At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

I bucked up a little firewood yesterday. The weather turned out glorious although there was some light rain a couple times earlier in the day.



I got to use a Northern Tools $5 stump vice for the first time when I sharpened the chain.



I have several pine logs at the front of my log pile. There are more than I thought. It takes just as much time and effort to cut up pine as it does oak with half of the heat output. If I had a convenient place to drag off the pine logs I would do so. However, I don't. By the time I dragged them off to an out of the way place, I about could have cut them up and split them. So I'll just cut them up, split them, and burn them in the fireplace.

 

[MotorSeven]

Obed, I'm not sure if this has been asked before. Since we also lived in one for several years do you ever miss the camper? Sometimes we do, not enough to chuck it all and go back in time, but it did have it's good points Simplicity has it's merits.........

 

[Obed]

Obed, I'm not sure if this has been asked before. Since we also lived in one for several years do you ever miss the camper? Sometimes we do, not enough to chuck it all and go back in time, but it did have it's good points Simplicity has it's merits.........

Rick,
That's an excellent question. Yes and no.

While living in the camper, I loved the simplicity. I didn't have to mow the lawn every week. I didn't have to paint the house, sweep the porch and concrete, weed the flowers, trim the bushes, etc. There was some maintenance required on the camper. We had to fix some plumbing, deal with cold weather water pipe issues, etc. Every couple of months I was on top of the camper trying to fix a new roof leak. The leaking roof was a big headache. However, we only had one bathroom to maintain and clean, one kitchen sink, and a total of 360 SF of living space to take care of. I had LOTS of time to do whatever I wanted. I could play golf, go mountain biking, get involved in community work as much as I wanted.

On the flip side, when living in a camper your are always the "oddball". People don't know exactly what to do with you. Some people are hesitant to spend time getting to know you figuring you might leave town at any time. Having people over is a challenge because you just can't fit many people in a camper. Caulking the roof every 6 or 8 weeks gets old pretty quick. It would be one thing if you know you are actually fixing the roof. Our camper had a flat roof so water was constantly looking for a new hole in the caulk. It wasn't possible to "fix" the roof; you could only "patch" it.

Also, our daughter was born while we were still living in the camper and building our house. She lived in the camper for her first year and that really wasn't hard at all. I'm afraid that the camper would be quite small now that our girl is 3 years old and running all over the place. And being a father doesn't lend itself well to all the playing I used to be able to do before being a dad. Being a dad is much more wonderful than all the golf and mountain biking a person could do. I hadn't played golf for years anyway before our daughter was born anyway so that part is no big deal.

Since I need to be at home more than I used to due to the daddy duties, it's just fine to mow the lawn, cut firewood, maintain the property, etc. instead of playing. But some of the property maintenance is still like playing anyway. I enjoy cutting firewood. It's satisfying to build a porch or add an illuminated light switch in the basement stairwell.

I think living in a camper, a modest house, or a mansion really is just window dressing. If you are unhappy living in a camper, you'll be unhappy living in a mansion. The important things in life are to experience a meaningful relationship with God, spend lots of time with your family, treat others like you'd like to be treated, be responsible, and don't worry about things that are outside of your control. I've been blessed and am really enjoying life right now, but my enjoyment has very little to do with where I live.

Obed

 

[clemsonfor]

you can say that again!!

I thought the double post issue was suppose to be getting resolved....like a year ago!!

 

[MotorSeven]

Yes, that's pretty much how I sum it up. Les & I both get the itch to get on the road and travel, but with a "farm" it's not so easy finding a farmsitter:laughing: Hmmm, there's a nich...FarmSitter.com:thumbsup:

 

[Obed]

Yes, that's pretty much how I sum it up. Les & I both get the itch to get on the road and travel, but with a "farm" it's not so easy finding a farmsitter:laughing: Hmmm, there's a nich...FarmSitter.com:thumbsup:

Yep, once you have animals (farm animals and/or pets), taking trips gets much harder to do. My dad has worked out a win-win with his Menonite neighbors that live next door. The neighbors get to pasture some of their cows on my dad's land in exchange for helping my dad take care of his cattle.

Obed

 

[Obed]

My wife has planted her garden. She decided to "cut back" on her garden this summer season. So she only planted okra, squash, green beens, butter peas, tomatos, bell peppers, watermelon, cantelope, and a few other things I can't remember. So much for "cutting back"... she just couldn't help herself.

 

[Tororider]

I think living in a camper, a modest house, or a mansion really is just window dressing. If you are unhappy living in a camper, you'll be unhappy living in a mansion. The important things in life are to experience a meaningful relationship with God, spend lots of time with your family, treat others like you'd like to be treated, be responsible, and don't worry about things that are outside of your control. I've been blessed and am really enjoying life right now, but my enjoyment has very little to do with where I live.

Obed

Can't say it much better than that my friend.

 

[Obed]

I'm enjoying how green things are with all the rain we've had this spring.



I really like this view. The garden area can be seen in the background.

Last fall we poisoned and reseeded much of the lawn that had weeds in it that we suspect came from the straw we used when we first planted the grass. Now we have a bunch of clover in the grass. I suspect the grass seed we bought had lots of unwanted clover seeds in it. Can't win for loosin'! You cant really see the clover in these pictures because the grass was freshly cut. However, the clover is there and turns much of the lawn white as the clover flowers.

 

[srossman]

you can always spray your lawn with 2-4-d to kill off the clover. I think that it takes at least two growing seasons to get a lawn looking nice. I redid half my lawn last spring, and this year, it looks better, but I still have some clover and other weeds that I'll be working on getting rid of through the year.