Day One

Dear Maine,

So this is what it looks like to wake up to freedom. 

Sunshine streaming, birds chirping, total peace and calm. It's wonderful. I'm glad we practiced by not using the heat during our last few weeks in the house. It's 35 or so out, 50 or so in, but it's perfectly comfortable. It's hard to explain this feeling of absolute serenity. Or maybe it isn't, because it needn't be explained, only experienced. 

I can't wait to see what this day brings. 

...

We are unpacked and settled in. Rose, Beth, Dennis and Jane have made us feel incredibly welcome here. I will see if I can take a good panoramic photo of our cabin tomorrow when there's daylight. It's 12x15, and we (I) have filled it with way too much stuff, but it's cozy. The solar panel provides enough power to use a lamp and to charge our phones. We have a propane cook stove, gravity fed water to the sink (not hot!), a Gatorade cooler full of drinking water, and a wood stove, which we have running now. It's so cozy! There are dried herbs and flowers hanging from the rafters from past apprentices. I'm glad that the house we will be building is three times the size of this one, but for right now, it's perfect. It's seriously so warm and cozy, and I love all the wood. And last night, for the first night in a long, long time, I slept well. 

We made a little progress on our land today. We dropped off the compost we'd been making in our back yard in Johnson City since last summer. We aren't sure exactly where the final location for the compost pile will be. We need to figure out where to build first. We do, however, have a structure on the property now: 

Tada! It's a carport frame with a metal roof that Nate constructed last summer, and, of course, painted camouflage. We brought it up with us in January, and I'm glad we didn't set it up then. It was a little bit of a pain (a ladder would have helped), but overall not too bad, especially with our new (to us) Dewalt drill (thanks, LPJ3). We will probably get canvas for the sides, and we may build a platform to serve as a floor, just to keep things dry if we need to once we see how that area acts when it rains. We might put the tent under it for our weekend camping/building forays. (We plans to use our time off from the farm to build.) Ultimately it might become a woodshed. For right now, it's keeping our upended wheelbarrow safe from surveillance satellites. Just kidding. We just stuck it under there because, why not?

I love that it's 20:45 and I'm in bed. We start our farm work tomorrow with chores at 7:30. I can't wait!

Thank you for being super sunny today, Maine, although I'm looking forward to temperatures in the 60s and a little less wind (please). I hope this night's sleep is as good as last night's. 

Sweet dreams!