Tag Archives: nature

Cabin Life – #59

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Tools of the trade
Like most people, I sometimes make decisions that I regret.  Last week I made one of those decisions, and I have been regretting it ever since.  The decision I made was to shave off my beard.  On the coldest day of the year.  It’s not that I’m worried about my ability to grow another beard, but it’s been, well, cold and for some reason I seemed to forget how much insulation I get on my face from the beard.  In hindsight, it was a horrible decision.

I made another decision recently which is turning out to be much better though.  I bought a double-bit axe for use around the property, and I could not be happier.

Amy doesn’t want me to cut down any live, healthy trees out here for fire wood, so I am relegated to cutting only trees that are already dead and/or down.  Luckily, we’ve had some pretty severe wind this winter and there has been no shortage of trees to buck up and drag out of the woods.  I use the chainsaw for almost all of this work.  But when I’m cutting what’s called a “widow-maker,” the chainsaw can get pinched in the tree if I misread how the tree will fall.  It doesn’t happen that often, but it’s good to know that I now have a nice axe to use to chop out the chainsaw.

I got a double-bit for two main reasons.  The first is that they have straight handles, so it’s a pretty accurate axe.  The other is that I can keep one blade sharp for chopping, and the other a little more dull for splitting.  After splitting several cords of wood by hand last year with an eight pound maul, swinging the three and a half pound axe is much, much easier.

I’ll still use the maul for knotty wood or the really big logs.  It’s heavy, unwieldy, and gets stuck a lot, but gets the job done.  I also have a ten pound mini-sledge to get the maul through the really nasty logs, but that’s a lot of weight to be swinging around all day.  The combination of the two pretty much guarantees that I can get any log split, but it might take a long time to get a few pieces of burnable fire wood.  Three and a half pounds versus eight is a pretty easy decision.

And speaking of decisions, there is an annual event that starts this week which always makes me happy that I’ve decided to make the northern Adirondacks home:  Winter Carnival.

Carnival is what makes a hard winter bearable.  Carnival is something that I think everyone who lives in the Saranac Lake region looks forward to.  It is like a winter break for everyone.  And as an adult, who doesn’t wish that they still got all the vacations that school kids get?

For those of you who don’t know, Winter Carnival is a weeklong celebration of surviving through the winter.  There is a Royal Court, concerts, contests, an Ice Palace, and the whole thing culminates in an unforgettable parade.  Outside.  In the middle of February.  Needless to say, there may be some alcohol involved in one or more of these events.

Back when I was in college, there was a standing rule that my parents were not allowed within fifty miles of Saranac Lake on parade weekend.  I’ve grown up a little bit since then, but they still honor the buffer.  The parade really brings the community together.  People travel from all over the country and world to attend Carnival, and I have yet to hear of anyone coming away disappointed.

It’s a boon to the town, as well as to everyone’s psyche.  You have to be pretty tough to survive the winters up here, and Carnival is a great reminder that we’re all in it together, no matter who you vote for or how much you make.  We’ve all decided to tough it out up here, and Winter Carnival is our reward.

Be sure to like Middle of the Trail on Facebook for more pictures and daily updates and follow @JustinALevine for whatever it is I do on Twitter.

Cabin Life – #57

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The Little Stream
Well, the January thaw made for a nice weekend, even though the skiing suffered a little bit.  It was warm enough last Sunday that I actually was able to get the four wheeler going and plow the driveway.  I only had to hike in for a week or so, and can now once again drive all the way up to the cabin.  I really didn’t mind the hike and since the four-wheeler won’t start unless the temperature is about forty degrees, I’m sure I’ll be hiking in again before winter’s over.

It was also a nice break for the wood stove, and more importantly, my wood supply.  Or more specifically, my dry hardwood supply.  The stacks of wood were definitely in need of a break.

I have three wood piles.  One is out in front of the cabin, under the big window covered by a couple of blue tarps that are pretty tattered.  This wood pile rests on top of a bunch of old metal roofing and consists of mostly pine and poplar.  There’s some maple in there too, but not much.  This is my “junk wood” pile.

The second wood pile is stashed neatly in the shed that is attached to cabin. It is safely ensconced in the shelter of four walls and a cheap but solid roof.  There is a heavy wooden door with a massive iron latch to keep the elements out, and other than soft snow that gets blown in through some cracks, the wood is well protected.  This pile is all cherry, maple, oak and ash.  The third wood pile is in front of the shed, split and drying, waiting to be added to as I cut more trees for next year’s wood supply.

