Tag Archives: Adirondacks

Cabin Life – #52

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Remnants of the apple crop
The best feature of my cabin is the big window.  It’s probably four by four, with two smaller windows on either side that open to let in fresh air.  With myself, a dog and two cats living in this one room cabin, fresh air is a precious and much needed commodity.

The big window is on the south side of the cabin, looking down the driveway and over what used to be the garden.  I can see Lower Field, Left Trail, and last year’s junk wood pile.  The old plow is right in front and a half-dozen apple trees are in plain view.  I can see Whiteface Mountain, but only the summit.

There’s also two birdfeeders in front of the big window.  This is Ed and Herbie’s entertainment.  I get a lot of black-capped chickadees, but have also had blue jays, red-breasted nuthatches and house finches.  I’ve seen deer, ruffed grouse, turkeys and porcupines through the big window too.

My solar panels are just outside, underneath the window so they can catch as much sun as possible during the shortening days as winter sets in.  I have been really disappointed with my solar lights and radio.  One of the lights stopped working altogether when I moved the panel outside.  I looked at it today and was going to try re-wiring it, but noticed that the switch on the panel was in the “off” position.  I’ll give it a day or two, but I have a feeling that I fixed the problem.

But looking out the window, I think about how this place makes me learn, and makes me want to learn.  I didn’t know what a house finch was until some time this past February.  I assumed that a red-breasted nuthatch was a weird looking chickadee.  And I didn’t care or want to learn about taking care of apple trees.

Now I know some new birds, and am going to spend some time this winter reading up on the care of apples.  I’d love to make apple jelly next fall, and use next winter to make applejack.  (For those of you who don’t know what applejack is, you take hard cider and freeze it, then skim off the unfrozen alcohol.  This is what Johnny Appleseed actually planted all those apple trees for.)

There’s about thirty apple trees out here.  There’s about a dozen in Lower Field, and maybe ten in Upper Field.  I’ve found a few more scattered throughout the woods too.  When I moved out here last fall, there were some apples still on the trees, and a few were really good.  It’s apparent that there are a number of varieties, but the trees haven’t been touched in years.  I’d like to do some pruning and trimming to help get the apples going again.

This year there were basically no apples, but that was because they all bloomed in March when it was so warm, and then the blossoms got hit and killed by frost.  It was a common problem up here.  I’m hoping that by giving them some TLC next year, I can get a crop of all kinds of different kinds of apples.  I bet the mix will make the applejack taste fantastic.

 

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Cabin Life – #51

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Lichen
Every morning there are tracks in my driveway.  Sometimes they’re deer tracks, or the random dog that occasionally wanders through, or, like this morning, they’re fox tracks.    With only a dusting of snow on the ground, I’m not sure why different animals seem to frequent the driveway, but I almost always stop on my way to work to see who had come through the night before.

I do mean a dusting too.  The lack of snow is great for getting things done outside, but obviously horrible for skiing.  Last week we got about six inches.  I got the plow hooked up to the four-wheeler and, miraculously, got it started.  I plowed the snow off the driveway just to practice with the new set up.  By Monday afternoon, the only place there was snow was where I had made snowbanks.  Good thing I didn’t actually break my finger putting the plow on.  It really felt broken when I slammed it.

Monday afternoon, I decided to take the four-wheeler again and use it to drag a tree out of the woods.  Now, this four-wheeler and I have a sort of love-hate relationship.  I hate it and it loves to not start or go in reverse.  On the occasions when it is running, I use it for two main purposes:  to drag next year’s fire wood to the cabin and to ride around on the trails for no particular reason.  I’d like to say that Pico goes with me, but he’s always trying to bite the tires, which can’t possibly end well, so he stays at the cabin.

During Hurricane Sandy, a large tree snapped in half way up at the end of the Left Trail.  My friend who owns the property doesn’t want me cutting live trees, so I’m constantly on the lookout for good dead stuff.  Good or bad, it was also a poplar.  Not the greatest fire wood, but it burns clean and since it’s free and there’s a ton of it, who cares if it burns faster than hardwood?

The tree had broken pretty cleanly about thirty feet up the trunk.  After I dropped the rest of the trunk and limbed it and pulled out the parts that are big enough to burn, I probably have about a cord and a half of wood just from this one tree.  I cut eight foot logs (give or take) and ended up with seven of them.

Now, back to the four-wheeler.  It does not go in reverse.  It came with the property, and no one seems to have any idea when it was last serviced or repaired.  So, I just have to deal with it.  Typically, I only drive it where I can turn around, otherwise I have to get off and push it back to wherever I need it.  This is not a good set up when you are on a hill.  Luckily the big poplar wasn’t on a hill, but it also wasn’t in a place where I could drive in and turn around.  So I ended up having to drag the logs to the four-wheeler because I couldn’t push it back far enough to hook them up.

