Living Life Up In These Woods

The process involved in getting from where we were … there …  to where we are now … here … was not at all simple.

The real deal was quite complicated.

A lot had to be dealt with to get the ball rolling. A lot more had to be dealt with once the ball started rolling. A huge lot more had to be dealt with to keep the ball rolling. At times the ball rolled pretty well on its own. At times we had to apply our shoulders to it to keep it rolling uphill.

An awful lot of physical motion was involved in getting from there to here. There was a complicating factor stirred into the physical pot. That physical motion had a lot of emotional motion inherent within it.

Change, even change for the better, is rarely easy.

Change … real, lasting, and meaningful change, rarely happens overnight.

Change has a price tag attached to it.

Getting from there to this exact geographical here, was something that involved a 5-Year plan.

This exact geographical here?

This exact geographical here was not part of our initial plan. Our initial plan involved a fairly remote and out of the way piece of land that we owned on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. The only significant logistical alteration to our plan was the exact geographical here.

Looking back over the process, this logistical alteration turned out to be a really sweet deal.

So, what’s happening in the now at our exact geographical here fifteen months into our small cabin life in these woods?

The answer to the question involves two levels.

The first, and most obvious to onlookers, is the surface level.

There is a honey-do list on the front of the fridge. Important stuff to get done while getting other important stuff done. Every fridge door needs one. It is totally Un-American to not have a honey-do list attached to the fridge by a fridge magnet.

It took a little doing back in the fall to get the sawmill up and running. The mill sat idle for years down there. My son-in-law helped with the necessary tinkering involved in getting the mill sawing wood again here.

The first milling project was to turn some nice Red Oak into boards that were stacked out of the weather to season. The milled oak boards will be turned into rustic furniture for another project.

The other project?

Shirli is in need of what we are calling Shirli’s She-Shed Woman Cave.

The space available here in the small cabin is fairly well utilized to the max for what has become our normal indoor mode of living. We are still making adjustments, slight rearrangements, and coming up with ways to best utilize the small square footage contained within the walls of a small structure. 

There’s simply not space to set up a sewing machine for sewing projects, or a quilting frame (something else that I will build), or for Shirli to work on other crafty stuff that requires space and time. The majority of her tinkering goodies are stored in totes in the cabin lofts.

I am using the mill to convert pine logs into the needed framing material for the project. Fun stuff. Fun stuff that involves a lot of old school heavy material handling tactics. Fun stuff that, at this stage of age, causes me to reach for that bottle of Ibuprofen in the evening. There is a serious personal sense of accomplishment found in safely manually moving a 400-pound log from where it is laying in the woods to the mill and turning it into usable building material.

The stuff on the obvious surface is important stuff.

More importantly, for us anyway, is what is happening beneath the observable surface.

It’s down there. Inside.

Shirli tossed in the towel six months ago. Simply said, “Enough. I quit.” (Bravo and a big round of applause!)

She had not quite arrived at the Golden Age of Demarcation that qualified her to receive what has been referred to as Post Office Money. You know. That check sent out monthly by the Social Security Administration. Times have changed. It’s now Direct Deposit.

I “officially” retired two years ago come March but came “out of retirement” after we moved to the cabin so Shirli wouldn’t have to make the long daily employment commute by herself. I returned to my official retirement when Shirli tossed in the towel and called it quits.

We were both wiped out. Exhausted. Used up.

All the physical and emotional motion and commotion involved in getting from there to here had drained our batteries pretty low. Making the 100+ miles a day commute for the length of time that we did finished draining our batteries to the point that they would barely light up our dome lights.

It’s taken time to recover from the drainage.

It’s not something that we intentionally set out to do. It’s not something that we were conscious of or consciously pursuing. It’s not one of the items on the honey-do list.

It’s something that we have experienced as part of our settling into this retirement gig up in the woods.

We are coming back. We are beginning to feel like ourselves again. Small pools of creativity are puddling and there is time now to entertain and stir those puddles. The kid in us is to beginning joke, laugh, kick off their shoes, and stomp in mud puddles. Dang, but it does feel good!

We are rediscovering our cranking amps. We are, in fact, just now honestly beginning to realize the effects of the long and slow six-month trickle charge we’ve been on.

Life is indeed good up in these woods!