soon, but my computer time is limited these days…
The wilderness adventure continues…except it isn’t very wild, since we are twenty minutes from a decent sized village. But we are still far off the grid, which doesn’t bother me, aside from the everlasting, unending, eternal RAIN. I need to check my diary notes, but I think it has rained every day for a month except for July 1 (Canada Day). The ground is soaked, the road is mud except for the rocky ridges, and the firewood is wet, wet, wet. Which wastes valuable calories drying it out before it will properly burn, if it does that. We’ve been using gopher wood (when you need wood you gopher it – found wood) and unless it is standing dead trees, there’s not much chance that it will be dry enough to burn without a couple of days behind the stove. We are giving in this weekend and buying some split wood to get through the month.
And the laundry is way behind, since it has to hang on the line to dry, and that doesn’t work. After a day or two of soaking rains, I take it in and hang it wherever near the stove.
And the cost of gasoline…I ran up a little budget today and we really cannot afford to drive the truck more than one day a week. Really. So I have to ask forgiveness for this – but I’ll have to shop on the Sabbath after church. I’ve got about two or three weeks of food on the shelf, counting a few meals of potatoes with a side of potatoes. So maybe I can avoid the Sabbath Shopping dilemma for a while.
What are you doing where you are to offset the high cost of fuel, heating, and grain? Are people going without instead of buying? Are we looking at possible nutritional problems?
Living off the grid puts you in closer touch with the basics of life, like water. To rinse out something large, or get any force of water pressure, I have to carry the piece down to the stream, squat by the side of the path and lean over. I’m usually wet by the time I’m done.
Our water comes froma beautiful little spring, through a pipe and into a moss-lined natural basin. My dilemma was that I did not have a suitable pail to carry water when we arrived. The only pail was a two gallon plastic bucket with no bail or handle. If you’ve ever tried to carrya pitcher or jug or pot of water any distance in your arms you know the result. You are soaked from the shoulders down. I looked everywhere for some rope or heavy yarn or alarge piece of cloth.
And then it was like a revelation. We had two canvas carrier bags for groceries. I put the pail inside one and found it was the easiest possible way to carry the pail back, better than the original wire bail or handle. After years of carrying water in pails to sheep, why hadn’t I thought of it before? Also, if you have a dog and a water bucker, make sure to cover it or place it high so your friend doesn’t use it for a waterbowl. (I found my dog doing this.)
Now I wish for a rain barrel and matching eavestrough…that’sr ain gutters to Americans! Nothing is better than rain water for washing clothes or yourself, especially hair. Right now, I wash clothes just before a rainstorm and hang them on the line to get rinsed naturally! Sometimes they have to come in before dark and be hung beside the stove to dry as I’m cooking supper, but I’m in no hurry these days.
Off the grid, my free Pfaff isn’t much use. I used to use a treadle machine at the museum, but where does one find a good old foot-powered machine without paying the hefty price for a new one sent over from the States? A lot of the machines have been converted to decorative objects. The last one I saw for sale was $75 and in poor shape, with foot, belt and parts of the cabinet veneer missing!
Perhaps I need to sit down with the computer and do a search on the free classfieds, but doesn’t that seem a bit of a dichotomy…using hi speed internet on a digital computer to look for a people powered machine?
I used to be an artist. Galleries showed my work. People sometimes bought it. Some it was impressionist landscape; moonlit winter scenes sold best. They had a Nordic charm to them, perhaps, a kind of hard-edged mysticism. I did a lot of collage, as well, a woman’s art, with religious and mythic themes. It didn’t sell much, but it was shown a lot.
And then I stopped. I didn’t need to create anymore, and art is a poor, secondhand kind of creation. I’ve read Bishop N.T. Wright on art and music, and it’s not that I disagree, but I no longer find much importance in it. Rarely do the creative arts transcend the ego of the artist.
And that would include me. Too much ego was involved, and in all honesty, I soured on the constant push to produce something that would sell. I didn’t care that Van Gogh sold almost nothing in his lifetime but is reckoned a genius. I agree, he was. But he died an ill, suicidal, bitter-souled artist. Certainly, I am no Van Gogh in mood or talent.
I think I always disliked the creative compulsion. It is too selfish. I disliked the childish dare-you attitude of the art world, always pushing to shock and intimidate. I disliked the accolades given to both the outrageous and the sentimental. I was dismayed by the messy personal lives of so many artists, by their arrogance and their introspection that made servants of their families.
Yet I appreciate a lot of art. We live with icons around us. They are constant prayer, a praying without ceasing that connects the subject, the iconographer and the viewer in the divine presence.
I like the visionary paintings by an 18th century Quaker on the theme of the Peaceable Kingdom. It is the landscape of the soul, a yearning for the New Creation, the fulfillment of the incarnation. Naif in style, the animals have almost human expressions; they are as spiritual as any of the great cathedral works of art. There is a depth to the Kingdom paintings unappreciated by a generation or so who think of them as mere Americana, a suitable decoration for a Colonial themed room. Seen with Quaker eyes they are a powerful statement, icons in their own right.
Perhaps some day I will again be able to visit a museum or art gallery with aprpeciation of the artists’ endeavours, but now I feel too much pity and sorrow for the paltriness of human vision without divine inspiration.
We are off-grid again. I like that life, Nicholas doesn’t notice the difference, really (except for missing the last Stanley Cup playoffs) and the dog is in heaven. This is really nice off-grid – woodburning cookstove, beautiful natural spring, and a luxurious, well-ventilated, shaded outhouse.
