Tiny white lights in the big spruce before our cabin.

I fear we are addicted to snow. Goose down as is pours from the sky.  Powder as it piles up on the mountain.  We love it.  I would guess this comes as no surprise to you.

Of course the snow has its inconveniences as well. One of them is our commute. Getting from the ranch to anywhere in winter is an ordeal.  But a minor inconvenience to me, as I’m most content staying home.  For anyone else coming and going… it is, well, an interesting challenge.

Bob was coming home last night.  Not having phone service here at the ranch, we communicate by text messages.  And not having cell phone service with witch to send or receive text messages for at perhaps 30 miles in either direction, we have come up with a system where by the person who went to town (usually not me) sends a final message at the last place the cell phone works, sending a message back home to let the home front (usually me) know they’re on their way.  That final stretch of the way home which may take less than hour in summer, takes quite a bit longer in winter.  We drive up the snow packed dirt road, pass through the locked gate about 11 miles below the ranch, drive another 5 miles,  park the pickup, transfer the groceries, mail, and other supplies (ranging from  Christmas presents to building materials) from the pickup to the tub sled, fire up the snowmobile, hook up the tub sled and securely cover the cargo, pile on a new layer of clothes and a helmet, then ride along what is known in the summer as The Reservoir Road, but in the winter is just a single track snowmobile trail on the bluff above the big frozen water.

Of course, it is usually night.  Darkness adds to the adventure, the mystery, the feeling of being out in the middle of no where… until you see “The Beacon.” You can see it over two miles away.  And why not?  The power is free thanks to our solar electric system. And there is no one within those two miles, or many miles beyond that, for that matter, to be bothered by the light. 

The Beacon, as we’ve called it for years, is a blue spruce tree outside our cabin to which we hand dug an electric line from the house, and on which we hung a few strings of little white Christmas lights.  With our limited solar electricity here, you’ll rarely see these lights on in the summer.  But in winter, ah, it is a different story.  Our power is abundant.  And free.  That sun does shine, and our system usually provides only for us!  So, I am generous with Christmas lights. And not only during Christmas, but all winter long.  I have them strung about in the house, on our tree, around the windows, over the dove cage… and outside, on the Beacon tree.

The tree has grown.  Where once I used a ladder to hang the lights, my bull (yes, a bovine bull) walked by that tree one day, wrestled with the branches for some unknown reason apparently fueled by testosterone, ripped off a bunch of branches with his big head, and tangled the lights in his horns.  Always wished those lights were shining.  If that wouldn’t have been the best photo ever…  Well, it was day light and those lights were off, but that spruce tree will never be the same.

Now the tree has grown. Minus a bare section down low where the bull pruned it. This year I hung the lights as Bob raised me in the bucket of the back hoe, far higher than the ladder could reach, and far higher than I would have liked, for that matter.

Our indoor Christmas tree, by the way, is a used, recycled fake tree. Really. Bet that’s not what you’d expect being as we’re surrounded by a forest of beautiful Blue spruce trees. We’ve never been keen on cutting down our own trees.  I’d rather plant them around us instead.  Last time we cut one down, Forrest was perhaps four years old. I explained that I was “thinning” (and I was!), but upset ensued which is really no surprise coming from a little one raised in the magic of the woods, thus that was the last time. We cut “Christmas branches” for a few years after that, which worked well enough – big boughs from giant fir trees.  And then, when my folks were tossing their “old” fake tree, we took it. Thus… a recycled, reused tree. Tacky?  Maybe.  Green?  Definitely! How “green” can you get?  Funniest part is, no one notices that it is fake.  No one.  Not until we tell, and sometimes, well, why bother? After all, it does look like a Blue Spruce… sort of… and it’s about the last thing one would expect to find up here…

Back to the drive home…

So, Bob is coming home last night.  Through text messaging, he makes arrangements with Forrest to meet at the parking area around 8 pm.  Forrest will help Bob haul in the supplies Bob brought back from town. Forrest heads out in the dark, no moon, just his headlight on the snow, around 7:30.  I get dinner cooking and keep the fire going. Around 8:30, I see the two single headlights, shining from over two miles away and approaching fast. One can travel this road much faster over the snow with snowmobile than over pot holes and ruts with a pickup. And traffic is rarely a concern.

Within minutes, I hear the roar of their motors settling right outside the kitchen door.  My boys are home. 

Bob gives me a kiss and hug, but he’s holding back.  There’s something wrong.  There’s something in there, inside his jacket.  He unzips.  Pulls it out. (Please trust me here, this is G-rated…)

A bouquet of flowers.  Tucked in his snowmobile suit to make it back with minimal damage from the frigid cold and wind and pounding that the ride home usually brings.  Instead, they arrive warm and well, if only slightly “pressed.”  

