Living the Dream

So many people tell me how lucky we are and how amazing it must be living how we do.

I don’t want to dispute this nor disabuse anyone who holds on to a fantasy of living off grid.

We live completely off grid, with solar panels for electricity, a bore hole to provide our own water and heat is a wood burning stove using our own logs.

We can have a meal of ham and eggs provided by our lovely chooks, and dear departed pigs, without having to go to a shop.

All this is amazing, and I realise everyday how lucky we are, and what a privilege it is to be able to have some land so that we can live this way.

However, (there is always an however) , some days I think about all those people who say “wow living the dream. I’m so jealous” and chuckle.

Does anyone dream of shovelling shit on a Sunday morning in the hail?

I certainly didn’t , but when the time comes for the compost loo to be emptied , the compost loo is emptied. No need to go into any more detail

…

The other joyful task I have been undertaking this week is peeling off rotten, wet plywood from an old caravan floor.

Said caravan is the only accommodation we have for Woofers, volunteers and guests. Not all together obviously, it’s only a two berth, or was until I pulled out all the insides. Now it’s a no berth.

I discovered a couple of weeks back that it has been leaking slowly. We were in blissful ignorance of this and have no idea how long water had been seeping in. I reckon, by the look of it at least 30 years!

Hence me on my hands and knees, peeling back layer after layer of rotten ply, when not slopping on some horrid grey gloop on the outside that is supposed to seal any gaps. Everyday I have to face the bitter diappointment that there is still a pool of water somewhere in the caravan, after finishing every evening convinced that finally I have found THE LEAK. I have, it is just that another one pops up. Talk about (no) hope springing eternal. It really is in our caravan.

Fingers crossed that all is not lost. We have a spent today, in the snow, constructing a roof over the whole thing. Let’s hope that keeps the bloody water out.

It doesn’t feel too much like Eden when there isn’t enough daylight to feed the solar panels and electricity is rationed. Especially challanging when the days are so short and the nights so long. So tempting to use the noisy, diesel burning generator and at the very least, after a hard day in the cold, get to watch re runs of really old Grand Designs, but that would be cheating….. wouldn’t it?