THIS OLD HOUSE.

We are just about exactly one year into our move to the new farm. It was one of our busiest years ever, growing-wise, and one of the mildest seasons we could have been given for our transition. Plenty of rain, warm-but-not-too-warm, great CSA members and just an all-around great year.It was also a confirmation of our decision to move: abundant family time, a reconnection to community and involvement, and a new opportunity for us to serve the food-insecure. We miss our friends and neighbors, but we know this is where we are supposed to be.We just returned from vacation (a real, actual vacation!) in Asheville. We had an amazing time, eating and hiking and eating some more and visiting farms and farmers markets. One of our days was spent in Pisgah National Forest, where we sort of stumbled into “The Cradle of Forestry” - a museum/tour that explored the old Biltmore Forest School established by the Vanderbilts in 1898, known as the "birthplace of science-based forest management."We walked along a paved hike and explored all of the old buildings from the school - the residence cabins, the schoolhouse, the offices, the store. Jesse and I both felt a twinge of sadness walking into the log cabins - the smell very reminiscent of our own house in Bugtussle. Touring these structures made us realize that there has been one thing missing this past year at our new farm: our cabin.Now, to be clear: we are not homeless. We have a perfectly decent house, a mobile home, in fact. It is lovely and, in many technical aspects, an improvement on our tiny cabin. It has almost double the square-footage, with running water and electricity, a REAL bathroom and even a washer and dryer! We are SO GRATEFUL for this home.But we do not love this home. It is the polar-opposite from our little, hand-built home. It is not attractive, it is not solid-feeling, it is not ours. Again, we appreciate it SO MUCH and have admittedly appreciated some of its conveniences, but we actually want to get back to some of the simplicity of the cabin. We miss being in control of our water and power - we had a string of tragic plumbing issues this summer, not a good thing when your garden depends on irrigation! The desperate calling, trying to find a plumber (how are there not more plumbers?!), being at the mercy of their schedules and their prices - it was horrifying to us. Same with electricity - we have yet to install our woodstove, because it is just not safe for an older mobile home. We never had these problems at the cabin - it was hard work, but we had control (and peace of mind) when it came to our water turning on or our plants staying warm enough in the greenhouse.  Our walk through those handmade buildings in the woods in North Carolina really affirmed something for us, or perhaps simply ignited it: let’s build another cabin.We came back from Asheville feeling inspired and refreshed. We are so fortunate to have this house - we live our lives in it everyday, sheltered, and we will be able to continue to live here while we (one day) start to build a new home, with our own hands, our own ideas, and our own needs in mind. Being excited and inspired is such a good feeling - and exactly the way you hope to feel after returning from a vacation. We also ate a lot of great food and a visited a beautiful farm - leaving us equally inspired to strive for better in the kitchen and the garden. We really had the best time in Asheville - thanks to everyone who offered tips and suggestions!-Hannah. 

CABIN UPDATE - FINISHING THE SIDING.

With the help of an incredibly enormous ladder borrowed from our neighbor, we finished a major chunk of the siding last week. This is something that has been weighing on Jesse's mind for a long time, and so it is a huge relief to have it done. We had gotten so used to seeing the cabin half-finished and covered in tar paper, it is sort of surreal to have it fully covered, our little sassafras home.- Hannah.

SIMPLE.

It's about seven in the morning, and around thirty-five degrees out. I'm sitting on a small, wet rock at the bottom of the hill scooping water – our drinking water – from a spring into small plastic jugs, and my thumb is slowly going numb. Hannah, I know, is washing dishes in the cabin which involves heating water on the stove and individually scrubbing, rinsing and drying each dish. And for some odd reason, we call this The Simple Life.Though I've always been fond of the term, "Simple Living" is starting to feel like a bit of a misnomer, at least on this small farm. Almost no activity is actually simple, and probably won't be for many generations to come, when the pastures are cleared and up to health; when the cabin is finished, the barns are repaired and the water systems are fleshed out. Even then, it probably won't be simple, though God-willing, it will at least be reasonable.Simple just doesn't feel right. This life is too handmade and demands too much of our attention to be considered simple. Simple was delivery pizza. Simple was living where doors opened for us, escalators did our walking, and our house heated or cooled itself at our whim. Simple was pets in lieu of herds, gas stoves instead of wood. Simple was machines that did our washing. A day off, now that was simple. And we've lived that life, but left it for what we presumed would be a simpler existence.Perhaps right now we are living more thoughtfully than simply. We have no choice. If we forget to visit the spring, we run out of water. In the summer, if we don't get our frozen jug of ice from our neighbor's chest freezer, we have no refrigeration. If we didn't have to start a fire before every meal, or before every dish washing, maybe that would make things simpler. There's just not much that's obviously simple about living this way, and sometimes that lack of simplicity—that we have to think of everything that must be done by the time dark falls—can cause us anxiety and cost us sleep.But it can also be deeply rewarding. Food we grow ourselves, cook ourselves on a wood stove we stoked ourselves, no restaurant can match. The quiet nights spent reading, writing, listening to the radio or conversing by headlamp and firelight make us  wonder what the world ever saw in television in the first place. The cabin, along with all the other odd structures we need to build, teach us how to construct (and sometimes, unfortunately, deconstruct). We're forced to preserve our bounty but enjoy the drying, fermenting and canning as a necessity, for survival. Farming naturally and living this way challenges us in the ways we like to be challenged. This life demands ingenuity and physical fitness, but in turn makes us physically fit, and OK, maybe not ingenious, but definitely doesn't hurt our problem solving skills.Maybe it's so often referred to as simple because the countryside is not thought of as an intellectual place. But we've found few things more sophisticated than the wisdom of old farmers, even if it flows from them slowly and deliberately. Perhaps it's the simple tools we use, the pitch forks and hoes, old scythes dug out of tool bins at peddler malls. Or maybe calling it simple is an ironic, inside joke we're just now getting, because although it's rewarding, it's anything but simple. (I guess I could Google why we call it "The Simple Life", but, not to belabor the point, without the internet or electricity in the cabin, that would be too simple.) Even still, we wouldn't want to live any other way. Thoughtful, rewarding, challenging living—farming with our antique tools and antique ways—that's what we've found so far, and we love it. Who needs simple anyway?- Jesse.

CABIN UPDATE: SIDING.

Jesse finished the back side of the house last week, and it is pretty awesome - basically because from a certain angle the cabin looks completely done! It is fun to be able to picture the end product. Only one more side and the gables to finish!