Looking back

In early 2018, I wrote the following account of life on the upland prairie.

A year and a half has passed since those halcyon days, and while the outdoors continues to enchant, the trailer assuredly does not.

It is, of course, quite livable, if one does not mind tiny house living.

I have concluded that I do mind tiny house living.

Early summer is easier; the absence of mud and howling gales, and generators, wonderfully improves the spirits. There are baby quail to be glimpsed now and again, and spotted fawns making their appearance. The buzzards have returned to play in the wind currants, and tiny brown rabbits hide in the hedgerows, while robins sit boldly around the garden and in the fields. It is charming. We have a garden, at last, and a table filled with thriving seedlings waiting to be transferred to the garden. We have hopes of a harvest. Life is good.

The solar panels have been a godsend, and in summer, we use the generator in two-minute bursts, when we want to turn the blender on for the making of filbert milk. It is quite satisfying to live primarily on solar power. 
We never did get the drawers sorted out. However, I eventually grew weary of living on convenience food and re-commenced cooking, so there are more dishes to wash, but better food.

We also have become acquainted, and better, friends with, some of our neighbors; lovely people all, who make us feel as though we moved to a strange place and found ourselves home. Such a wonderful surprise.

Still I yearn for the house to be finished at last, to live in a space where there is, in fact, space, to move about and past each other, without edging sideways, and where every object has its proper place, located somewhere other than the middle of the living room.

Someday, this vision of heaven shall come to pass.

Meanwhile, enjoy this glimpse into our first winter.

Despite the accusations certain persons have leveled against me, of dragging the family into the wilderness to live in the center of the Vortex, things in the trailer are not as bad as expected.

Really, it's quite comfortable, despite the nearly non-stop rocking from the ever-present wind, and the over-abundance of mud. Exercise may be obtained at any time, by tracking down any items the wind has re-located to other areas of the property, or retrieving the dog when he ignores one's calls to come in.

Showers are less luxurious than one might wish for, of course, as we must be miserly with water, and the shower stall is approximately two feet by three feet, but then, one cannot have everything, and after the first two weeks, the presence of any running water seems a godsend.

We enjoy a lovely night-time walk every evening when we take the dog out to do any final business, and to refill the generator for the night. There are stars up here like we haven't seen in years, due to the lack of even small-town light pollution. And the lights from the trailer windows glow like a beacon as we cling to each other, fighting our way back to it through the driving wind and rain like characters from a B-grade Western.

It's easy to know when the generator needs refilling, because all of the power and lights abruptly go out, making it a simple matter of locating a working flashlight by feel, and going out to refill the thing. There are an amazing number of non-working flashlights littering the trailer.

If one holds the flashlight cord between one's teeth and leans over to shine the light into the gas tank, it can even be done by one person with relative ease – if one doesn't mind dripping the occasional bit of drool into the gas tank.

There is the downsizing aspect to get used to, of course. Our house was not a large one, but it was considerably larger than a travel trailer. The kitchen workspace is every bit as limited as expected. Or more so. No complicated cooking is taking place, to say the least. But that's just as well, because one has to be careful not to use too much water for washing dishes, lest one run the holding tank dry. To help matters in that department, we simplified by bringing a very limited number of dishes along, which greatly limits our ability to entertain.

To aid in the general prairie ambiance, we have started have a crock of sourdough working on the counter, ready for whipping up a batch of biscuits or hotcakes at a moment's notice. This has led to the rather frustrating discovery that gas stoves are terrible for cooking pancakes, unless you inefficiently cook them a single pancake at a time in the exact center of the pan, or more pragmatically decide to embrace a zen mindset and be content with wildly-uneven browning.

There's still no place to put many things, which continues to be a frustration, as anything that doesn't have a home gets continually tripped over in the six square feet of living room space. Some things, of course, have to live there, such as the ubiquitous and always-dirty dog towel, to remove the pounds of mud he accumulates every time he goes outside.

The canine in question is a terrier who has moved to a dog's idea of heaven – a farm where he can dig to his furry little heart's content. For the first couple of weeks, he dug nonstop every day for hours, until we made him come indoors for the night. Eventually, he must have either gotten it out of his system, or gotten sore muscles, because he has since slacked off – although not before creating a landmine of foot-sized holes to fall into all over the landscape, thus encouraging mindfulness and attention to one's surroundings while walking.

Since he uses his teeth to help pull out stubborn chunks of grass and dirt, it is necessary to de-mud his mouth every time he comes in – preferably before bringing him inside -- because otherwise he sits around spitting little chunks mud on the floor until he clears it himself. I really cannot imagine why the builders of travel trailers insist on carpeting them.

There are, of course, mice in this rural location, and since the demise of the first bold one at the paws of the cat, they have, unfortunately, been clever enough to remain in areas where neither the cat nor the dog can get to. From these areas, they can easily access clothing and storage drawers. As we have wearied of being unable to use most of the drawers, the husband of the house has been assigned to obtain sheets of plexiglass to make covers for them, in hopes of rendering them usable. This, one hopes, ought to help reduce general clutter. He is also supposed to be in charge of locating all mouse-sized holes in the structure and caulking them.

He may first, however, need to recover from the mild head injuries incurred by daily banging his head on the lowered ceiling area around the sides of the living room. It is not always an advantage to be tall.

It is also not always an advantage to be short, as this necessitates needing a ladder for the simplest of activities, such as getting anything out of a cupboard, or breaking in through a window at need.

Fortunately, I suppose, we balance each other out in this respect, and, no doubt, will come to constitute quite an efficient working partnership.

Recently, we have procured photovoltaic panels to provide electricity in place of the generator, and are greatly looking forward to enjoying the peace of the countryside in actual peace and quiet.