Gender Trappings in the Life of a Homesteader

I'm friends with guys who own back hoes and dump trucks and skid steers.  With all these building related projects we've got going on here they have been helping out, streamlining our process.  In these moments, when they're problem solving and doing monumental amounts of work in minutes, they come alive. Their veins bulge, their eyes alight, and they bound in and out, up and down from equipment to building site and back again like little boys playing with their trucks in the sand box.

Meanwhile, I try to make myself useful, which means making lemonade, whipping up food, washing dishes, and concerning myself with all things domestic--I made my own room spray and counter spray this week. I hung lemon wedges on the edges of the drinking glasses. I smoothed out linens, beat rugs with a broom, and organized cupbords.

What I really want to know is how the hell I got here, playing Martha Stewart in my little house on the prairie?  So often it seems, people who homestead, live off the grid, or off the land seem to fall into stereotypical gender roles when it comes to division of labor, in spite their well-meaning intentions.

I love how these guys have kept their little boy dreams alive rather than suffocating behind a desk with a tie around their necks, and I enjoy nurturing them and creating beauty around us. The thing is, I think that we also appreciate the qualities in one another that buck typical gender roles. No one's saying I can't be the disheveled, competitive, outspoken, independent woman I am and I adore their vast capacity for sentimentality, empathy, softness, sensitivity, and tolerance.

Other women who have lived up here have written about this tendency with greater eloquence and insight--read them here: Not One More Winter in the Tipi, Honey and Women who love men who live in huts too much

Phantom Changes

I keep wishing it were still May, because as far as progress in the garden and time spent with my hands in the dirt goes it's still May to me. Have you ever been going on, living your life, and stopped to realize that it shifted without your even noticing?

I work at an alternative K-12 school that supports kids who homeschool or are looking for something different. Each year my role at school has grown, and now, even though it's summer, I'm still going to meetings and trying to get ahead for next year.  Plus, I've taken the whole educator's schedule to heart by getting out of town to visit friends, explore old haunts, and to test my ability to suck wind at absurdly high elevation.

Also, the bathroom remodel is not the only building project that we've got going on now. Dev bought a prefab shed from our neighbor, Eric, so we've been clearing the land and deconstructing the attached awnings. With a bit of remodeling, this shed will be an extra living space for interns.

There's a part of me that feels like I've failed given the sorry shape of the garden, but mostly I'm curious. Life looks different and the changes have felt so natural it's almost like nothing has changed. The stuff that makes up my day to day existence is somewhat superficial; it's the feeling that counts.  Right now it's as though gravity caught up to me, winding it's way around my heart like a maypole dance.

I certainly prefer plants and soil to two-by-fours and plumbing and I know that once again these things will be my primary focus, but for now I'm relaxing into these effortless shifts.

Living with Less: Finishing the Food Challenge

The end of this week marks the completion of our food challenge--we have not purchased food for three months with three guiltless exceptions. Both the root celler and the freezer stand vacant. I fill them mentally each day as I mark the arrival of our meat birds, trellis peas, and ready my canning jars for jams, pickles, and sauces. Rural living has taught me a thing or two about hoarding as well as unconditional generosity and sharing.

Before we left for Boulder to take a Wilderness First Responder course I piled canned goods into a box and leveled the greenhouse. During our lunch break we'd bust out the cooler and the cook stove and whip up a feast, intriguing our classmates. I enthusiastically piled tender greens and wild asparagus into my bowl.

At night, before settling onto the futon mattress stuffed in the back of my car, Dev dipped into a dumpster, filling a bag with over $100 worth of pastries which we brought to class the next morning. Again our classmates were amused. I ate at least $20 worth of the bounty and gave myself a stomach ache.

Generally speaking, I'm weary of concerted efforts to live with less--they seem like a cultural past-time of eco-chic elites out of touch with the everyday concerns of the average American/global citizen and yet, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about the consequences of our hyper-consumption culture.