The first couple of logs from the top of the tree weren’t that heavy, so I could move them whole.  The logs from the base of the tree, where it was about twenty inches in diameter, were much heavier.  I grabbed the chainsaw and cut the eight foot logs into four foot logs.  I couldn’t lift them whole, but I could flip them end over end the twenty feet or so to the four-wheeler.

The first fat and short log I grabbed was the heaviest.  I got it to the back end of the four-wheeler and wrapped a strap around it several times.  I hooked the strap to the trailer hitch and made it all of one foot before the strap came off.  This log did not want to go anywhere.  I did a different rig to hook the log to the trailer hitch.  Made it about ten feet before the strap broke.  Not really having any other options, I flipped the log up against the real cargo rack and slid it up onto the rack.  I strapped it down with my severely shortened tie-down and drove it back to the cabin yard.  When I shoved the thing off, the back end of the four-wheeler went up about three inches.  It was a heavy log.

I had to do that six more times to get all that fire wood down to the cabin yard.  It may be free, but I’m paying for it now.

 

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Cabin Life – #50

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Snow
The tea kettle is warming up on the stove so I can have the first of many, many cups of tea today.  There’s cough drop wrappers strewn about the table and all of my handkerchiefs are in the laundry basket.  I hate being sick.

The worst part about this particular cold is that I finally took a day off from work and had to spend it lying on the couch doing nothing.  It was a beautiful day yesterday, with the first real snow of the year settling on the ground.  Being in a snow belt, I got a few more inches than most people and if there was any possibility of being able to breathe through my nose, I would have loved to go out for my first cross-country ski of the year.

But instead, I stayed inside and read, did a little shoveling and basically just drifted in and out of consciousness all day.  It was nice to look out the window at the winter scene that is my yard, though.  The pale blue sky played against the blinding whiteness of six inches of snow.  The sun created sparkles all over, always changing as the trees swayed in the wind.  This is my favorite part of winter.

It was about this time last year that I started writing the Cabin Life series, and believe it or not, this is the fiftieth essay I’ve written about living off the grid in this little cabin.  I’ve talked about the weather and birds, family and depression, difficulties and joys.  The outhouse, Upper Camp and Pico.  I like writing this way, about whatever happens to pop into my mind when I sit down at the computer.  I like that I have to wear a headlamp to write on my laptop.

After over a year, I do not regret moving out here.  I miss hot showers.  And on days like yesterday, it would have been nice to lie around and watch whatever nonsense was on TV.  Other than that, I don’t miss anything I used to have.  I lived in a nice two bedroom townhouse three blocks from the ocean when I left Jacksonville.  I liked being near the beach, but feel that the only thing I really gave up was the stress and endless hours of work necessary to afford that life.  I worked two jobs for five straight years.  I know lots of other people have done this, but I don’t have kids or a mortgage.  I did it to keep up with the Jones’, so to speak.  And after simplifying my life and wants and needs, I realize that I don’t care what the Jones’ are up to.  The best part is that I won’t ever again care what they are up to.

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Cabin Life – #49

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It’s Thanksgiving week, and there’s no snow on the ground.  There’ve been some heavy frosts, and I’ve had to scrape my windshield most days in the last week.  Right now there’s a heavy frost covering the apple trees and the sun is coming up over Whiteface.  I really wish my camera battery was charged.

When I was growing up, I had a running bet with my grandfather that there would be snow on the ground Thanksgiving morning.  We always hosted dinner, sometimes with more than twenty people, but Grandpa would always walk in and give me five bucks and not say anything to me.  I would grin and pocket the money, happy in my ability to predict the weather.  Of course, most years, there was already snow on the ground before Thanksgiving, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that I had a pretty good streak of winning that bet.

And then one year when I was ten or eleven or twelve, I woke up Turkey Day morning to the sight of no snow.  I had what should be described as a very easy childhood, and I assumed that Grandpa would ask for his money, but not really demand it.  I did not know Grandpa as well as I thought.

He came walking in the side door of our house on Fifth Ave in Gloversville.  There were a few steps to walk up into the kitchen, and when he crested the third step and saw me, I inherently learned the phrase “sh*t-eating grin.”  It was a very clear lesson.  He was getting his five bucks and he was going to enjoy every single second of it.

Grandpa was, by any definition, “old school.”  He had a large leather recliner, everyone else got the couch or the floor or a folding chair.  And it was his remote.  His and his alone.  We stayed at the dinner table until plates were clean.  There was absolutely no wrasslin’ in the house.  But he was gruff in a way that told you how much he cared about  you.  Just don’t tick him off.

