The Routine

We bought our pot
with Green Stamps

A daily routine is essential to living simply. I'll attempt to describe mine. It starts around 5 am because sleep is a binary activity for me – I’m either awake or asleep. I can’t lie around in a slumber. I start out by heating water using the big aluminum pot that we bought decades ago...with Green Stamps! It's a keeper. That's for my morning bath – we have an unlimited amount of artesian well water but a limited septic system, so I use two gallons of water. I used to use ten. But I've found that if I'm careful,  I can get just as clean with two. 

Then I make coffee, using an old hand cranked Zassen-haus coffee grinder that I got on eBay for about $10, including shipping. The coffee beans are in the mason jar. 

While sipping my coffee and writing in the camp log I heat more water.

Our laundry area

That hot water is used for my laundry. We're badgered to use cold water for washing clothes, and that'll save energy in homes that use electric water heaters. But cold water won't kill pathogens as effectively as hot water. 

Our hot water is a free byproduct of space heating with the wood stove or Kero-Sun. Laundry is less of a chore if you do a little every day and keep up with it. I need fewer articles of clothing if I keep the ones I have clean. Doing laundry early in the morning means that I can also hang it out to dry early and take full advantage of the free energy provided by the gods of sun and wind. 

We've been indoctrinated and even shamed into believing that a washer and dryer are essential, basic necessities. But dryers are rare in Europe and they get by just fine. I wonder if a washing machine is worth the expense or trouble of using it. The appliance industry needs consumers to think their products are essential. A friend told me he bought a new dryer just to match his new washer. The old one worked fine but it was tossed out. This is apparently normal in our society. Our appliances may be primitive but clothes look and smell cleaner when they are hand washed and then dried in the fresh air on a clothesline.

The clothesline

The best part is that we use no electricity for washing and drying. That feels liberating and very satisfying. No coal, fracked gas, tar sands oil or nuclear energy were required. Our only cost is for the teaspoon of homemade detergent. We save about $1.35 per load of clothes, the average cost if you have a washer/dryer at home. It's way more expensive to go to a laundromat plus we'd lose an entire day going to/from town.

After hanging out the laundry, if the stock market is open, I’ll check the US pre-market and the overnight overseas action. Yes, this is the the antithesis of simplicity...whatever, it’s my vice. Maybe it keeps my brain in shape. 

My next activity is a morning walk. I walk about 2-3 miles every day, up and down a steep hill. I’d like to take the beagle but she’s usually unavailable, soundly asleep. Just as well, she will occasionally pull back to come home or do something equally obnoxious at exactly the wrong time. We've agreed to let the sleeping dog lie.

While outbound, I check the culverts for overnight beaver activity. Sometimes the beavers work all night, but they may go dormant for awhile with no apparent activity. I undo all their overnight efforts, and then a bit more, using the potato rake.

I may have breakfast upon return. That’s usually steel cut oatmeal or leftovers from last night’s dinner. S is usually fully powered up by the time I return, tending to the seedlings or doing yoga. We discuss the plan of the day, consolidating all in-town activity into one trip. Some days we don't drive at all.

We are usually hungry when we return from town. It’s time for our main meal, a late lunch or early dinner. After that, we’ll do more chores. If it’s a favorable trading environment I’ll take a profit or two before the market closes. If the market is uncooperative I may cut losses and sell/cover or just close the browser and hold open positions overnight. 

The Spice Shelf

Chores consist of cutting wood, clearing rocks and working on projects.  One project is  this spice shelf for our tiny (6 by 8 foot) kitchen. Spices are arranged alphabetically. A small kitchen is a joy to work in, provided you've meticulously decluttered it. That's a struggle, because entropy is relentless and clutter continuously creeps back. If you have the discipline to keep it neat, then everything you need will be within easy reach. If you don't then you'll work in a battle zone, constantly wasting time looking for things, and you will be frustrated. Frustration leads to anger. Your meal will reflect your anger, it won't taste good.

Zen masters say that the kitchen is also an ingredient in cooking, as is the cook. The first step in cooking, according to Zen tradition, is to clean the kitchen. That has many functions in addition to controlling those ever-present pathogens. It focuses the mind, it reacquaints you with your surroundings and the work calms the spirit. Nothing worth doing should be done in a hurry.

The loo shelf

I built a similar shelf last week for the loo. Now most of the stuff we had on the sink counter has a place, making it easier to locate. It's amazing how much time and frustration you can save by having a place for things.

Water gathering area

Another typical project is our water-gathering area, it’s still a work in progress, but it’s  functional. It's a big washtub placed under our the spring water pipe, down by the stream. It's accessible and greatly reduces the mud generation around the spring. 

Homebuilt composter

Yet another is a circular composter that S and I built. It's a ring of wire fencing, 4 feet high and 3 feet in diameter. We compost all our kitchen scraps in it. 

We also burn most of the scrap paper and recycle all glass, metal and plastic. But, we still manage to generate about 10lb of trash per person per week, about one-third of the national average. That's still too high so we constantly look for ways to reduce our trash generation, such as considering the packaging of our consumables before we buy them. 

