. “Live like no one else now so you can live like no one else later,” we once read. I am willing to try.
That’s what dreaming has meant for me. That was the price I paid. And I wouldn’t change a thing.
Everyone’s got their own price, their own path, their own definition of what “living a dream” might be. I don’t know what that means for you. I just hope you’re living it too.
If not, there’s still time.
Who says you’re too old (or young or poor or whatever the excuse)?
I don’t ever want to stop growing up. And I don’t ever want to be stuck being grown up, either.
Growing up doesn’t mean to me now what it meant when I was young. Maybe because now I’m easily as old as what I thought grown ups were supposed to be, but I sure don’t feel like them. Then I thought grown up meant boring and stuffy and sensible shoes, clean jeans and finger nails and well groomed hair, sitting at a desk all day and raking leaves on weekends; cocktails promptly at five o’clock and nothing much gets done after that. No thanks. That’s not for me.
As a kid, too, I remember thinking that being grown up was some required state of feeling like you know it all, losing that sense of curiosity, wonder, and awe. I haven’t felt that, and hope I never do because the moment we feel we know it all, have all the answers and/or have the right to speak our truth as if it were “the” truth, we start closing. We stop seeing. Stop hearing. We lose our sense of wonder and we turn into old farts. Not the most eloquent choice of words, but you get the point.
What makes life living more than curiosity, wonder and awe?
And of course, love.
That’s the magic of life. The hot and spicy. The zip and zesty. The fascination and enchantment that makes life worth living.
That childlike sense of openness.
The beginners mind.
Finding magic every day.
Making magic, too.
The ability to laugh at dumb jokes. And laugh at yourself.
The reminder to smile warmly at strangers, and enjoy watching kids and puppies play.
The nudging to just let it go when you’re cut off at the end of a passing lane or that parking spot you were vying for is taken before you can back in.
It’s taking time to smell the roses, watching baby geese take their maiden voyage, laying back in the grass or against the front steps with your eyes closed and listening to crickets on a still summer eve.
It’s listening to the same old stories from an old man or same old jokes from your partner, and still chuckling every time.
It’s having your breath taken away as a pair of red tail hawk do their courtship dance overhead or watching thunderheads build for the first time this year gracing us with an unexpected blast of thunder so sudden the puppy barks.
It’s accepting that you’ll never know it all, control it all, or do it all, but having fun trying, maybe failing, and trying again.
If missing out on any of that is what growing up means, I’m glad it didn’t happen to me.
Growing up is a work of art, fluid and ever changing, like an endless emerging of butterfly wings.
It’s not a place we get to – you know, as in “being there.” Rather, it’s an evolution that lasts as long as we are blessed to live our one wild life.
Now it’s the end of the week. We’ve kissed and made up. And washed up. Even got a little rain to keep down the dust and water the garden without moving a hose.
Now we’re back out there, getting ready to stack the next load of boards and beams for Bob to take to Colorado. All the bells and whistle and gears and grease are doing what they’re supposed to do. The broken rototiller remains broken but we borrowed the neighbor’s working one. (Thank you, George.) The garden shines and grows, somehow joyously. And looks like we finally figured out a floor plan we can build in one season with the material we’ve been working to amass.
Keep on keeping on.
It’s what we do. Would I want it any other way?
I choose to keep living the life we live and love doing what we’re doing, with wonder and awe, feeling fulfilled and full of joy by doing what we do, together.
All of it. The ups and downs and ins and outs and round and rounds and all.
(looking back at the healthy forest surrounding our little bit of paradise – that little clearing in the center – here in the far north of California)
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Contemplating slow living and the complexities of the simple life.
So much of that is based on making the most of what you have, and doing it yourself.
As in, if you want lumber for building…
You fall trees, skid them, clean the slash, load logs on the mill, saw them to size, stack them.
And then in this case… haul them from here to there.
California to Colorado.
Simple living, sounding somewhat complicated.
I’ll explain.
This is my first attempt at sharing a video on this blog. I want to show you what milling is like. However, it’s hard to hold a device in one hand AND crank the mill with the other. So I may have some figuring out to do. In the meanwhile, go ahead and say it: Cinematography is not my strong point.
Bob did a lot better. This is the video he took after I whined about how bad mine was.
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So about the mill.
It’s slow, old, free and ours.
It was left behind at another “high and wild” property we once owned, just for a little while. Another fixer upper. That place was a little TOO high. At an elevation of 11,400 feet, turned out to be too much even for Bob and me. We got headaches, bloody noses, had trouble sleeping, got battered by the elements… but we did fix the place up nicely and flipped it.
And, bonus: we got this mill out of the deal.
Yeah, I know, it’s old. Go ahead and say it (Bob does all the time): too old! It’s crazy slow. You gotta crank the wheel for several minutes just to raise or lower the carriage that holds the blade, then crank some more to move the carriage as the blade inches it way through the wood. Crank again to raise it, crank it back to the beginning, then lather, rinse, repeat. It’s a lot of cranking and a helluva a test of patience. Apparently I have a lot, because even as the one doing all that cranking, every time Bob shows me pictures or starts talking about a new mill, I’m quick to shut him down.
“This is what we have,” I remind him (and myself). And though it’s slow, check it out: it works. We’ve used more modern mills. You know, those fancy ones with bells and whistles, flashing lights, keyboards, electronics or at least hydraulics that cost about as much as a mortgage. This one is gear and chain and crank drive, do your own measuring and your own math, and it was free. Simple. Slow living, slow milling, see what I mean?
Slow as it is, I love it. Yes, I love milling. I love the smell of the wood, and working out in the elements (most times). I love watching dead trees turn into valuable lumber. And I love working with my husband, which after twenty something years building together has brought us to that place of operating in relative wordlessness and this flow that feels almost like a dance. We know what needs to be done, move in unison, use hand signals, nods and knowing glances (and probably a few grunts) to converse. Slow and steady, it works for us.