This fall, I actually had to buy some wood from a guy I work with.  The supply I cut last year was pathetically small, and once summer rolled around, I figured it was too late to have dry wood for the winter.  I stacked about a cord and half of the stuff I had done in the shed, and then had two cords delivered.  This all went in the shed as well.  I left the junk wood out in front and figured I could mix a little in here and there.  But I also figured I wouldn’t have to do that until some time in February.  It’s now the middle of January and I’ve been mixing in junk wood for almost a month.

I figured wrong on how much wood I would need this year.  But now that I’ve been paying attention, I know how much to do for next year.  My little four-hundred square foot cabin will need five cords of wood to heat.  This seems like a lot to me, and it seems like a lot of work.  I have also vowed to myself that I will not be paying for firewood next year, because, you know, I live in the woods.

But the amount of wood I’ll need to lay in for next winter is far more than can fit in the shed.  I’ll have to build a new wood shed, but one that is not attached to the cabin.  I’m going to build big so that I have some room for extra wood plus a little storage.  This is one project I can do for free from building materials that are just lying around here.  It’s not going to be pretty or square or level, but it’ll be tough enough to hold up.  There’s a good spot with southern exposure where I’m going to build, and the new shed will hold a prominent place in my yard.  This way, everyone will be able to bask in its functionality.

The plan is to take a bunch of small pines and spruces for the upright supports and use old metal roofing.  There are huge old planks of wood scattered around that will make perfect sides.  No piece of lumber out here is the same width and thickness, so I can safely say that this wood shed will have some character to it.  The very short lean-to is like that, as is the front porch with the unintentionally swooping roof.  Yup, that misshapen wood shed is going to fit right in.

Be sure to like Middle of the Trail on Facebook for more pictures and daily updates and follow @JustinALevine for whatever it is I do on Twitter.

Cabin Life – #56

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Red Breasted Nut Hatch
The sun is slowly creeping up over Whiteface, turning the sky into a mixture of pastel blue, deep purple and burnt orange.  The icicles hanging down in front of the big window reflect the colors as the first chickadees of the morning start to come to the bird feeders.  Herbie and Ed are both on the couch, heads darting back and forth.  The view out the window looks like a Bob Ross painting.  Soft lines and happy little trees everywhere.

The January thaw is upon us here in the Adirondacks.  It’s a nice little break to have temperatures above freezing, but the rain that’s coming surely is not welcome.  Over the last couple of days, I’ve lost almost a foot of snow to the warm, humid air, but I’m not complaining about that.  There’s still plenty of the white stuff on the ground.

So much snow, in fact, that my driveway is no longer drivable.  I’ve been parking at the bottom for over a week now.  There’s obviously a pretty big downside to this, but also a few perks.  I’ve gotten good at not forgetting anything when I leave, and shoveling a hundred yards of driveway is definitely preferable to shoveling a quarter mile of driveway.  Also, the driveway is steep enough and snowy enough for me to ride the sled down to the car.  So even when I have to haul groceries or water up, I at least get a sled ride in exchange.  It’s really not a bad trade.

I called the plow guy back in October, and he said he couldn’t do my driveway this year because he got stuck several times last winter.  I naively thought that I would be able to keep up with the shoveling for the season, and even after the big storm the day after Christmas, I was able to keep the driveway open.  Sure, it was just wide enough for my car to get through, but that’s all I needed.  Then it snowed more.  Everyday day, in fact, and it got to the point where my car just wouldn’t make it up the driveway anymore.

The road I live on is about two miles long.  The first mile is paved, then it turns to dirt all the way out to my place.  The school bus turns around at the end of the pavement, so the town doesn’t bother plowing my end of the road every time it snows.  They only plow it every couple of weeks, regardless of how much snow there is.  This is an annoyance to be sure, but so far I haven’t been stranded out at my cabin.

I noticed last winter that the town plow would catch the end of my driveway and never leave me a snow bank.   This year, however, the first couple of times they plowed they left didn’t go to the end of my driveway, and instead left about fifty or sixty feet of road unplowed that I had to drive through or shovel.  It’s not that much to shovel, but it took me more than six hours to shovel after the Christmas storm and having to clear out that extra fifty feet was a task I really didn’t feel like completing.

This last time they plowed though, the driver must have seen my car parked just off the road in the driveway.  He backed the plow truck into my driveway and cleared that fifty feet of snow.  It was a relief to sled down there yesterday and know that my car was in the clear.  I don’t know if they did it to help me out.  But either way, it’s that little helping hand that locals give each other that makes me love the Adirondacks.