I am not ashamed to say that the little shack out back is much preferable to the “throne room” of most homes. I dislike in-house toilets, I really do. That stuff belongs outside! And the outdoor room doesn’t break down (except from rot eventually) and never requires a plumber, just a shovel, a strong back, and someone to help move the shack.
Weekly maintenance means a quick scrubdown, sweep-out, and a shovelful of leaf mould down the hole to speed up decomposition. Some people, with big families, like to use some lime to keep things breaking down and smelling sweet.
The most important consideration is that the outhouse be downhill of the spring, to avoid contamination. Make sure your neigbours don’t install their thundershack uphill or upwind of your place, either!
Ours is framed of one by twos, with rough boards, which makes it breezy and pleasant in the summer, but for winter, I would suggest shingled, board and batten, or at least tarpaper to keep out the drafts and snow.
The door should latch from the outside as well as the inside, since you don’t want small animals deciding it is a really nice abode or winter storage shed.
As for the required cleanliness paper, standard, unbleached TP will do, or plain newspaper if you are the uber-recycling type. Small rodents love to steal TP as nest lining, so keep it in a covered coffee can.
For handwashing, I keep a basin and hot water on the stove, along with soap and a towel near by. We have had no problems with this system, and the only downside is when you have to get up in the dark hours, find the flashlight, and make yor sleepy way down the path…
Summer is upon us in the Northern hemisphere, and I don’t think I’ve seen so much exposed cleavage outside a LaLeche League meeting. We can’t speak to unbelievers about their behaviour. We have to witness to them first, show them the way of Christ, and then lead them into Godly ways.
But young Christian (and older) women – what are you thinking? Who would ever know that you have opened your Bible and read the epistles of Paul and Peter? You look and act and talk worldly. What difference is Christ making in your life? What kind of witness is that? Dressing in worldly and salacious ways is the same as lying down with pigs. You will get up covered in mud.
Paying too much attention to your clothes, face and hair means you are concerned about the world’s opinions. Be more concerned with the state of your soul!
Sisters of an age, you should be examples. Instead you are wearing tight jeans and shorts, tops suited for much younger and slimmer women, and cutting off your hair while dying it artificial colours. Are you unhappy with your years of experience and wisdom? Can your daughters look up to you as examples of Christian virtue and humility? Apparently not, because you are all about vanity and self-interest. Christian sisters for millenia have turned to the wisdom of the apostolic church to order their lives, but we now turn away from that tradition and go after the world.
God sends help in so many ways. Sometimes it is immediate, as in a gift that aids the family through economic hardship. Sometimes it is finding a quiet community of Christians and Friends right under our feet, who sustain us in other ways, through their love, presence and faithf. We have had both blessings lately, and the Lord has heard our prayers and acted on them. We await, in time, answers to other prayers, about housing, employment and health. We pray for reconciliation in our families. I pray always “Maranatha!’ “Lord, come to us.”
It is our best and most important prayer. Lord, come. We wait for you. We are hard at work in the vineyard, and we see the setting sun, and we wait for you to call us from our labours and lead us to a place of rest and plenty. Lord Jesus, come to us!
This past year my husband and I read John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart. He found it very liberating and I found it informative about how modern men feel in today’s world. They feel weak and emasculated very often. This is a book from a strong Christian perspective, about men claimingf their God-given place as men, not as drones, or worse, as hairy, ugly, not very bright women.
I believe that we have elevated women to a cult standing, that feminization has diminished our men. I don’t like it. I agree with Eldredge, that men are meant to be adventurous, protective and brave. They were not meant to trail after a woman in malls and carry her purse while she tries on shoes. They were not meant to sit quietly while wife, boss, president, kids rage and rant at them over every imagined slight. Men need to stand up for themselves, need to accept the role that they see in following Christ, and they need to get out there and change the world for the good. They are to open the doors to the kingdom of heaven, and lead the flock in. They are to storm the bastions of hell and rout Satan, fighting alongside their Lord.
Women have a place in this too. Every Christian is a front line soldier. Our weapons aren’t steel swords and hand grenades, but prayer, scripture and the example of a Godly life. Men build, women maintain. Men defend, women sustain. These are complementary roles. And there are times, sisters, when we will be in the front line, so be ready. Pray without ceasing, know the scripture, make your own life as close to Christ as you can. Repent of sin and turn away from it, so that you may stand tall and strong as well, and shoulder the burden God will lay on you.
Right now my husband is dealing with a terrible injury to his body, brain and mind. he lost a lot, but he has not lost his faith or his will to serve Christ. he knows that he isn’t marching in the front line, that he willt ake a support role, at least for a while, but he had prepared his heart with prayer and silence for this difficult time, and that work has paid off. Unlike many stroke patients, he has not suffered from depression or despair. He is prepared to move on and work in whatever role God gives him. He sustains me with his love and trust,a nd gives me courage to go on, even when so much looks hopeless.
He is still the strong man Christ led him to be. What a blessing that is.
Pray always – especially so, when nothing else can happen without it! it’s an illusion that we control our lives, at least we cannot control them in a positive way; all that is good comes from God. Pray without ceasing. That is true theology, the true God-speaking, the unending communion with God in the light of the Holy Spirit.
A lot has happened in the last two months, and it is still way too hard to carry this burden alone, so I wait on God. The work is His while the anxiety is all mine! Each day, though, brings a new blessing, large or small.
What does God want me to learn from all this? What is my immediate task? I am still trying to find out.
