The nights here have been frigid, and the window insulation I made for my windows aren’t helping much more than maybe a degree or two. Regardless, once secure under my 4 blankets and cuddled up with a water bottle of hot water, I’ve been pretty comfortable at night. Getting up in the mornings and facing the chill has been more of a challenge, but the reward of starting my day has been worth the shock of extricating myself from my covers. Mercifully, daytime (and nighttime) temperatures have gotten increasingly mild as the week has progressed.
Of course, continuing with my routine of the last 9 months, each day starts with meditation (sometimes with R–, a practicing Buddhist), reading, journaling, and usually some fresh coffee. Once done, I can get to work. As a WWOOFer, I’m expected to dedicate 20 hours per week to working on the property. My first tasks were to finish some flooring for a meditation hut and to dig a drainage ditch in the driveway and fill it with gravel. I’d never dug a ditch before, but going to town with a pickaxe (it’s not actually a pickaxe, but I can’t remember what R– called it) was extremely pleasant and hard work. I even found that I was able to inject my trademark perfectionism even into this task, using a level to ensure that the ditch had a slope in order to direct water, and deciding to line portions of the ditch with wood to decrease the chance it would collapse in on itself. The combination of manual labor and problem solving was a delight.
R– works in town Monday through Wednesday, but when she was back on Thursday, we got to work on another task: felling trees to serve as 14-foot rafters for the meditation hut. I learned how to properly use a chainsaw and process the tree, and I got to wear some styling protective chaps (for those wondering, unfortunately it was too cold to not wear pants under the chaps). Once I’ve processed the beams, including removing the bark with a draw knife, we can get to work hoisting and attaching the rafters.
I’ve been working up a moderate sweat, and modulating my body temperature by removing or adding layers is an exercise throughout the day. And there are always bits of nature (i.e., dirt, pine needles, bark, etc.) on my body and all over the outdoor living spaces (they’re all outdoors). But while it’s dirt, in my mind it’s nature dirt, which feels more or less sterile, and I’m hardly bothered. There’s something about being in a natural environment that eases the neuroses that inevitably arise in such highly-human environs as a city. And being a nature-human around a small number of other nature-humans, I’m very unconcerned about being “presentable.” (And being in nature with nature-humans, social distance is an inevitability nearly all the time.) I happily wear the same clothes day after day, and I comb my hair not at all. That said, I was pleased to take a hot shower on Wednesday with stove-heated water and a camping shower; so I reset my filthiness clock midway through my visit.
More to say soon!
Apparently coal was not widely used in Europe as a fuel until the Middle Ages. I never knew how charcoal is made. Thank you