I see my own obsession with wanting to live well wrapped up in this three-month food challenge and have an internal tug of war of sorts--just clean out your damn freezer and be be done with it! And on the other hand...it's fun to get creative with the dusty cans of corn and apple sauce put up years ago. It's fun to rummage through dumpsters. It's fun to feel a heightened sense of the everyday gratitude I experience living here--the many gifts of milk, cheese, and butter from neighbors, friends and house guests pumped up my balloon heart, swollen with the goodness of simple, kind gestures.

Remodling the Bathroom and Drowning my Teenage Dreams

Our bathroom is a bit of a cave--cold and dark with strange angles for bugs and dust and no room for a rag. The concrete cistern sucks cold air into the house like its primary job is to gather all things chilly rather than the rain that falls on the roof.

The pump within the cistern always seems to shut off when I'm in the shower ready to wash the shampoo from my hair. I climb out of the claw foot tub like a sudsy dish rag, walk through the kitchen to the green house, leaving puddles of coconut scented water behind me, and flip on the pump. Then I put a pot of water under the faucet of the kitchen sink and drain the remaining water from the pipes to activate the pump. Five minutes later I'm back to rinsing the shampoo from my hair.

When I describe this to most people it sounds like hell, but I'm a good sport.  I realize it's less than optimal, especially because we have eight interns coming to live with us this summer. I also figure that I already fill my complaining quota in the winter-- I am not a good sport about the freezing cold outhouse.

So, Dev and I are remodeling the bathroom which includes a new 3,000 gallon stainless steel cistern--outside, an indoor composting toilet, a giant window between the greenhouse and the bathroom, a sauna, and if I'm lucky, an instant hot water heater for the days when we don't have enough sun for solar hot water or the need for a fire to heat our water.

All of this is great in theory, but my New England upbringing did not prepare me for this. Apparently Dev isn't impressed with my hard, hard work on Pintrest and the color samples I bring home from the hardware store.

We've spent the last month digging trenches for the piping and I've learned a thing or two about myself in the process. When I was a teen I passed my prep school days dreaming about farming, building my own house, birthing babies, and knitting myself an empire. I slowly acknowledged that I suck at knitting, my already tangled body is not capable of farming full-time, and I am far too free-spirited to be an on-call midwife.

Well, to put the final nail in the coffin of my teenage dreams, I'm realizing that the prospects of me ever building a house from scratch are nonexistent. And though the teenage version of myself might denounce me as a yuppy disguised by dirt and callused hands, I kindly tell her to shut up and keep digging.

Hustling for Love

To put it simply, this is the story of a girl who wanted to be liked but hadn't fully settled into liking herself.

Here, people are like horses. Self-doubt once draped inside me from shoulder to rib, liver to sacrum like an unwound film strip. Though I perfected pleasing, pretending, and proving, their horse instincts heard the fluttering film inside, knowing the difference between trying and being.

I started dating L, the tall and slender one who lived in a shack and eroded my emotional armor with a river of playful, contemplative conversation. L had just gotten out of a seven-year relationship and ours drew me into the public eye. I was far from winning most popular before we took-up dating and it became evident there was a solid camp of people who did not like me, including, unsurprisingly, the ex. 

I wanted them to like me. Badly. All the time. Especially the people who didn't like me. I wanted them to adore me. I dreamt about it. I obsessed over it. I talked about it constantly even though I knew it was beyond boring. I threw myself pity parties where I told myself that it wasn't fair.  They should like me!! 

And they didn't.

What do you do when you don't feel liked? Well, five-years ago I said kiss-ass, walk on egg shells, cower, roll on your belly, and get small. I traded authenticity hoping for love in return.

At that point in time, I told myself that I got smaller so I wouldn't threaten the people who didn't like me. In truth, it was a great escape--I could blame them for my unhappiness rather than actually facing my own uncertainty-- Am I Worthy of  Love?????????? 