I think this is a first.  Six years of marriage.  Life is full of surprises.  Life is good…

The bouquet on the table, beside the blooming paperwhites and before the blossoms of the bougainvilla. A bountiful world we live in.

yesterday, along the road home, the snow is only beginning...

The snow has arrived!  Can you feel the bursting excitement?

Yesterday it began, slowly at first, soft and light, settling and easing us into the world of white. It gave us warning and did not catch us unprepared as it has some years, sneaking in after dark, under the radar of the weatherman’s predictions. We had been skeptical this time too, doubting this well anticipated blessing, disappointed time and again by the empty promise of storms passing us by.

Forrest reminds me, “Hope for the best; prepare for the worst.”  The snows that cover our world are both.

This one did not pass us by.  It came.  It is still here.  When it is light enough to see, I will be out with my camera.  We will get little else done today but play in the newness our snowy world. 

Mid afternoon, the snow is still light, there is still doubt, but we decided to play it safe and get the pickup out before it is too late.  Too late means getting snowed in, which in turn means either leaving the vehicle there until the road is pushed open by the first snowplow of the year, around the end of April next spring; or wrestle with chains and shovels and perhaps even a front end loader like we had to do one year when our skepticism tried to outwit the weather.

Bob and I drive out in two separate trucks.  Vision is limited in the heavy veil of snow.  I keep my eye on his tracks and try to follow.  I stop often to look, to take pictures, to stare in amazement at this incredible phenomenon and the intense beauty as if it were my very first time seeing it all.  Ah, but it is the first time I have seen it like this… 

I watch as the golden eagle flies above and before Bob’s slowly moving truck, guiding us through the storm.  We are a convoy, the three of us, the eagle leading the way, Bob’s truck crunching through the untouched powder, my old red Blazer following close behind.  The eagle turns off and up the steep cliffs. We continue onward.

We leave the pickup at the end of the section of road that is often kept plowed, and drive  home in the old red Blazer, 6 ½ miles back to our cabin, along the road above the reservoir as the snow seems to come down thicker with every mile.

We stop to watch a family of Big Horn Sheep stop to watch us.  They climb the steep cliffs above us effortlessly. Now they would rather be still and observer the odd phenomenon of a passing vehicle.  How hidden they are in the cliffs and falling snow.  I take pictures, and later show Forrest, “See this dot? That is a lamb…”

Above the flats at the delta of the reservoir, a coyote too stops to watch us.  His coat is thick and beautiful.  There are no hunters here now, and he seem to knows it.  He stands proud and easy, somehow understanding he is safe with us.  Although he is beautiful to see, I wish he would run.  There are few coyotes who winter up here with us.  Fewer still if  hunters come for the sport, still claiming that they are controlling a nuisance.  Up here, I wonder, a nuisance to whom?  A foolish claim to continue the sport. There is no one here besides us for miles and miles and miles. 

The road will be closed now.  This is the last of simple trips, enclosed in a warm vehicle, straight from the front door of our cabin to wherever we need to go. As we drive home, I watch patches of bunch grass still poking through the hillsides.  Golden rays fanning above the thin snow. They will be gone this morning, buried under this all encompassing world of white.

Solitude descends with the heavy mantle of snow.  There is a silence, a peace, a comfort I can not describe. It is mine, it is ours, it is different from anything else I have ever experienced before living here.  Snow.  It becomes a part of us, our world, everything we do, everything we see, a besieging blanket of white.

A red tail hawk takes flight out across the reservoir in the middle of the storm.

After a new coat of paint: the refinished counters and stove top

The ground is frozen. Outdoor work is reduced to chores and little more. Fencing is out.  I shall never be strong enough to drive steel or dig into the frozen earth.  Working with the horses is reluctantly limited to ground work at best.  Now they are allowed their well earned free time.

Work turns indoors. Preferably indoors with heat.  We have several projects going on at once.  I hate to be without something to do, something to keep me busy, a point and purpose to every day, this impelling desire to be productive, even if it requires creating work to allow me that satisfaction.  However, on this ranch, on any ranch, finding projects is usually never that difficult.  All one need do is look around and choose “what next?”

The remodel of Cabin #2 progressed so quickly at first.  Knocking down old walls and framing up new ones. Fun stuff.  Big hammers, lots of banging around, and visual results at the end of every day.  But now, work slows down.  Before the walls are closed in with drywall and plaster, the complicated labyrinth of electrical wires, gas pipes, and plumbing must go in. This part goes slow.  It’s complicated.  We find ourselves crawling under floorboards and between roof rafters, sorting out an intricate web of wires and pipes as we become covered with cobwebs of the past.  All for a small, compact, simple off-grid cabin here in the mountains.  I can’t imagine the complexity necessary for building elsewhere.  This is plenty for me.

