The Road Show

So that thing about "yielding to life" I mentioned in my last post... well, let's just call it a well-timed lesson learned.

The sandstorm that came through in my last post was stronger than I thought. As soon as I'd picked up my shovel to set down roots, the winds changed and picked me up instead. I closed my eyes to this...

 

...and opened them up to this:

 Oz, minus the shorties.




The thing about having a home on wheels is, I'm at the mercy of the winds. Without the security that "owning" land seems to bring, being landless is starting to cultivate in me a sense of open-endedness that would otherwise make me cringe. I like resolution. I like clarity. I like boundaries. Because like a clean room or a high vantage point, being able to see all obstacles in my way... feels like freedom. Help me out, Petey Pablo....

"Barricades? I run right through 'em. Used to 'em."

Wading in murky waters is trickier. There's just no predicting when the ground will disappear from beneath your feet. In that moment, you are no longer the being decisively placing feet to sand, resisting or weathering the currents at will. At the jump off point, you are equal parts rock, pressure, water, temperature, and agenda. And footloose is where I found myself a few weeks ago.

One day I'm standing at my trailer door, looking out over endless miles of high desert mesa, shovel in hand, waiting for winds to abate and sands to settle. The next, I'm watching a backhoe pull my home's face through the desert's skin with no choice but to grit my teeth and trust I'd know what to do next.

As it turns out, the security I perceived I would have as caretaker for that property shifted when the new tenant's enthusiasm for a neighbor "that close by" fizzled. Unlike the complete sickness I felt the first time I was displaced, this news wasn't as much of a rift. A little irksome, sure. But not worry-inducing. Maybe it was because out there in the ethers, another hard-working woman needed help with her land and immediately welcomed my shiny shelter onto the property. 

It's taken nearly a month of getting settled in... and we're still far from sitch-i-ated. A new challenge this go-round: I am too far from electricity to lean on that comfort. Through the last 3 moves, it's probably kept me sane. But I tell you what, I made it through the time of year when I may well have gouged my eyes out without a little electrical current flowing. Days are longer, nights are (much!) warmer, and the puppies are old enough (and completely badass enough) to kick it on their own outside while I tend to off-grid shenanigans.

And they are plenty.

Part of yielding to life has been accepting a challenge in this moment here, not that moment there. I tend to plan, study, question, practice, research, theorize..... and then commit when the chance of an enormous screw-up is at its lowest. It's why I did so well in school but took 14 years to really know how to drive a stick shift. (Note: this is no claim to talent... but I'll try and fake it.) When I bought this beast of bling, I planned to re-imagine its feature with remote locations in mind. I'd save up for solar panels and add components little by little, while learning about photovoltaic systems, as well as water catchment and filtration, composting and humanure, food growing and preserving, and blossom from there... safely. 

And I've now been pushed to figure this stuff out even quicker than I had figured on. 

I.... may be a little stubborn. Some say hard-headed.

Call it what you like. It may have taken progressively more in-my-face problems arising to make me reshuffle my deck, but once I do it's a complete fixation. The fantastic thing about this moment in my life is that it's taken the guesswork out of prioritizing almost all together. What feels most important usually is. .... And feeling like I'm on the right track indulges the ol' hard head.

Now, about this List... 

Several things I had planned and dreamt of doing have had to change, while new, equally intriguing (to me) efforts are necessarily under weigh. 

Here's my adjusted outlook:

1. Frame and skirt trailer with found wood.

2. Find wood. And a good assortment of other building materials, for a shed, a storage trailer, gravity water feed, and next year's heating array.

3. Deck trailer. I have some shorty pressure-treated 2x4s, so I may instead build a boardwalk across the acequia ditch I've got running past me and link it to my "front porch."

4. Stain fence and wood. (Fence is already up - made out of old sagebrush, still in the ground)

5. Relocate fire pit*

6. Build portal/ open-sided shed and outfit for water harvesting (with solar panel mounting in consideration when constructing.... ****)

7. Dig up and replant trees from horse pasture. A slew of different tasks on this property. Digging and adjusting ditches is a current theme, as it's acequia season.