As I grew up, and even after he passed away, I got to know Grandpa better.  He would have liked that I was living out here.  There’s no way he would do it, but I’m sure that he would have some stories and old woods tricks to share to help me along.  I remember the way he smiled, and his eyes would get all squinty.  It’s a trait that I inherited, and when I smile I usually think about him, which just makes me smile more.

 

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Cabin Life – #48

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A reader recently asked me what a normal day out at the cabin was like.  Unfortunately, most of my days consist of getting up, going to work, and coming home to go to bed.  But on the weekends and when I’m not working, I’ve settled into a nice routine mixed with plenty of different chores.  No, not chores.  Activities.

Pico or Ed usually wake me up on the weekend, so I get to sleep in until about six.  After ignoring them for an indeterminate amount of time, I relent and get their food.  Then Pico and I take a walk up the Right Trail to the Upper Camp.  I check the log cabin that’s another quarter mile or so into the woods.  I live in the middle of nowhere, and Upper Camp is even closer to the center of the middle of nowhere.

Upper Camp was built by the previous owners and is a pretty big log cabin.  Not huge, but more than twice the size of my place.  When people see it, they ask why I don’t live there instead of in my little shack.  First, there’s no way I could get someone to plow it.  Going to Upper Camp is at least three-quarters of a mile from the road.  Second, because it is so big, I would need a lot more wood to heat it.  And the main reason is that Upper Camp is the “weekend getaway” for my landlord.

After I make sure no windows are broken and no trees have come down on the place, Pico and I bushwhack off to the east towards the Left Trail.  Sometimes we go a little further into the woods and partway up the hill out back, but mostly we just cut through to the Upper Field.  This is essentially a big, brush-covered extension of my yard.  If I’m lazy (Pico never is) then we just head back to my cabin.  Otherwise we’ll make our way to the Left Trail and then head back down.

Once we’re back at the cabin, I grab a large pot and go to the little stream.  I put the pot on the wood stove to get some moisture in the air.  I also recently started keeping the tea kettle on the wood stove, which seems like something I should have started doing a year ago.  I’m still learning how to do this whole off the grid thing.

Then I’ll usually take the chainsaw and head off to cut some dead trees.  I buck them up into manageable pieces so I can carry them back to the yard.  I like to block them up and split the logs right then, so my pile of wood for next winter gets bigger all year long.  Sometimes I’ll go work on the trails that haven’t been used much (most of them), I’ll go clear brush and try to open the trail a little bit.

I guess mostly though, my life off the grid is a lot like most people’s.  I have to wash dishes and brush pets and bring wood in for the stove.  I cook and sweep and do yard work.  Sure, I have to put in more than the usual effort due to the lack of running water, but other than that, I’m pretty normal.  You know, normal for a guy with no running water.

Cabin Life – # 47

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There’s big fat flakes of snow slowing drifting down out of the sky.  I just threw a few logs in the wood stove and the small waft of smoke that escaped is mixing with the aroma of the black beans I’m simmering on the stove.  It’s a nice night to be out here in the cabin.

Ed’s curled up next to the computer and his tail is leisurely hitting the back of my hand.  Herbie’s asleep and snoring on the foot stool near the woodstove while Pico is contentedly laying on the bed.  The temperature is supposed to go up a little in the next few days, but for now, it feels like winter.  If it does warm up, it will be a nice treat.

My parents came up this weekend to help stack the wood in the shed.  Four cords are in there, along with the other four stacked outside under tarps.  It’s nice to be all set with heat for the winter, bringing a deserved sense of satisfaction in having taken care of that one aspect.  When you live in nature, like most Adirondackers, you try to control what you can, knowing that you can’t control it all.  No one knows what type of winter it will be, but we can get ready the best we know how, and in the spring take pride in the fact that we made through another one.

As I watch the candle light flicker against the wood paneled walls, I can’t help but think about the path that brought me here.  Fighting depression, anxiety, stress, and self-loathing, I ended up in this little shack in the middle of nowhere.  I have no neighbors but wild animals.  I have to go outside to use the “bathroom.”  I force myself to have contact with the outside world, otherwise I’d be a little afraid of what I might do or become.  I do not want to be the Unabomber.

I do want a simpler life though.  No life is free from stress, but ensuring that there’s a fire going is usually the biggest worry of the day.  That, and the temperature of the seat in the outhouse.  That’s a big concern.  I once heard someone say that depression is like a train that comes barrleing along, and the only thing you can do is hold on as best you can.  I think that’s an apt metaphor, and one I relate to well.  The nice thing about being out here is that I haven’t heard that train whistle in a long time.  And I now have the confidence to know that I will be able to hold on the next time it comes around.  Trust me, that’s a stress reliever if I ever knew one.