Bob has great patience for such things. These things somehow drive him (drive him onward, that is, not crazy).  He has worked on remodels year after year after year, getting this guest ranch into a shape his Grandfather who built the original little old cabins would now not even recognize.  Our guests are grateful.  Now, with each cabin we consider how it would be if we lived in there… and we do our best to make each cabin as comfortable and as livable as if we did.  In several, in fact, we have.

In our cabin, all the cleaning and scrubbing would not spruce up the fact that we’ve lived in this one for seven years.  Wear and tear are inevitable.  More so with the three of us, our outdoor lifestyle and indoor baking habit, dogs, cats, birds, lots of guests coming and going… shoot, I’ve even had the horses in the house (though they were not, as you can imagine, welcome to remain inside long).

The time had come when no amount of elbow grease or cleaning products could freshen up our stove and counter tops.  The signs of the use and abuse of a country kitchen were clear, if not clean. And so I turned to a fresh coat of paint.  I started by grinding down the wood counter tops, removing the old, worn and stained finish.  Then I used matching wood fill in all the cracks that this dry air produces in wood.  The surfaces were then sanded down using finer and finer grit sandpaper, then finished with three coats of polyurethane. 

For the stove top, I started with very fine steel wool to clean the surface and to remove any chipped paint, then a couple light coats of spray-on appliance enamel.

The end result is that my kitchen once again looks good as new.  Though I imagine that won’t last too long.

In the meanwhile, I can’t help but wonder… what would a new coat of paint do for me?

The willows of Ute Creek underneath Pole Mountain and alongside the Rio Grande

I have much to be thankful for.
I have too much.
We live in a land of plenty
And still we ask for more
And complain of our neighbors
Our religions and leaders
Our neighbors’ religions and leaders
We point a finger, shift the blame
Worried only that they will take it away
With trepidations of having less
It is never quite enough
With our TVs blaring over washed out conversations
Softened by the hum of the dishwasher
As we flick on another light
Quickly flush the toilet
Grab a pop from the fridge
And run out in our SUV to the corner store
To get one more thing
To put on the table that is
Already what one would consider
Too full.

I have much to be thankful for.
My choice has been to do with less
To try to do without
No tv, power lines, dishwasher or corner store
And still I have too much, too many.
I live in a land of plenty
As the coyote works the pastures in search of one single mouse
And the black bear turns within the ground and the elk descend the mountain
Because food this time of year is far too scarce
And the Stellar Jays check their stashes in the branches hoping they will hold for winter
And the rabbit leaves his tracks from the shelter of the spruce tree
Trying to make it another day
Another winter
Another year
In the land of plenty
They are the wealth.

As the sun is certain to rise
And the moon to make her rounds
The season provides
The mountain allows
And still I ask for more

I have much to be thankful for.
I have too much.
We live in a land of plenty.

High Mountain Musing is changing it’s web site address from:  highmountainmuse.wordpress.com  to right here:  highmountainmuse.com. 

A bit confusing in the short run; but hopefully simpler in the long run.

The new blog address will be effective immediately.  Same author (me), same stuff – my rambles and the mountain musings – just a different web address.

One of the more complicated changes may be in leaving comments.  All previous comments to date should have transferred over onto this site, and I’ll ask that any comments in the future be submitted here, as in due time, the old site will become obsolete.

If you subscribe to the posts, comments or have the site saved in your favorites, please be sure to make the changes. 

Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

Please let me know if you have any difficulty connecting here, or find any problems with navigation on this new site by leaving a comment here, or e-mailing me directly at highmountainmuse@gmail.com.   I imagine there will be some things we find that need to be tweaked – and thanks to Ron (J) we can fix them…

I’m not very computer savvy, but I’ll do my best to help in any way I can.

I’m taking the weekend off (going to the BIG CITY) and won’t be posting until Monday, so I’ll look forward to hearing from you then – here at the new site!

Warmly,

Gin

Old and new. Forrest doing school work by the glow of the computer... and oil lamp light.

With solar electricity, cloudy weather spells low power.  We learn to do without, and appreciate what we have.  It is easy.  It is simple.  We have lived completely without for enough time to be grateful for the little we have.  We can use it wisely.

And yet, evenings following those robin blue sky days of abundant sunshine, we may flip on five lights.  All at once.  And feel we are living large.  And somehow, take a decadent sinful pleasure in that.  Why?

I read about a family surviving life back in the pioneer days, and considered the hardships, the sacrifices, the lack of luxury.  I looked around my home and my life and felt guilty. I saw unnecessary luxuries. Waste.  Fluff. They keep us removed from the land, from the core of our life.  Removed from what matters most. 

We have too much. The land fill is spilling over with plenty. And our homes? Our fridge? Our closet? Our cars? Our full schedules?

