Thursday
18Dec2008
First Things First
Thursday, December 18, 2008 I had my land and the house was sold, so the next thing to do is to actually move. I had two sheds in my back yard which weren't part of the house sale. I had plans for them. Getting someone to move them 27 miles away was a trick, but I finally managed to get that done too.
One shed is 12 ft by 24 ft (288 sq ft). That's the one I planned on living in. The other is 10 x 16, my storage shed.
Since I had a pretty good size house that I had lived in for 10 years I had accumulated quite a bit of stuff. I confess, I am quite an accumulator of 'stuff'. I love yard sales, flea markets and dollar stores.
The first thing to do is get rid of most of it, so a huge yard sale was in order. The hardest part was sorting through absolutely everything I owned and deciding what to keep. My new home was gonna be a little under 300 sq ft, so that doesn't leave room for much.
The best part is that it felt really freeing. When you're totally set on simplifying, it's amazing what you can do without. My burden was getting lighter by the moment!
It amazed me that it still took one 24 ft truck and three strong sons fifteen hours to get me moved. I still had an amazing amount of 'stuff' that I couldn't live without!
After everything was moved and everyone had gone, I was left with a room full of furniture and boxes piled up so high I could hardly move. No problem, it was gonna rain for two solid days, and I figured that would give me plenty of time to get my house in order and start my new life.
So here I am, no running water, no flush toilet, no electricity. I'm a tough gal, I can do it, I was thinking. After all, I love to camp, and my whole life my mother was a huge proponent of getting back to basics, so I learned plenty about surviving the old-timey way. I had a natural affinity for cooking outdoors, baking my own bread, using herbs for medicine and making do with what you had...
By myself, out in the woods alone, with no electricity makes for a quietness that is astounding. There are so many noises in a home that you really don't notice until they're gone.
The hum of the refrigerator, clocks ticking, computers running, the washing machine, the dishwasher. Outside there are always cars going by, people talking, dogs barking. I always had either the television or some music playing and those were gone.
The silence was deafening.
My cell phone didn't even work out here. Too close to the mountains, too far out in the woods. I was completely cut off. No computer to connect with anyone, no television to find out what was going on in the world.
No lights either. Boy, is it ever dark in the woods at night, and there are an amazing number of noises going on at night in the country.
Hmm, am I really as tough as I thought I was?
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Reader Comments (1)
How frightening...and how simply wonderful! That deep primordial silence is my favorite thing. Once you sit with it for a few moments you realize how "noisy" it is in a whole different way...the birds, the animals moving through the forest, the squirrels talking, it's fabulous.
My country life challenge is that I've not learned to love the spiders and they come with trees, for sure. But we've all got to get along here so I'm preparing myself...