We live an anticipatory existence here - such as cutting and stacking firewood for use next winter. You can't impulsively do anything in the wilderness without wishing you didn't. 

A fine garden cart

We try to limit all driving, notably our trips into cities such as Plattsburgh and Burlington. We always spend more money than we planned when we go into stores but the worst part is losing the entire day to a shopping trip. It feels so unsatisfying, even a nap seems like a better use of time. Our goal is to go out shopping once per month but we still average once a week.

On one of those trips to Burlington last week, we bought a big garden cart. It was expensive but it’s also built to last, and it's made in Vermont. We’ll use that to facilitate hauling stuff from the car up the driveway when we can’t (or shouldn’t) drive the half-mile up here. We can’t drive in when it’s too snowy or icy. We shouldn’t drive when the driveway is wet or we’ll create big muddy ruts in it.

Tuesday nights are reserved for meetings and training at the fire department. This week we participated in the county-wide flood watch. Basically that involves listening to the emergency services radio and watching the AuSable River, especially the myriad of streams feeding into it. The AuSable is an untamed river, it floods regularly. Many buildings near the river reflected an era of lax building codes and less extreme weather. By today’s criteria many roads, buildings and bridges are too close to the river. It doesn’t take an event like Irene to cause property damage or worse. 

So, what firefighters do on flood watch is keep a weather eye on the river – it’s behind the station - and listen to the dispatch radio for field reports. They also sit around, eat junk food, dip snuff, go out for a smoke or just sit on the fire engine bumpers and talk. The talk is of work, trucks, guns, cops, Irene, the Akwesasne Indian reservation up by the border and the station equipment.

As for work, no matter where you go, it's the same theme, mostly complaints. Truck talk involves the standard Ford vs. Chevy vs. Dodge debate. This is 4x4, 3/4 ton, big gas or diesel engine territory. Half tons are barely tolerated, and certainly not 2 wheel drives. 

Irene will be discussed at every gathering of EMS personnel for the next century. The flooding was unprecedented. They say the river smelled of fuel oil from all the home heating oil tanks that were bobbing in it. There were many propane tanks, too. 

The station equipment discussion centers on the new building, amazingly it’s two months ahead of schedule. They also chat about the truck problems, nothing major, radio volume, for instance. 

The Akwesasne talk got my attention more than anything. 

The Rez

The subject came up when a guy got up for a smoke. The reservation sells a pack of cigarettes $10 cheaper than in NY state. NY has the highest cigarette prices in the nation in an attempt to reduce smoking. Perhaps that's the outcome, but all I see is a thriving black market. (I pick up litter when I walk and I've yet to find a cigarette pack with a tax stamp on it.) I'm sure other things besides cigarettes are smuggled into the US and Canada. The resulting cops vs. smugglers action gets rather intense. 

One of the firefighters works at a lumber company and he had to drive up to the rez for delivery. The Indians met him at the entrance and escorted him to the job site - one truck in front, one behind, and people walking along each side of his truck! They don't like outsiders on their land because they feel threatened by them.

1794 Jay Treaty

Akwesasne is a sovereign territory - or it's supposed to be - located between Canada, US and further trisected by Quebec, Ontario and NY state. It's a political nightmare for US and Canada, a fine example of what happens when the dominant culture flubs the boundary-drawing part of their conquest. The Jay Treaty of 1794 guaranteed the unimpeded passage of Akwesasne across the border. The treaty was named for the founding father (and former NY governor) who negotiated it, John Jay. And the  Town of Jay is named for him. The treaty resolved many issues between the fledgling US and Great Britain. But it inadvertently created a portal into the US that the government has no jurisdiction over. This causes ongoing tensions between the Akwesasne and their neighbors. Our nation of laws hates it when they are cahallenged by the common people to respect one.

One of these disputes was documented in You Are on Indian Land, a 1969 half hour documentary, featuring Mike Mitchell who (I think) is now their Grand Chief. The rez seems like it would be an interesting place to explore. Ok, it's a  bit dangerous, but what truly interesting place isn't?

Anyhow, back to the routine. We often work on the grounds, S preparing the area behind the house for the garden beds and arranging the rocks into raised beds. I may work on an area for a woodshed. That'll be a slow motion project, I'll just do a little every so often. I completed my final exam in my chemistry class (that's where I got my pathogen paranoia) and I may enroll in another EdX class. I got the chainsaw tuned up and I try to cut firewood every day.

View out the front door on a typical late afternoon

We generally hang out and read at the 

end of the day. As the wildlife gets used to us, they start to emerge from the edges of the forest. The geese don't even honk at us anymore, they just watch us and soon even become bored with that. The ducks and turkeys don't fly off. The deer graze so close to the cabin that we can easily take their pictures outside our door. When dusk arrives we're ready to fold down the futon and start getting ready for bed. Generally we're tired from the work and just being outdoors all day.