We grab onto more and more and more. We take pleasure in amassing. Perhaps a safety and security. A fear of being without. It seems no matter how much we give away, how right and generous we feel we are being by sharing, donating and getting rid of things… all we do is make room for more. 

We grasp onto labels like “natural” and “organic” and “recycled” and feel we can buy and purchase and support and spent there because they are… better.  It’s still spending.  It’s still getting too much, isn’t it? It’s still more than we really need.

We start small.  Considering what we can give up.  What we can do without.  One thing at time.  One thing that need not be replaced.  An empty space that can remain open, clear, uncluttered.  Slowly, we begin to pare down to what matters most.  And suddenly, there is room to breath.

Pole Mountain in clouds

Here in the monochrome light of the early morning, the sky just begins to lighten, all color is still shades of grey, including the brilliant aspens across river visible from the comfort of my chair, their silhouettes bland and indistinct against the looming hillside, shaded by the canopy of the heavy, drifting clouds.  The autumn leaves are memories of a spectacle I know is there but does not expose itself to me now.

My morning ritual of both receiving and writing a quick note to a friend so far away and yet so very close, before I open a blank page and begin to write, is interrupted with the power outage, a regular occurrence in stormy weather for those of us with solar power. Take nothing for granted. We are grateful for the abundant electricity and reliable services when the sun does shine.  But we know we can do without.  There is so much we have, we use, we rely on, that once without, we remember how little we need.

Simple things. Like flicking a switch to turn on a light.  We remember we can instead strike a match, light a candle. When was the last time you went without power?  Can you do it by choice? One thing at time… start with the lights, keeping them off. Oh, it is romantic! We learn to see, or not, perhaps go to bed early. That isn’t so bad! Our eyes adjust, then pick up the slightest changes of light, like now, as the sky brightens, noticeably yet so finely, with each minute that passes.

I look around regularly and see how much I have that I can do without.  How much more I have than I really need.  How much of this I do take for granted, and how much is the core essence of what really matters.  My boys.  My animals.  The mountain.  The heat of the wood stove or fire.  A simple meal.  Friendship from time to time.  Good hard work and point to every day. 

What do we do with all the rest of this?

A photo from earlier this summer: The Little Cabin on the bluff above the Big River

The door faces the side of the mountain where the full moon is rising in the wake of a stray cloud laced and traced with the silver and gold light from behind.

I pass back through the doorway, smaller in size than is standard today.  You can tell it is old.  They say people were shorter back in the day.  I am not tall by todays or yesterdays standards.  The doorway fits me fine. 

The cabin was built around 1940.  I am intrigued by the past, by the history of the cabin, the stories built around these old log walls.  Grateful of those from the past who provide us with what we have now, the shell around us built by my husbands grand dad, built by the hands of the family, dreams of the family, struggles of the family, then and now.

But now it is ours.  A cornerstone of the cabin we will build it to be.  A wall within a new and adequate structure, providing for me and my family tonight, or perhaps in the near future.  A new beginning from an old start.

As we build our homes, our lives, we grow up; take a bit of the past with us.  If it is strong and solid, we hold onto it, use it as the foundation upon which we build.

These walls are tired and old, in need of sanding, refinishing, blowing off of the dust of years and generations and conflicts and sorrows.  We can freshen them up, brighten the wood once again, and rechink the cracks between the logs so they are tight, safe, warm.  Tonight, I see the light of the moon shine through in places that the old chinking has cracked and fallen out from between the old logs.  A reminder that we can take from our past what we choose to hold on to, repair what we need to, and walk away from what we want to as well.  Every day is a new day.

For now, I sit in a chair by the cook stove, huddled close by the warmth while the wash water hisses on the old rusty surface.  Perhaps a few mornings of frying bacon and sausage will bring a new shiny patina to its surface.

We dream, we plan, we figure out what we can do tomorrow and for many tomorrows to come, to make it all work out.  To hold onto the bits of the past we choose to, and make the rest our own.  Perhaps because of the past, or despite the past, we slowly build our future, our lives together, our tomorrows… today.

Pole mountain on a summer afternoon

Years ago, when Forrest was a baby, I lived near a small town on big mountain. Population of the mountain was 50.  Probably 45 of them claimed to trace their roots back to the Spanish that passed by the area over 400 years ago.  A beautiful mountain, one more of the many I have been lucky enough to see, to live on, to become a part of, to try to understand.

The house we rented for dirt cheap was made of adobe, with on-grid electricity, sporadic though it was, and off-grid water.  Once a week, weather permitting, I’d drive to town with a bunch of 5 gallon jugs for refilling, rattling in the back on the road down the mountain, sloshing around on the way back up.  You learned to conserve.  No need to flush toilets; there was only an outhouse.  For cooking, cleaning, washing, and even gardening, I learned how little one can do with,  how much we can do without, and how many times one can re-use the rinse water.