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Cabin Life – #46

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There’s snow flying around in the air.  It’s been snowing on and off all day, with some sticking to my car this morning, but there’s none on the ground.  I noticed the slightly silvery coloring of the pines and hemlocks from snow sticking to the branches, though.  I’m glad it’s not sticking on the ground yet, but it won’t be long, and even though it’s been cold, we’ve been lucky that the snow didn’t start flying a week or two ago.

They say that this is the remnants of Hurricane Sandy, which at the cabin turned out to be a whole lot of nothing.  We had a wind storm last winter where I could hear trees coming down with a fair amount of regularity, but this past Monday night didn’t add up to much.  There was one branch down on my road, so it turned out I didn’t need to bring my chainsaw with me.  But I guess it’s good that I was prepared to cut my road clear to get to work.  Or maybe it’s not good.  I don’t know.

The one thing that struck me about Sandy was that everyone was preparing for the worst.  They were prepared to not have power for days or even weeks.  And I realized that the phrase “Oh no, the power might go out” really doesn’t enter my day-to-day conversations any more.  I bought some extra food just in case Sandy became another Ice Storm like in 1998.  That storm is my reference for everything now.  I always say to myself that I better be prepared for these storms just in case it’s another Ice Storm.

I have nothing but sympathy for those who were actually affected by the storm.  I can’t imagine being stuck in New York City with no power.  But for the northern Adirondacks, it was just another storm with lots of rain and not so bad winds.  I wasn’t that worried about it for the obvious reason that power outages don’t affect me.  Just one more way in which my life is simpler out here.  And it’s one more way in which this type of life is easier to handle.

Cabin Life – #45

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The silence out here can be both comforting and disconcerting.  It’s not that there’s no noise, because there can be a lot.  But often, it’s just the wind in the trees.

There was one neighborhood in Jacksonville where I heard sirens every night.  For two years.  A woman had her purse snatched in broad daylight, and she was a cop.  I heard gun shots a few times and more domestic diputes than I care to remember.  I heard kids crying for hours on end and guys blasting rap at four in the morning.  There was a lot of noise in that place.  The apartment I got after that one was a few blocks from the ocean and on Sunday mornings, when everyone else was at church and Pico and I played firsbee, I could clearly hear the rolling sound of the ocean.

But out here, I’ve never heard sirens.  I saw flashing lights one time, when the fire department came to put out my chimney fire, but that’s it.  Occasionally I can hear a big-rig downshifting on Route 3, but even that is a quiet rumble in the distance.

I have one flashilight that is amazing.  This thing is basically a light saber.  After dark, before I let Pico out, I go out first and scan the fields with the big light to see what animals are hanging around.  Usually there’s a bunch of deer (nine the other night) and that’s it.  I let the screen door slam and they take off into the upper field, where Pico won’t see them and give chase.

Last night though, I went out and checked around.  About halfway up the Upper Field, I saw a set of eyes glowing green in the dark.  I waited and scanned around, thinking I would see some other eyes to confirm that it was just some deer, but no other eyes showed up.  I slammed the screen door and watched the eyes.  They didn’t move at the sound.  As I stood there in my slippers watching the eyes, they watched me back.

And then a thought entered my mind.  What if this was the bear that I’ve seen so many signs of?  There’s almost never just one deer hanging out by itself, and the non-plussed attitude displayed at the sound of the door slamming made me think that maybe it was the bear.  He was too far away for me to see clearly, but it was clear that he was not taking off just because some door closed.  But when I slammed the door again, the head came up and I caught a good glimpse of a doe standing near the upper edge of the field.

My tensions relaxed, I went and got Pico, comfortable in the fact that the deer was far enough away that Pico wouldn’t take off after it, and that it was not a bear.  When Pico’s tags jingled, the deer took to the woods.  I could hear the low bass vibrations of it bounding away.  Pico sniffed around and I watched with the light saber pointed not directly at him, but off to the side.  I don’t want to blind him.

It was quiet and calm, with only an infrequent rustle of leaves to fill the void.  And then I heard the low bass vibrations of a moving animal.  I shined around and saw no eyes, but the upper field hasn’t been mowed in years and the shrubs are getting big, providing great cover for whatever it was I was hearing.  The sound grew louder and I looked at Pico to see where he was.  He was at least a hundred yards away with no clue about what was running through the field.  I couldn’t tell where it was coming from or what direction it was heading, but my immediate thought was “bear.”

