The other night Alice was sitting in her spot on the couch reading, Franco was on his rug sleeping, and the fire from the Jotul stove in the living room was throwing its light across the room. I looked at Alice and said, “this is really nice.”
We’ve been here nearly 40 years, and have done a lot of the work ourselves. At the beginning, I don’t think I ever visualized what the final product would be, because the work has been divided into fairly discrete projects. Still every project came out of our heads, and there must have been some sort of blueprint that governed them all, because the result has been a home we both really appreciate and enjoy.
We have friends that move a lot, something we haven’t done in so long that the thought of it scares me. But that is how they get the home they want. It is one way, and a fine way; it just isn’t the way we happen to have done things. When something in the house breaks or wears out, we replace it, usually with something we know will work for us because we’ve tried others, and have talked to people about their experiences. Once they get working again, they become part of the functioning home.
A lot of our satisfaction comes from eating food we’ve grown and harvested, wine we’ve brewed, heating with wood we’ve processed, and giving maple syrup we’ve made. In our 20s, we dreamed of going “back to the land.” I think others told us it would be hard, and they were right. And we are far from self sufficient as things stand right now. But we get closer every year to being able to feed and keep ourselves warm, and do it with style and grace. The feeling I get from all this is “really nice.”
Way to go, Ted. You’ve done it “your way.” Keep it going.
Comment by Jim Lutzke — January 13, 2015 @ 9:30 pm