THE HEAT IS ON.

This will be our 5^th year of living without electricity - without air conditioning. And truly, it is not so bad. There are always some rough spells during the summers – a few 100-degree days that are just pretty nasty. But when you work outside all day, coming back to a chilly, air-conditioned house makes the outside seem that much worse. Once your body gets acclimated to the temperatures, when your body does the work to cool itself, it is not so bad. Really!THAT BEING SAID – we are having a hard time adjusting this summer. I can’t exactly pinpoint why, but I have my ideas. First, the past couple of mild summers have spoiled us. We didn’t have 100-degree days, or 100 percent humidity, in June. This past week contained four consecutive scorchers with choking humidity. No thank you. Second, we have never had a summer with a baby before. We have to consider him when deciding whether to tough it out in the blazing sun to try to finish that last row of garlic. Jesse and I can deal with a little bit too much sun or heat, but it’s not just about us anymore. Plus, when it comes specifically to ME, I have a tiny, sweaty, hotbox of a human suctioned onto me for most of the day. If he isn’t literally attached to me, I am wearing him in a carrier or holding him or sleeping next to him– which is just so, so unpleasant when it is this hot.But of course, as I write this, the heat wave has broken, and we have survived, as we always do. The heat has brought on the tomatoes, corn, and melons, and we employed some new coping mechanisms: we went to the creek every day, I fanned myself with prefold diapers while nursing Further, we closed up the windows and curtains during the day to try to preserve that little bit of cool air from the nights, and we only went into town for ice cream once.- Hannah.

WARMTH.

I never valued warmth very much growing up. Warmth was just there, or it wasn't. And I didn't think much about where it came from or that one warmth could be different from another. I just adjusted the thermostat accordingly and went about my business.Now, however, without a thermostat, I have to employ several different heats throughout a day, and I have learned to value their individual nuances. The heat of the sun, for instance, is a completely different monster than the heat of the wood stove. (And of course every individual wood has its own type of heat as well.) Then there's heat created by friction, rubbing your hands together, say, or using a splitting maul. There is body heat, like that of your baby and wife––or that of yourself, trapped in by the right clothes. Then of course the heat created by bacteria in a compost pile––that's a unique heat.With electricity or propane heat it's hard to experience these different heats throughly. And although I was aware of each before moving off-grid, I hadn't learned to value them like I do now. I hadn't learned how much better a sweet potato tastes when it's baked in a wood stove. Or how much better a sun dried tomato is when actually dried in the sun. When you're cold and away from a fire, I hadn't realized how warm hard work will keep you. And when you're chilly but too lazy to get out of bed and stoke the fire, how much relief can be brought by curling up a little closer to your wife and infant son.Warmth is no longer just there or not there to me. It's everywhere and it's wonderful. Or it's missing and I'm paying for it. Either way, it's a tool that we use a lot. And like any tool it can be good or bad, the right tool or the wrong tool. Of course, come summer, it will be about cool not warmth. But the same rules apply––I'll take a dip in the creek over air-conditioning any day.- Jesse.

NO NEED TO WORRY.

Several years back, when I still lived in New York City, I got deathly sick. I was often sick in New York, but that winter I'm pretty sure I caught pneumonia (or something frighteningly similar). And it just so happened to occur during one of the many religious holidays where our landlords would take off work, thus getting ahold of someone––should something go wrong––became utterly impossible. Respectfully.Then something went wrong. The heat went out in our building while the temperatures dropped into the low twenties for days on end. And I remember feeling incredibly hopeless. I didn't have health insurance so I couldn't afford to go to the doctor, and no one in the building could get ahold of the landlords or the super. I have never felt so miserable or so close to death. I spent that weekend huddled around a cheap space heater, under a stack of blankets, coughing and probably crying a little.It was frightening to me how out of my control this situation was. The heat of the building was entirely in someone else's hands––as was the water and electricity––and if you happened to have pneumonia during a cold holiday when the heat went out, tough luck. With that being said, I cannot tell you how comfortable I feel right now. It's verging on single digit temperatures outside, and I couldn't be more confident.We have nothing but control over the heat in our house. We are safe, the firewood's not going to run out, and fire itself is not going to suddenly go on vacation. I recall this weekend in New York as a turning point for me––a moment in which I decided enough was enough. I no longer wanted to live at the whim of other people, of old heaters in old buildings, of old city grids in old cities. I wanted a cabin in the woods with a wood stove. I wanted control.And six years later, that's what I have. I have safety and comfort and consistency and peace of mind. I have a wife and baby who can sleep well knowing they too are safe, that the heat is not going to go out on us. Moreover, as a bonus, because of this life we live I rarely get anywhere near that sick anymore. My health is something else I'm much more in control of these days. So if you ever wondering how we're doing during these brutally cold days of winter? Don't worry, we couldn't be better.- Jesse.