When I first moved there, things were not comfortable.  That’s a nice way to put it.  Every night I’d hear trucks drive by, pull up, stop, but not kill their engines. (They were, I later came to realize, more frightened than me.) Men’s voices would call to the house, often drunk and slurring.  I sat there inside with the curtains pulled, my sleeping baby next to me, and got mad. 

I started by calling the sheriff.  I’d be a fool to wait on him, he told me.  He was stationed in the nearest little town, a half hour away at best.  It was a wise old lady on the mountain that told me I needed to learn to shoot, and to shoot something loud.  I’d never used a hand gun, and was intimidated at first.  But each afternoon I’d walk out behind the house and get out my gun and make a lot of noise. 

Well, the adobe house was on the edge of this little valley that housed the majority of the mountain folks.  When I’d fire down the pasture from my house towards the river, the entire valley would fill with the reverberation of each shot.

Every day for a week I did this.  And funny thing was, by the end of the week, not a car stopped by, not a voice was heard at night, and my baby and I slept well.

I made it through that first winter, silent and in relative peace, with but a few folks stopping in to check on me, bring me firewood, offer me fish and beans to eat.  No one on the mountain had much for money.  My simple ways were understood and respected.

When the snow melted off and the mountain began to warm up, so did the neighbors.  The wives began to stop by, to introduce themselves, to warn me about a bear in my back yard, to check on my baby, to tell me that since I made it through the winter, perhaps I was OK.

Neighbors.  Real neighbors.  People who live there, who work the land, who live on it and for it and because of it. Who have nothing else and want and need no more and do what they can to make it all work out. This is something I miss.

raindrops on an evergreen

A light frost has spread across the porch, the steps, the yard, and out onto the pasture.  Summer is late to arrive.  Warmth has been a flighty and cherished feeling. A vague expression that comes and goes so quickly, tempting and taunting, but never remaining long enough for us to grasp and hold onto. Rain has been bountiful. Hail storms plentiful. The land smiles languidly with lush green hues and lazy rolling clouds.  The lettuce in the garden grows thick as unwanted weeds in a fallow field. Though tomatoes and peppers and squash, oh, these are but things we see pictures of in seed catalogues up here.

I could not have chosen a better year to begin planting trees around the Little Cabin.  They sky has blessed them regularly.  Although we hope to plant every year, I do not know of a better time to have started. Now. I suppose that is usually the best time to begin, isn’t it?

We are home for the week, busy and catching up on work on the ranch, with our guests, with our horses.  At times, I wonder if it may not be easier at the ditch… it makes you wonder.  It is summer.  If we were not busy, we’d be doing something wrong.  That’s survival up here.  When it rains, it pours, like the seasons… we learn to flow.

Watching the ranch take shape with our regular projects is like watching the garden grow.  Suddenly, there is a blossom in that garden, where just a bud promised yesterday.

Down by the Little Cabin, which often seems so far away this time of year, but a haven for us, for our guests who wander down there and become soaked by another surprise downpour… projects continue, slowly but surely, one grain of sand at a time.

Alas, this one, though not fancy, was essential.  Can you imagine a better room with a view?

a room with a view

I thought about sharing some of our how-to projects in hopes that we may help others in their quest to build on a budget, and truly “green” with all used, left-over or salvaged materials.

But you know what? I just don’t think there are a lot of folks out there building like we do.  I don’t believe our blue print for a finished work would work for the average person.  Perhaps I’m wrong.  Let’s see.  Here are a few examples.  Let me know if these would be of any help…

Bob finishing the chinking around the new little window

OK, so say you are renovating your old log cabin and there was a small round hole in the wall where the wood stove pipe had once fit through.  How would you get rid of or hide that hole?  You can’t splice in a chunk of log.  Especially since the original ones have been there since the late 30’s.  I think you’d notice that new part. 

Instead, we measured for an old salvaged single pane of glass, took the chain saw to the edges of the hole in the logs to square them off, and framed in a new small window.

Why not?  You’d never get tired of looking out at the view or letting the sun light pour in.  More windows are always welcome. And no more unsightly hole.

Boys in the bunks

Here’s another example.  Say you have a Little Cabin by the Big River (and yes, I know a lot of you say you’d LOVE to have such a cabin…)  and you need to build in sleeping for three people and one large dog. Space is limited.  Materials are plentiful in the various piles on the back road, but usually rather rough.

We processed a couple old rough cut 2×4’s left around from other projects and a bunch of 2×12’s salvaged from an old roof section we tore down years ago.  Took our measurements, made our cuts, and secured it all together onto the old log walls.  Gave it a test run (made it comfortably through the night) and think we’ve done pretty well with what we had.

This is not the finished product:  we’ll be building in shelves and bolt this together with some neat old hardware Bob salvaged elsewhere on the mountain. But it works for now.

