Trains And Things

There is a definite learning curve involved where this adventure is concerned.

It's not a difficult learning curve. It hasn't been, for us so far, a difficult one. We were well prepped to begin with. We are also good at researching, brainstorming, and arriving at reasonable solutions to problems. We aren't, after all, the first modern-day couple to do what we are doing. There is a long growing list of examples of adventurers. Quite a few have successfully launched out on far more extreme adventures in far more extreme natural environments.

There are several common denominators to be discovered in the lives of people that get beyond the dreaming and theorizing and do the leg work involved in launching out on adventures such as this. Dreaming and theorizing are fine at first. Beginnings are born in dreams and theories. It takes determination and action to bring dreams and theories to life in the realm of reality.

I think the one common denominator that serves as the solid foundation for all the other denominators to stand upon is purely the determination to chart a course for a life that eliminates as much external control as possible.

The denominator sounds easy in theory. The doing of it is not so easy. Modern-day humans are conditioned to be dependent upon the system and all the system-providers that make the system work. Human dependency is what keeps the system alive and prospering. Simplicity, self-reliance, and personal independence are not cogs on the system-gears. The system is opposed to this lifestyle. You'll find more people discouraging it than encouraging it.

We had our One Month Full-Time Small Cabin Dweller Anniversary a few days ago.

It's all good.

There is a peaceful serenity that pervades these woods. We awake to it each morning and it wraps us in its embrace when we turn out the lights at night. The occasional yodeling of the neighbor's hounds, something that was a little annoying at first, has become more of something like a tune in the woods. We find the sound of the rail, a quarter mile away, to be pleasant and often stop to listen to the iron on iron sound.

Trains?

They each have their own tune that they play on the rails.

Now that the temperatures are on the cooler side of the scale, Shirli and I are putting her new knees through some paces … literal paces … by getting out and taking walks. We've really missed our walks the past few years. Her new titanium knees took her 7/10th of a mile this morning.

I'm 62 years old. After all my years of walking the woods I had to move to these woods to see my first one.

An American Woodcock flew in and landed about 50 feet from the cabin. Right on the cusp of dark. Its approach took it right by us. My daughter saw it fly in and land. She walked over to investigate. The Woodcock wasn't alarmed in the least. I got a light from the cabin. Several of us walked close to join the investigation. The bird, even when I lit it up with a light, never once acted alarmed.

Building the steps was a fun little project. Ascending and descending the narrow ladder-like make-do steps needed placing in the historical department before one of us slipped and took a fall. We went back and forth on the idea of building a small deck out front but let the idea go and just went with the steps. I'll do some kind of pad for a landing at the bottom as well as bottom rails and spindles.

The finishing work on the steps will have to rest for a while now that we can safely get on and off the porch.

Next?

I'm thinking screening on the porch and building the screen door will be the next project to work on.

Out Here

This has, for us, been a welcome and easy transition.

The years we spent thinking about, planning, and prepping for the Big Leap were as important an investment as finally securing the cabin itself. Probably more important of an investment. Those years … our own refining and defining processes … knocked the edges off of anything that could remotely resemble the cultural, geographical, or environmental shock associated with pulling ourselves out of the seething social cauldron of Down There and immersing ourselves in the temperate more natural climate that is Out Here.

Out Here is far more suiting to our personal nature's than Down There ever was. Down There was, for us all along, rather unnatural; though the time we lived Down There was something of a necessary thing, for the all time and energy spent, that allowed us to collect our better selves and do something better with them.

We are not completely finished with Down There. We have, however, managed to establish right at fifty miles of distance and create a definitive timeline that separates Out Here from Down There … a line that grows thinner and fades more with each passing week.

The transition is an ongoing one.

Of things to do … of projects to complete … of projects to begin … there are plenty of these.

At least now, after the initial crunch of getting the physical move behind us, there is time available to simply breathe and be. The breathing and being is a serious priority for us. Especially now that the temperatures are cooler, the natural environment is taking on our cooler season look, and the Lower Coast atmosphere has given up the density created by the high humidity of our hot season.

This cooler weather also means that it's meat making season!

This means, for the less savvy among us, that it is time to work the woods to fill the freezer with deer meat. It is, considering that I do all my own handling and processing, quite a bit of work to accomplish.

Putting a deer on the ground … the hunting part ... is the least laborious part of the process. Getting one from the ground to the freezer is something of a time consuming physical chore. Killing and processing one or two in a season is a cakewalk. Killing and processing six or seven (perfectly legal in this State) becomes work. Six or seven is the mark I aim for during our generous Alabama deer season. Less than that and we run out of freezer meat before the next season.

Yes. We eat a lot of deer meat. It is our primary source of protein from meat. Living Out Here puts us closer to Ma Nature's Meat Market.

They are beautiful creatures. I can almost understand why a certain segment of society views killing them with varying levels of disdain. The vast majority of modern society has never once depended upon the woods and the creatures of the woods for their sustenance and, unless something dire comes down the pike, the vast majority never will. Something dire, coupled with a terrible lack in knowledge, tools, and skills, makes for a really bad scenario.

People can think what they will about this matter. No reasonable discussion, at least in my opinion, is going to persuade any change in the minds of the anti-hunting naysayers. The simple truth of the matter is that we are comfortable with our chosen self-reliant lifestyle. Let me also mention that a freezer full of deer meat every season saves us a load of money every year.

We are perfectly comfortable in this little cabin.

We are not at all surprised by the fact and every trip we make Down There reminds us of how fortunate we are to have succeeded in our endeavor to relocate to these woods. We have absolutely everything we need here to live comfortably with far less maintenance and far less to worry about. Life is really good up here in these woods.

There is some tweaking yet to be done in our little camping cabin on steroids. Little things like minor rearrangements to make things fit better in the small space that is now our home.