Cabin Life – # 55

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Black-capped chickadee through a dirty window
I woke up this morning, as usual, buried by animals.  Ed was lying on my chest, Herbie was at my shoulder flicking me in the face with his tail, and Pico was on my left, resting his head on my open hand.  It was nice and warm in the cabin even though I hadn’t gotten up all night to feed the stove, and I would have been content to lay there for a while before getting out of bed.

I thought about how my car was buried in a snow bank halfway up the driveway and how it’s going to take an hour or so to get it free.  I thought about how I’m still not done shoveling more than a week after our first big snowstorm.  I thought about how nice the bed felt.  Then Ed stretched and farted, and I jumped out of bed more quickly than I would have liked.  Pico and Herbie didn’t wait around in the danger zone either.

I fed the animals looked out the big window.  It seems like it is getting light a little bit later, but the reflection of the snow definitely helps the pre-dawn light to shine a bit brighter.  I checked the seed levels in the two bird feeders and decided that they don’t need to be filled today, but that I probably will fill them, just to put off shoveling my car out for another few minutes.

The feeders have been active this winter.  Last year, I had mostly black-capped chickadees, with an occasional visitor such as a house finch or blue jay.  But this year, there is an almost constant presence of chickadees, and white- and red-breasted nuthatches.  And from what I have observed, the red-breasted nuthatches are, well,  jerks.

All three species are pretty small birds, able to fit in the palm of your hand.  But the red-breasted nuthatches are the smallest, with the chickadees in the middle and the white-breasted nuthatches being about the same size as the largest of the chickadees.

There are two feeders, each with two sides to feed on.  At any given time there may be a couple of chickadees on one of the feeders, but then a red-breasted nuthatch will fly in and take over one of their spots.  Even when the other feeder has no birds on it, the reds will chase off a chickadee.  The white-breasted nuthatches don’t seem to be involved in this and generally take off before the reds have a chance to run them off.  The chickadees always share the feeders.

Even though I’m fairly short, I’ve never suffered from “little man syndrome,” that particular attitude short guys can get where they feel the need to overcompensate for their lack of height.  They like to start bar fights for no reason and generally see everyone as a threat.  I think this is what’s happening with the red-breasted nuthatches.  They’re small, so they’re just kind of overcompensating.  They’re not violent, but they’re not passive either.  The other birds seem to have figured out that this is just the way it is and they don’t bother fighting back.  They just get out of the way.

I know that if these birds thought that the seed in the feeders was a limited resource, they would guard and protect the feeders.  But because they know that there is ample food for all, there shouldn’t be that much competition.  I like having the variety of birds that come to the feeder.  It’s interesting to me and it’s the perfect reality TV for the cats.  I like watching them sift through the seed for their favorites.  I like watching them take an impossibly small seed and grip it in their feet to peck it open.   But I like it even more when all the birds can linger in peace eight inches from my window.

Cabin Life – #54

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Nick's Place
The snow is still falling, but not as fast and furious as it was earlier.  I heard on the solar radio that this is now called Winter Storm Euclid, but I think most people will remember it as the Blizzard of 2012.  I’ve got about twelve to fourteen inches on the ground, and it is still coming down.

I woke up early this morning to a text message from a friend letting me know that she had made it to Colorado alright.  The sun wasn’t up, but it was starting to get light out, so I got up and fed the pets and the woodstove.  The stove was cranking and it was pretty warm in the cabin.  I hadn’t done anything different in terms of what or how much I burned, but it was noticeably hotter in here.  When Pico and I went out for our morning relief, I figured out why it was so warm inside.  There was eight inches of snow on the roof providing a lot of extra insulation.

The next thing I did was to wax up my skis and get dressed for some outdoor activities.  After getting about a quarter mile from the cabin, I was glad I had set out early.  The snow was getting deep and it was hard to glide when I was breaking trail.  I could have followed Pico’s path, but that quarter mile would have turned into a half mile the way he runs all over the place.

Pico didn’t mind the new boots I had put on his feet, and the two of us made our way down to the little lean-to, named for the kid that built it, Nick’s Place.  It’s only about five feet high, eight feet wide and six feet deep, just enough for a couple of people to sleep in, though I doubt anyone has stayed there in quite a few years.  I’m always a little worried though, that when I round the corner of the trail and Nick’s Place comes into sight that some hermit or drifter will be staring out of the doorway at me.  It hasn’t happened yet, and since not even my landlord has seen the thing, I doubt if anyone will wander out here and find it.  But I always get just a little tense when I get close.  The more logical fear when it comes to the lean-to is that Pico will run in there and be face to face with a porcupine or raccoon.  He’s marked the area well, and hopefully my fears don’t come true.