It’s simple, it’s rough, but you know what?  It works. Pretty comfy; pretty cozy.  Lying there on our newly built beds, silent and peaceful and warm. No noise but the rush of the river, and the crackle of burning wood coming from the woodstove.  No power but the glow from the candle and the gas lamp.

Ah… here I go… distracted and dreaming again…

See what I mean, though?  I don’t think you’d find the need for these kinds of how-to projects on YouTube. Useful?  I don’t know. Entertaining, maybe.

In any case, our goal is to build all we need at no or minimal expense, to built with only the “stuff” (better word than “junk?”) from the piles. I’d imagine that comes as no surprise to any of you who may have been with me here for a while.

You see, giving any how-to advice for such projects is even harder than trying to share recipe with “a little bit of this and a little bit of that.”  To begin with, I don’t feel qualified to be giving advice.  Goes back to that part of feeling like though I’m 42 I still haven’t grown up yet.  

But I look around at the projects we work on,  at the way we look to tackle these projects. And although it’s not really the specific act or result that I want to share with you, it’s more like the general attitude or philosophy of how to approach any task at hand.  How to do something you’ve never done before, and really are rather unsure of how on earth you’ll ever figure this out.

I suppose it’s all just a reminder that we learn to deal with what we have, make the most of it all.  We can learn to decipher our needs and learn to fulfill them in the simplest way possible.  To remember to just start by starting.  And a reminder that we all can do well with so much less.  We can think beyond the box and find ways to creatively solve problems with what’s around us, at minimal or no expense. 

Sure this is about building and projects. But it’s about so much more too.

Sit back and read on, if you have a few minutes with me here today… I have a story to tell …A story I’ll share with you, but it also to serve as a reminder to myself about getting up and getting over it. About pulling yourself up when times are tough, and making the most of things. About knowing how strong we are, how much we can make it through, and what better people we become because of it all.

It starts with sanding.  I spent years sanding. I spent my pregnancy sanding.  That’s right.  Sanding.  I worked in the woodshop of a frame store, and I was the expert sander.  So Forrest spent his “in utero” life listing to a hand sander buzzing only inches away.  Hard work to do around a pregnant belly, but I managed to save enough during my pregnancy so that I could plan on taking a few months off after birth to just care for my baby.  And to build a house. Oh, it was a simple house. Very simple. The total cost was $1,500. But I built it myself with a little baby on my back, and we managed to live pretty comfortably in there – me, little Forrest, and a couple of big dogs.

The first home I built.

You may think it looks kind of rough, and maybe it was, but it was mine. Sure, my carpentry and construction skills have vastly improved since this first cabin I built, but hey, you have to start somewhere. Anyway, it was warm and cozy and dry. Very dry.  Once a week, I’d have to drive about 20 miles to get water to haul home in five gallon containers.  And still, I managed to have a small garden by dumping all our waste and wash water on the carefully prepared garden beds.

A woman I had met in college offered for me to come live there, to come build my own house of straw.  Seemed like a good idea at the time… I still look back on it, and hard as it was, it was a great thing. I learned an enormous amount about building, and surviving.

In the middle of construction. With baby asleep in the crib in the only shade around, and our tent "home" in the background.

I moved out there with my baby and dogs; set up a tent that we lived in for four months during the slow construction process. As many of you know, tents are not the most secure in the wind and monsoons. But it beat the other options. And when the wind wasn’t blowing, and the sun wasn’t baking it, and the temperatures weren’t too cold at night… which really, as I recall, was most of time – it was comfortable.  It was a fine little home.

Building the cabin was slow for me.  I had no idea what I was doing. None. Zip. Zilch. But I figured it couldn’t be Rocket Science.  People have been building homes for a long time and managing just fine. I could too.  All you have to do is start.

Start.  Pick yourself up each morning and just do something. One more step.  And with each step, you’ll be just a little closer to your goal.

I met a special old man there, like an apparition, one day he appeared while walking my dogs in the arroyo below the hill I was building on.  Turns out he (and his dogs) were building just a few hillside away.  Now, this man had lived.  More adventures, more sadness, more loss, and more knowledge, than I may ever have.  He would visit every day, stop by the “construction zone” and offer me tid bits of advice.  My mom had taught me well:  you don’t have to agree with everyone’s advice, but you might just want to listen.  The best advice he gave me was one day I “gave up,” with my baby fussing in one arm, the hammer idle in the other, and tears pouring down my sun burned cheeks, in complete frustration of my lack of knowledge, lack of ability, lack of progress.  He sat their calmly with his dogs madly running around, leaning back on a straw bale with yet another cigarette sending smoke signals from his dramatically waving hands, and he reminded me about the ants. One grain of sand at a time, he said. That is all they move.  But one after another after another.  And before you know, they have a whole intricate world built. And with that, the old man grabbed the heavy roll of roofing, effortless tossed it up on his shoulder, climbed the ladder, and put it on the roof for me. One grain of sand, he said. I think that’s the only physical help he ever gave me. His timing was impeccable. He proved his point, and well, and I still remember this today. When things seem hard and overwhelming, all I have to do is move one grain of sand at a time…