8. Spread compost and soil to plant native grass yard. Amazingly... this place already has grass! Oh, the joys of living in a watershed.

9. Line out and double-dig garden. (On hold until we straighten out neighbor conflicts, so I know I'll be able to stay through growing season**)

10. Build outhouse. Done! Already has a shed nearby that's not in use, so... I availed myself and discreetly located a sawdust bag and bucket within. ....Sorry, aforementioned neighbors.... wait, no I'm not.
11. Build solar shower and line shower pit with rock behind trailer.(Water can flow in old unused ditch, to then water apple and elm trees just beyond.)

12. Gather manure from pasture for compost. (... Yeah, I'll probably just put on the shit-kickers and do what they suggest. Seeing as it's all I step in, I'll just relocate it from my front step to a useful pile.)

13. Set up straw bale cold frame and straw bale/pallet compost area/ Get straw bales and pallets. (Warmer weather may come sooner than my cold frame... we'll see.)

14. Dig grey water reservoir and trench to passively water compost and plants; line with gravel. (See #11)

15. Drive posts and fence garden. **
16. Plant garden and build hoop house.

17. Develop outdoor refrigeration and food storage. (Still working on primitive back-ups, but HUGE thanks to my former land lady for GIVING me a propane fridge.  ....Now to get the truck across the acequias to place fridge on my side of the world. That's a whole other story.)

18. Drive posts and build gate for yard.

19. Purchase small solar set up to get started. (Two MAJOR developments on this front***)

20. Build doggie cubby Maybe we'll wait till they're bigger... of course, they're headed for 70-90 pounds, it seems. So shouldn't be too long a wait.

* I think it's time to think about a rocket stove. It would be portable cooking and could transform into a winter heating solution. They're really brilliant and super-efficient, and as this mountain town goes, I happened to run into someone who teaches classes in building them. You know....I think I still need a fire pit....

** Sweet 8-pound Baby Jesus, please let the neighbors' hind stick extraction procedure go smoothly... See, there's this issue of a "sacred space" immediate beside which my abominable wonder of aluminum innovation seems to have sidled right up. Many seem to share my dear friend's sentiment ("Sounds like they eat shit, to me."), but I'm at the bottom of this totem pole. I must await the go-ahead before commencing to weave the 10-or-so-foot willow fence I offered to build. It will cut off some precious solar gain for my garden, but so go society's misplaced priorities. Growing food is the one thing I can't seem to fully adapt to the Road Show. I imagine a thriving, steadily improving fertile food space will be the apply of my "own" land's eye one day. I'll notice what returns year to year and yell "Git!" to the Bunny and Horse annually testing their impulse to tromp through the best soil. Until I feel even demi-permanent here, I wander about my well-lit and able-bodied hours just dreaming of driving posts.

 *** But today... I have power. Thanks to a good, back-havin' friend, I got a great deal on a great generator. Being new to these things, I didn't realize they could come equipped plug-and-play style. So here I am, interTubin' without a time limit. In addition, I found a great price on a 210-watt solar panel, so I snapped it up as well. With a little better understanding of what my system needs (and the okay from fellow canyon-dwellers), I'll be ready to finish buying the remaining components, and on to devising a sweet, sturdy, transportable mounting schematic:

**** Here's what I'm thinking. I'll start with a good sized roof (6' x 10'?) that could hold up to 3 panels like the one I bought, and raise it up off the ground to a height equal to the tolerance of potentially torch-wielding villagers. Determine the pitch needed for optimum solar gain and cover with glazing, perhaps. Attach gutters and catch water in the rain barrel I have now. Between this structure and the lovely willows, the mini trailer park WT junkyard I've strewn across this pasture should be nicely camouflaged. From there, there are a million ways I could divert, pressurize, filter, and reuse the collected water.

Who knows where all this is going. I can't even delve into the humbling experiences that have come with the act of yielding. Ah, humility. Lawd knows I need it.