Last weekend, I took Pico, a folding saw and some loppers to clean up the trail to the lean-to.  I’d like to make this place a little more accessible, and the first step in clearing out the existing trails.

From my cabin, I take the road that leads to Upper Camp.  About half way to Upper Camp there is a junction trail that goes off to the right.  It passes one of the old hand-dug wells and follows a stone wall to a large ash tree.  From there, the trail continues straight to a little clearing where all the pine trees were cut to build Upper Camp.  But the trail to Nick’s Place goes right, through a break in the large stone wall and meanders off into the woods.  I clipped some branches and small balsams that had started to grow, and pulled a few dead trees out of the way that fallen across the trail.  The trail then empties into an open glade, which in summer is beautiful.  Moss lines the ground and the thick clumps of balsam and spruce give off a classic Adirondack aroma.

There are thick evergreens that surround Nick’s Place, masking it in the woods.  Nick was the son of the previous owner’s and he did a nice job building this place.  The front is about half closed in but there is a doorway and a window, and the roof provides a little overhang so that snow doesn’t make its way inside.  After cutting out a few trees, you can see the lean-to from the where the trail enters the glade.  At least I don’t have to get too close now to see if anyone is living in there.

But this morning was not a work morning.  Pico and I just skied out to Nick’s Place and then bushwhacked up into the woods, heading towards the clearing up above.  I’d like to mark and cut a trail from the lean-to to the clearing, and found a pretty good route up there.  Of course, the route I took this morning is now covered in snow, and I’ll have to mark it another time, hopefully when there is not a blizzard going on.  It’s just one of the perks of doing this type of thing out here.  I get to ski it once, then ski again to mark it, and then ski it again to cut it out.  I could have done all that today, but I’m looking forward to having to do the route a few more times.  You know, as long as I don’t run into anyone along the way.

 

Be sure to like Middle of the Trail on Facebook for more pictures and daily updates and follow @JustinALevine for whatever it is I do on Twitter.

Cabin Life – #53

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Wood Shed Latch
Well, the world didn’t end, so we got that going for us, which is nice.  In fact, on the official first day of winter, we finally started getting some snow.  It rained all day, then switched to the very fine snow that blows around and looks like it’s snowing like crazy.  I woke up hoping to go skiing, but there’s still only an inch or so of snow on the ground.  I really want to go skiing.

The fine snow somehow makes it through the screens on my porch, coating everything out there.  I always try to sweep the porch before walking on it too many times, but Pico doesn’t care if the porch is clean.  He loves the snow.  When I let him out, he usually stares at the screen door like it’s the biggest barrier he’s ever seen.  But when we get snow, he noses open the door and takes off to prance around in the fresh white stuff.

Coming home last night, I drove through the white tunnel that is my road.  The balsams and pines that line either side of the road were coated in white, the branches just starting to droop a little bit under the weight of the snow.  I didn’t see any tracks across the road or going up the driveway.  Maybe it was too windy last night for the animals to be moving around much.

But on my way out this morning, I had a big fat bobcat run across about twenty feet in front of the car.  The first time I saw a bobcat was on the way up St. Regis Mountain.  When I was in college, I worked for a couple of summers as a Watershed Steward, which included a few days per week hiking to the very top of our little watershed, which was the summit of St. Regis.  I started walking up there one morning, my car the only one at the trailhead parking lot.

The first half or so of the trail is rolling, open woods.  Just before I started heading up the steeper, rockier part of the trail, I took off my baseball cap to wipe my forehead.  When I took off the hat, I caught a glimpse of some movement a few hundred yards ahead of me.  I looked more closely and saw the bobcat just staring at me.  The cat looked pretty small and leisurely walked off.  He was on the rock, so I didn’t see any tracks, but it was nice to see the cat.  The Paul Smith’s mascot is the bobcat, and it was nice to see one so close to campus.

The bobcat I saw this morning was at least twice the size of that other one.  The short little tail was sticking up as it took three leaps across the road.  I stopped to look at the tracks in the snow, and it’s paws were bigger than Pico’s.  I could still see him walking off into the woods, over a dead birch tree that was on the ground.  He didn’t even look back at me, totally unconcerned that I was only a dozen or so yards away.  I hope he stays in this neck of the woods and makes an appearance once in a while.  As long as I don’t see those big tracks on the porch, we’ll get along just fine.

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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.