Anyway, I got that little cabin built before the snow settled in. I build it all without electricity, with simple hand tools that could all fit in one small tool box. The design, if we can call it that, began with a post and beam construction. I think it was 10×12 feet.  Yup, that’s it. The size of your closet probably. The walls were built of stacked straw bales on a foundation of plastic sheeting.  The doors and windows were built in with “lentil” framing. Chicken wire was “sewn” together, inside and out over the straw, with bailing wire for thread and a piece of rebar acting as a giant needle. With my hand as spreading tools and a little bucket to mix, I mudded the inside and outside over the straw and wire. Never got a floor in there.  That was way beyond my capabilities back then. The dirt stayed dry, but wasn’t much fun for a baby to crawl on.  At first, there was no room for a wood stove, so off that shed roof, I built on a 5 foot extension to the south that gave me enough room for a little pot belly stove. Burned less than ¾ of a cord of wood that winter, and it was a good, cold northern New Mexico winter. There is a lot to be said for small spaces.

No, it wasn’t ideal. Life often is not. I was not too sad to leave it when the woman who owned the land told me the next summer that she was selling. I remember once during the winter being so sick, just slumped there on the dirt floor with a raging fever, with my little baby in my arms, and really wishing someone would come find me, come help me.  I couldn’t call out, no one would hear. No way to call anyone, as the nearest phone wasn’t so near. I even tried to send “vibes,” you know, messages “out there.” No one came.  But I obviously made it, and I healed. And because of that, I sort of became less afraid of those things, and more realizing that no one was going to be there to help me sometimes, but we can do so much by ourselves. Basically, we can do almost anything, if it’s a good thing, and for a good reason. I learned we are capable of accomplishing, well, anything we want.  Just one grain of sand at a time.

Me and Forrest, made it through the winter, then moving on to our next construction site, starting to build yet another cabin...

The photo sent by the boys on their ride today.

This is the photo that just came in a text message with a note that says, “We are here, made it to where we’ve never been before, but having fun.”

And I don’t worry.  I can’t worry.  Bob and Forrest are out there today, exploring unchartered territory on snowmobile, having taken the day off from building the foaling shed and school studies respectively.  They are in the best of hands: each others, and the mountains. I trust both. And I know they care for, respect and have a deep understanding of both each other and their mountains as well.

There they are, out there in the far-off moonscape of the San Juan Mountains, miles and miles away from any one, even anyone else’s tracks, riding above tree line with nothing but white and wind blown peaks that look so strange and unfamiliar to me, yet another remarkable back country snowmobile ride of just the two of them, heading straight out from the ranch and riding over these daunting mountains over 25 miles away.

You wouldn’t think they need more added to this adventure, now would you? But there they are, on top of some ridge, and they pull out the cell phone and find they have service! That’s an odd and unexpected thrill for us. Yes, the cell phone worked from one of the mountains they found themselves on. We have no phone service here at our ranch, nothing even close (unless you call where the boys were “texting” me from as close). However we do have satellite internet connection, therefore they were able to “text” me and send this photo to me.  I feel very modern way out here sometimes…

So, for anyone visiting the ranch or this area, we now know the closest cell phone service from our ranch is 25 miles to the northwest. Though I suppose if you head the same amount of miles in the other direction, to the southeast, you might just reach service on the way to Creede.  And I suppose taking the road to Creede might be a little easier than finding your way up the mountain where the boys just found service today. 

The view of the Rio Grande at Brewster Park, a quick snow shoe from the ranch along the headwaters of the big river.

There are some things we take for granted.  Often times, the most simple.  Or rather, those things that appear so simple. Like flicking a switch to turn on a light.  Turning a faucet to have warm water rush out.  Walking into the kitchen and opening the fridge and knowing the ice cream will be frozen.  We can assume the street will be lit long after most folks are fast asleep.  We can assume in front of most every house is a green lawn; in every home a TV; and at the corner of every other intersection a convenient store. Sure seems like it.  We accept these simple truths and don’t question how or why. 

It appears so simple, yet it’s so complex.  Our lives have been simplified by these complex systems.  In a way… but I wonder… is this simplicity or blindness? Of course it is impractical for all city and town dwellers to concern themselves with the supplied water and electrical systems.  But awareness of these systems might not be a bad idea. With knowledge and understanding, there may follow more care and responsibility.