I glanced at the clueless Pico once again and just then six set of eyes came into view.  It was a doe and two fawns, apparently hidden in my first inspection of the field, taking off in the opposite direction.  I relaxed then and shut off the light.  I could see Pico trotting back towards the cabin in the moonlight.  Just then a shreik came out of the night.  It took my brain a moment to process that it was an owl, and it scared me.  Bad.  Stupid owl.

Cabin Life – #44

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The nights are longer and cooler and the daily high temperatures are lower than the summer lows.  I’m glad for the solar lights strung around the cabin.  They cast a pleasant blueish glow without being blinding.  Wearing a headlamp literally all time last winter really got old, and it’s nice to be able to see without one.  Now I can find my glass of Maker’s Mark without burning batteries.

Ed got another mouse last night.  He can never get them during normal waking hours, only in the middle of the night.  So, after work, I didn’t do anything that could be called “chores” or “work” or anything like that.  I sat on the boulder that serves as my front step and played guitar.  I let all the animals out to enjoy the warmth of the afternoon sun.  Pico ate grass and layed around, Ed went out hunting, and Herbie was somewhere doing whatever it is fat cats do.

Soaking up what may be the last of the warm days for the year is as precious to me as almost anything else.  I like every aspect of fall, especially those little nuggets of warmth and sunshine that make random appearances throughout the season.  But they also remind me that the time for getting the cabin totally ready for winter is at hand.  Firewood is going into the shed, the lights are strung up and the chimney is cleaned and ready to go.  It’s gotten pretty cold on a few nights, but I needed to get a new chimney brush and clean it before getting a fire going.

Cleaning the chimeny is hands down my least favorite activity that living out here requires.  I don’t mind walking to the outhouse or having to haul jugs of water in.  But I really dislike cleaning the chimney.  I’m not afraid of heights, but I’m also not a fan.  The roof isn’t very high or steep, but climbing up there is always an annoyance.  And of course, I inevitably forget something down on the ground, so it’s never just a one climb chore.

Then, once I’m up there, the process of actually sweeping the chimney begins.  Handling the two sections of fiberglass pole that wave twelve feet in the air above my head is not hard, but also not pleasant.  I shove the brush end down until it’s inside the woodstove, then pull it all the way back out.   Even though it’s not a long chimney, I usually break a sweat doing this process three or four times.  And on top of all this, Pico is on the ground barking at me and trying to climb the ladder.  If he ever figures it out, I’m going to be in real trouble.

But I think I’m lucky in that the chimney is the only chore I really despise doing.  Checking on the Upper Camp and clearing the trails gives me a lot of satisfaction, plus Pico can come along on those treks.  I like living out here.  And I do like that I have to work at it.

Cabin Life – #43

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I had a great trip to South Carolina last weekend for a friend’s wedding.  Shorts and flip flops all day was a nice change from the jeans and sweatshirts our weather has required.  And for some reason, this trip has caused me to think a lot about what it means to live off the grid.  Maybe it was all that time spent on planes breathing recycled air.  I’m not sure, but I do know that I consider myself off the grid with no running water, electricity or even indoor plumbing.  But I have cell phone service and my blog has a Facebook page.  How off the grid is that?

As I think about shaping my experience, which in the near future means buying land and starting to build my own cabin off the grid, I’ve begun to wonder if living off the grid means giving up modern ammenities.  Should you be able to drive right to your house, or hike in?  Can you live on a major road and listen to traffic all day, or do you have to be isolated?  Can you buy imported foods or do you have to suffer a life without Guiness?

I’ll tell you one thing:  there is no way that I am spending the rest of my life without indoor plumbing. I don’t think off the grid means no hot water for showers, but is it too much to ask to have a hot tub?  What about a wood-fired hot tub that only burns wood taken from my land?  Is that still off the grid?

One of the things I’ve learned in this whole experience is that I don’t mind living simply.  I know now that I can live without a lot of things that many people consider neccesities.  I’ve often read about other people who live off the grid, but seem to give up nothing.  They have every modern convenience, along with a room full of deep-cycle batteries that everntually become hazardous waste.  I don’t know if that’s right or wrong, and I think it’s up to each person who decides to live this way.

I know what I want out of living a somewhat unconnected existence.  I like being able to keep in touch with friends and family and don’t want to be disengaged in that way.  What it means to me is that I try to be as self-suficent as possible, while not becoming the Unabomber.  I want to get some land that can provide the logs for a small cabin, one that will have a nice bathroom with hot water.  I want to raise most of my own food and rely on wood, solar and wind for the meager electric and heating needs I will have.  I also want a hot tub.  I’ve always wanted a hot tub.