Origins 2

 This is Part 2 Of Our Origin Story, to read Part 1 go here.

 So we loaded the log cabin into a U-Haul truck a piece at a time along with our other few meager possessions. Loaded our few goats we had acquired and learned to milk into the back of the '65 and we were off. I think we signed something that said we wouldn't take the U-Haul off road......sorry U-Haul it was only 24 miles or so.
  I believe it was the 20th of September 1995 when we "landed" in (our) New World. By the 20th of November we would sleep in the cabin for the first time. Six inches of snow on the ground and a tarp for a door. It was invigorating to say the least.

  A day or two before, Noah was kicked in the chest by Clyde, one half of our pair of Belgian draft horses (Bonnie being the other half of the pair).

 A few broken ribs and 20 below zero temperatures almost finished us off that first month. We learned about something called 'creosote'. A build up of creosote in our stove pipe caused the pipe to become clogged and thus fill the cabin with smoke. We had to just shut the stove down and endure the sub-zero temps....Noah was too sick to get out of bed, let alone fix the problem.
  Luck had it that a neighbors visiting son stopped by. He found us looking like death warmed over (warmed being a relative term of course). He took down the stove pipe and unclogged it and built us a fire.
  That near death experience averted, the rest of our first winter went smoothly. We had put in enough firewood, we had put in enough hay, the cabin was warm. We learned about the weather patterns on our mountain, the prevailing winds, how low the sun stayed on the horizon and how short the winter days were. All really essential information for designing an alternative energy powered lifestyle.
 To be continued........

Origins

Origin-

Noun

 The beginning of something's existence.

  How did we get where we are? Well that's a long story. One that seems normal and blah to us but to many, it seems extraordinary. A line from my favorite poem as a child seems to sum it all up.

  

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.                               -Robert Frost --1920

  

  Northern California, Thanksgiving day, 1992, an accident on a football field sets into motion a romance that had flickered but never burned. In less than two years we would be married in one of the most beautiful places imaginable. 

 We were young but had good jobs. We had a desire to own some land but not a postage stamp lot and a cookie cutter house.We wanted SOME LAND. But we lived in California, where land doesn't come cheap and our jobs weren't that good. Big Sur would of been first on the list but it's well...Big Sur and either for the uber rich or the free-loading friends of the uber rich. So Big Sur it was not.

  An offer to house-sit for a few months in the mountains of Washington State proved to be too enticing to pass up. Soon we quit our jobs, packed up our meager possessions, sold the classic VW, bought a 1965 4-wheel drive Chevy truck and we were off. We really didn't know what we were doing.

  Now, while most of our friends were just getting into the rhythm of early adulthood. Juggling the newly earned right to consume alcohol with the proposition of having to get up in the morning to go to work. We were discovering a new world.

 Country life.

 We weren't Californians anymore (although Californian doesn't just wash off in the shower or get buried in the grime under your fingernails). We had a lot to learn and the tuition at the school of hard knocks gets expensive from time to time. Snow, rednecks, small town cops, firewood, winter driving and livestock all come to mind when I think back on that time.

  Six months later we were looking for our own piece of property. And we found it. 40 acres, its own little valley, remote, no power, no phone lines, dirt roads. Just what we (thought we) wanted. So we did what any reasonable newlywed couple would do, we started building a log cabin in the garage of the house we were taking care of.

  To be continued... go here to read part 2.