Living off grid, we know, we care and have to take responsibility. If we do not walk up the mountainside with our shovel after a rain to keep the creek flowing, we will not have water in our pipes.  If we do not keep that extra light turned off in the evening of a cloudy day, our power will not make it through the night.  If we don’t throw another log on the fire, the house gets cold. Very simple, I know. But we know.  We know where our power comes from (if you have an other few minutes, please see the post Power from the Sun). We know where our water comes from. And if we run out of either power or water, we have no one to blame but ourselves, and can call no one for that quick fix. We grab the shovel, and off we go.

From outside our cabin we can look up at our mountain and see the snow banks and know how much water we’ll have this summer. Or watch the snow bank disappear, and wonder if the water will make it to August when our late summer rains should come. We can see the shortage of water beginning, and can take responsibility for our use by reducing our consumption rather than get caught in the shower when the pipes run dry. We consider our water six months in advance.  If it’s been a “good” snowy year, we figure our water will be adequate through the summer.  If not, we are responsible for our own changes.

We watch the mountain and are constantly reminded from where our water flows. The reminder to conserve water and live responsibly is right in front of us.

A snowmobiler resting on the windblown top of Stony Pass, looking back at the mountains and drainage where the Rio Grande begins.

The Rio Grande begins here, several miles above our ranch. I wonder for how many this mighty river provides water, directly or through recharge? There isn’t much between us and the mountain that provides the first trickle which grows into the Big River.  During the summer, there may be several fishermen and a bunch of four-wheelers.  But during the winter, no one, just miles of icy river, still running beneath the snow, cutting its way ever through these white winter mountains which contain it, feed it.

A snowmobile jumps from the snowbank at top of Stony Pass, the first trickle of the Rio Grande begins right here.

This is where it all begins. A snow bank. How many tourists stop to play here in July as they pass by in their Jeeps bouncing up the road over the top of Stony Pass? Do they realize this is the very snow bank from which the Big River begins?  If they all just took a moment to consider.

This is where the river begins. Then look down river and wonder where it all will go…

For as much as I am reminded by nature to remain in the present season, something deep inside us always gives us reason to dream. We are stirred to see what is not yet there, but what could be there with just a little effort, just a little time. I do not want to stop dreaming. It is this force which drives us to do our best work, give others the most of ourselves, and build something beautiful where before there was nothing.

The Little Cabin by the Big River in the snow storm

Yesterday as the snow poured down, we walked down the new road to visit our Little Cabin by the Big River.  Just to be there, in the softness of the storm.  To sit there, to feel the shared solitude, to here the complete silence as the Big River remains tightly tucked under its deep blanket of snow. And once there, we began to envision it as our new home will be:  the wood stove will go here, the kitchen table there, some shelves here, lets build in our bunk beds there…

And outside in the big wide white world that surrounds that little cabin, we had to continue our dreaming:  the chicken coop will be here, the yard fence there, the foaling shed here, tack shed there, hay barn over there…

The view from the window of the Little Cabin by the Big River

It is a thrill for us to build from scratch.  It is just work and time, and I suppose some money for whatever materials we need to purchase above and beyond what we can use from our junk/recycled materials piles.  But it is a creation; building a homestead is a work of art.  And you talk about the clean slate, the blank sheet of paper – that is what we feel we have down by the Little Cabin. With the ground about it solid white, it reminds us even more so of the endless possibilities we can create there.  All we have to do is dream…

Now, yes, we could be having big dreams. But it’s us talking here. So we’re dreaming about things small, simple, frugal, green, safe, cozy, warm…

And then we began to think about the outhouse!  And the dreaming really was set free  First, where should it be?  Why, of course there by the bluff so you can leave the door open and have a magnificent view of down the canyon.  But the dreaming did not stop there, it only started, as we discussed an outhouse I once built when Forrest was a baby (my brother helped me dig the pit through the caliche – I bet he will never forget).  It was back in New Mexico, so again, we had sunshine, and I was going to use that sunshine! I designed the outhouse to be just a little large, and instead of “second hole,” I left a bench, above which I could hang my solar shower bag.  The roof was southern sloping, and made of clear corrugated roofing, so the outhouse would be warm, and the solar shower bag would be hot at the end of every day.

We discussed this concept, and the dreaming took off from there.  Well, the water from the solar showers could/should be used to grow herbs.  If you built a plank floor with plastic under it, sloped down towards a trough, this could water the herbs in front.  Nothing would be wasted. And with all this solar gain and protected natural heat, wouldn’t it be a good place to start plants? So shouldn’t we build in shelves for flats?  And what about humanure? Perhaps we don’t need to go there… As you can see, our dreams are simple, but we sure have fun with them. 

Under all this snow, and from the looks of the storm that is still lingering, it looks like we have another foot to add to the collection. It will be at least two more months before we see dirt down by the Little Cabin, and three at the soonest before there is any unfrozen and dry ground on which to build.  But in the meanwhile, we can dream.  And we do.