Despite clothes, hair, and all parts of exposed (and somehow even covered) skin getting enrobed in sawdust every afternoon, the pride in making our own lumber from our own trees is a thrill for me. Maybe I’m an odd sort, but I’m in the right place.
And slow as the mill and the process is, it does work. Beautifully. We milled all the dimensional lumber for that “high and wild” remodel with this mill. There, a buddy milled all the logs for an entire cabin from the beetle kill trees on that land. When we moved from Colorado to California, we brought the mill with us and processed all the lumber for this remodel we’re living in now (you can see some of it HERE.). And maybe when we’re done milling here this spring, chances are we’ll move it back.
Here and now, because of that mill and the beetle killed timber on this land, the majority of materials for our upcoming build are free. (Oh and a big shout out of thanks to my sis and her man for the incredible windows we scored as they replaced theirs!) Beat that. Makes slow somehow okay that way.
The process starts with Bob doing most of the work you forget needs to be done before you even get to mill: falling trees, delimbing and clearing slash, skidding logs, loading them onto the mill. Then I get to do my magic.
I’m the (not necessarily) smooth operator of this old roaring beast, which entails a lot of cranking as I said: cranking her up and down and back and forth, moving the blade through the log with each pass. Sloooooowly. Like everything about this process. Yet… beautifully! At least it’s beautiful to me.
We’ve used it so long, done it so much, by now it’s muscle memory for me. I’m so used to the sound and feel I can do it with my eyes closed. And often I have to. Because when the wind blows my way, which often times it does, so does the sawdust.
And after almost every pass, there’s the joint effort of rolling the log on the mill, which involves a bunch of prying with peaveys and few grunts and groans, then carrying each board off to be sorted and stacked.
Board by board, beam by beam, slowly we’re amassing what we need to build a new home.
It’s exciting. Rewarding in so many ways. Not the least of which is that in the process of taking down trees to mill, we’re cleaning up our land. See, a lot of the doug fir is dying. Beetle kill. Not even close to devastating and depressing as it was back fifteen years or so ago in southern Colorado when we witnessed the demise of 90% of the blue spruce trees there. Year after year, mile after mile, mountain after mountain, a giant wave, gradual and all consuming, turned the hills from green to gray. All those trees, killed by a tiny beetle no bigger than a grain of rice.
Pine beetles, bark beetles, call them what you will. They’re in California too. Only here in Trinity County, at least on our land and the hills surrounding us here, it doesn’t feel devastating. It isn’t. See, here, when one tree dies, another spreads it wings and seems to take flight in the newfound open space. So as some of our doug fir die, the black oak, white oak, live oak, oregon ash, alder, dogwood and madrone already in place, open with the added air space and water that the crowding conifers otherwise devour. It feels somehow natural, normal, beautiful to witness this change over the past nearly six years we’ve been here, as parts of the land unfurls like a giant exhale, revealing the sky and a sense of spaciousness, and we watch as part of our land shifts from a conifer forest to a healthy oak grove. The diversity of species here is remarkable. You barely notice the loss of evergreens were it not for the low stumps left behind.
Thanks to these beetles, we have plenty of trees to build with.
Damn. After the devastation our Colorado mountains endured due to those little buggers, I never, ever thought I say something nice about them.
And so it goes: if you want lumber, fall trees, clear slash, etc. and then… haul to Colorado.
So about that part about hauling to Colorado…
Really?
Yes, really.
See, even after milling off the rotted two to three inches that many of these big trees often have around their girth, what we’re left with is a lot of lumber. Good lumber. Really good, and better than what we’d mill in Colorado. These dead doug fir have heavier, heartier wood than beetle kill blue spruce. Wood strong enough for framing, thick enough to stack for walls, and dense enough to hold heat inside the cabin they’ll one day be.
That’s what this work is all about now. Like mining for gold. Getting down to the good stuff. And this wood is good.
And here’s the thing. Time is of the essence. Sure it would be great to take our time and log and skid and peel and notch and slowly stack logs from our Colorado land where this house will be. And for our next project, that’s what we plan to do. (Yes, knowing us…)
But for now, for starters, for just getting a cabin built, quick and simple and safe and sound, lets be real. We won’t have that time this year. The only chance we have of getting this project done and having a roof over our head and solid structure to winter in (which in the high wild mountains of Colorado is a serious thing) is to do it this way – mill the lumber now, while we can, before the crunch of summer building begins. Or spend a lot of money we don’t have and hire some crew to do it all, wham bam.
Tempting as that sounds some times, that is not what we’ll do.
Slow and steady, we’ll get it done, by making the most of what we have. A lot of beetle killed trees and one old mill. And we’ll work around what we don’t have: time! Building a house from the ground up in the short season between the ground thawing (May) and the ground freezing again (October) – and building something solid and secure enough to winter in – is already a daunting project for a couple that some say have a few too many years behind them to be taking such a project on. Oh yeah, and in addition to the cabin… there’s getting the solar, septic, greenhouse, horse shelter, chicken coop and wood shed (full) done during that time frame as well.
Geez, when I think of all that, I wonder how the hell we’re going to get it done. I probably shouldn’t be sharing our plans as it’s not going to help with our mounting stress.
Just get to work and get it done and stop whining.
And all the while, try to have fun, find the magic and joy and awe all around, be good to each other, each and every day, no matter how slow it goes.
And really, that’s what we do.
So that was the part about “plans.” Haven’t even started sharing the part about “place.”
Guess I’ll save those deep thoughts for another day.
Gin Getz 