A similar situation has rolled around again, five years later, and my desire to be liked is bubbling like a fart in water. Even though I have obsessive thoughts about what I can do to regain favor I am aware of the underlying, nagging question of worthiness, and this time, I won't hustle for love.

The Holy Trinity of Self-Reliance: Farming, Homebirth, and Home Schooling

Neither to serve nor to rule: That was the American dream. -- Edward Abbey

When I was 18, I lived on a farm in southern France with a bunch of tanned, young people who laughed easily and asked me to milk their goats. Their passion and excitement was contagious. They directed and managed their own lives, and at the end of the day, it was up to them to evaluate their successes. When I tucked in for the night, the crescent shape of my smile spelled freedom.

Aneka, whose Cheshire-cat grin quickly earned her a place in my heart, was seven months pregnant when I arrived. We hiked, camped, and traveled together, and a few months later she delivered a healthy baby boy on the farm. Unlike the hospital births I would later attend in my studies, Aneka set the pace for her birth. There wasn't a flurry of activity, nor a series of interventions and protocols to be followed. She remained in her cocoon for days after, until she was ready to emerge.

At the first hospital birth I attended, the mother delivered naturally. She locked her soft eyes to the floor with a steely stare of determination during each contraction, half-angel, half-warrior. I was shocked that seconds after her daughter emerged, a set of latex gloves whisked her away and placed her under bright heating lamps, similar to the ones I'd seen at fast-food chains. "Why not use the mother's body-heat to warm the baby?" I suggested. The looks I received from the nurses suggested I couldn't possibly understand. They held the knowledge. They had the power. And everyone else was expected to comply.

These days, I'm focused on home schoolers and un-schoolers. One of the kids I work with, a ten-year old named Seraya, recently "dropped out of school." Since then, the discomfort of getting something wrong has dropped from her shoulders. She enthusiastically gushes about the cooking class she created, effusing self-confidence. When she tells me about what she's learning, it's like talking to a friend.  I celebrate each victory as she discovers her authentic wants and desires.

I see myself drawn, again and again, to people and experiences that value freedom. Self-reliance is the ability to listen to yourself and act independently rather than letting others dictate what you do and how you do it.  Historically, before specialization and expertise reigned supreme, soil naturally produced nutrients, bodies birthed babies, and brains learned. In my book, these three disciplines are about as close as you can get to the holy trinity. Each invites individuals to live increasingly self-reliant lives, seeking support from their communities rather than from technology and industry.

*I am not opposed to technology, industry, or expertise, but these things have a way of creeping in to every facet of our lives. I find without them, at times, the strength of one's character shines and grows and nature is revered and respected.

My obsession with death and dying. Something about winter turning to spring...

Prepping my skis for another day in the backcountry.

Luxurious Back-Country Hut Trip at Mt. Bell

Spring Winds and Prayers

Yesterday we lounged under the spirited sun, bare-chested and brazen, watching the flapping, darting, dance of the chickens. Their drama, which has increased exponentially with our our second rooster's coming of age, has us endlessly entertained.  Though the rooster's days are numbered and his ultimate demise is at the top of our list, we sing our favorite Greg Brown song, raising our voices when we get to the line, "spring winds blew my list of things to do away."

I spotted flashes of brilliant blue as the first Mountain Blue Bird swooped around with his mate in search of a nesting place.

The sun draws the frost from the earth, and the smell of soil awakening fills me with anticipation.

Writing has been hard for me recently. In a small community, when hard news hits, we all feel the blow. We watch little babies transform from monkeys clinging to their mothers limbs into horses galloping through our open fields, their heads barely higher than the tall grasses.

My friends and co-workers recently found that an agressive tumor grows around their sweet daughter Jubilee's brain stem. This cancer has a 100% mortality rate. The family has asked that people pray for Jubilee, that she may find peace and freedom from suffering, and our community continues to hold the whole family in our hearts surrounded with strength and light.