Random Observations from Recent Walks

Mis-read: Wearhouse. Clothing you can live in? That'd be great for homeless people. Or long-distance hikers!

Interpretive sign along the trail in Coeur d'Alene, ID with a quote from a 30s era hobo:

A hobo is a migratory worker;

a tramp is a migratory non-worker;

a bum is a non-migratory non-worker!

-Oklahoma Slim

(nice to know at least I'm not a bum!)

Overheard from a frustrated Greyhound passenger regarding any future travel: “If I can't fly, walk, or ride a fucking Big Wheel, I ain't going!”

Gone for a Walk, 12/28/11

Okay, I'm trying something new – I've discovered that some of the “Catalog” computers at the library are available for word processing, which should allow me to write posts without using up my internet access time limit.

I'm going to change the use of this blog a bit. Originally I started it as a way of getting feedback on the book I wanted to read and therefore found myself writing! Life has shifted quite a lot in the last six months, and this blog is going to shift as well to serve some other functions. Primarily, to explore more of the walking I've been doing!

So – what exactly have I been doing, you wonder? (Even if you haven't wondered, I'll tell you anyway. Reading this blog is your choice after all!) To be perfectly honest, I'm trying to figure that out myself!

The executive summary is that I have moved from Maine to Washington. Inland, in both cases, so not *quite* all the way across the continent! I am house-sitting for a friend until March, and considering several different options for the time after his return. Right now, the leading idea is to head into the woods. Literally.

This area (the Inland Northwest seems to be usual designation) is blessed with an abundance of wild lands: National Forests, National Parks, wilderness areas, State preserves of assorted varieties, as well as BLM land. There are more hiking trails than you can shake a trekking pole at, but I'm tempted to try! But until at least March, I'm based in Spokane, which has been very fun to explore.

I started with the Centennial Trail, which is a multi-use path that largely follows the Spokane River through town. It terminates at Riverside State Park in the west, and goes to the Idaho border in the east, where it continues on through Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. The place I'm house-sitting is spectacularly located near the center of town just a few blocks from access to the Centennial Trail. The first couple weeks I pretty much spent on the trail! While I did not get all the way into the State Park (it's 9 miles one way from the bus stop to the end of the trail), I have taken it into Idaho to about 4 miles from its eastern terminus (and then caught a Greyhound back to Spokane). I believe the trail is about 60 miles all told, about 2/3 in WA (this is where not have internet access while writing is annoying). As a multi-use trail, it is paved for bicycles, but with wide mowed shoulders that runners have made foot paths along as they seem to do. Although not so much on the last 5 miles before the Idaho border – demonstrating where running use is minimal. It's pretty flat, which makes it great for getting back into hiking, something I never did enough of while living near the White Mountains.

Now I'm ready for some hills again. Spokane isn't the prettiest city around, but they are awesome about sidewalks, which I have been dutifully pounding! Last week I took my first foray up South Hill. Sadly my camera batteries were dead, so I'll have to go back and see if I can get some pics looking up Freya Street – it's a pretty impressive rise! The city's bus service is as awesome as their sidewalks, so I do a lot of initial exploration by bus and scout out interesting places to walk, or just how to get from A to B, as in the case of grocery shopping!

Today's plan was to explore Manito Park, which looked quite promising from the bus window. Sadly, Manito wasn't nearly as neat-o as it might have been, but on my walk there I went through tiny Pioneer Park, which was awesome! Can you say Geology?! I actually did a bit of rock scrambling up one of the paths, since the weekend's melted snow made the trail mud pretty slick. Eager for more, I checked my city street map, and plotted a route over to High Bridge Park, another one I had passed on the bus. I think I found where all the doctors live, just north of the Hospital district – some really cool houses in that area. But getting down to High Bridge park wasn't straightforward – I thought it was named for the railroad bridge that really is UP there, but the roads are pretty far up as well. The park follows Hangman Creek (another use for high bridges?) that flows into the Spokane River, but there's no real access to the park other than from Riverside Ave near the water junction. But hark, there's a *huge* green area slightly west of there, Palisades Park! And that does promise to be a rewarding venture on a day that I get there more than a half-hour before sunset. For today, I did just a quick out-and-back on one of the apparently many trails threading that park.

The weather has been extremely mild – I have no idea if this is usual or not. It did snow on Saturday, big fluffy flakes that stuck around for those wanting a white holiday Sunday, but today it was 50*F+! In December! My Minnesota-raised mind boggles. This feels more like southern Indiana, but with shorter days. I'm actually about 5* latitude further north than I was in Maine, and am acutely aware of the short daylight hours.

So yeah, what I've been doing is “gone for a walk”! Which is pretty darn awesome. So the blog will now come with random trip reports as well as sustainability experiments and minimalism explorations. All part of my search for a satisfying life. Enjoy!

Why Off-Grid

People are forever aghast that I want to live off-grid. What, no electric? How could you live like that?! I hate to break it to you folks, but not only do millions (billions?) of people live without electricity this very day, a mere hundred years ago most of the people in the US didn't even have electricity! Yet another case of what I refer to as “thank god humanity managed to survive long enough for technology to save us from ourselves!”

The assumption seems to be that if someone lives without electricity, they are automatically doomed to a live of miserable squalor. Tin shack shanty towns with sewage in the streets, beggars on every corner, bellies inflated from malnourishment, and so on.

Stop and think – what do we actually *need* electricity for? (On a personal, not social, level – think homes, not hospitals.) Lights are usually the first thing to come to mind. With many people, the second thought might be a toss-up between television and refrigeration. Vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, clothes washers, computers, alarm clocks, cordless phones... the list seems nearly endless. But I have to wonder – how many are truly needs, and how many are simply wants? And is there a better way to fill some of those needs and wants?

With the ready availability of cheap electricity (and before you groan about your latest utility increase, consider either your [probable] wage increase or compare your utilities to your shelter or food costs and which you think is cheaper), we are freed from giving serious consideration to our consumption. But what if you *had* to consider your consumption? Do I run the dishwasher or do I vacuum? Would you then be more inclined to wash dishes in a dishpan or use a carpet sweeper or broom instead? That kind of awareness of consumption, of sustainability, is one of my underlying goals.

Long ago I heard a tale about the first woman in town who got a new device to each her housekeeping duties – a vacuum cleaner. With it, she no longer had to periodically haul her rugs outside, struggle to hang them up, and then beat them to get the dirt out – she simply left the rugs in place and used her new vacuum. At the next bridge club gathering at her home, she showed this marvel to her friends. Awed by its ease of use and ability, they also acquired their own wonderful new tools. As the demand for the modern invention increased, the manufacturer built a plant in the town to increase the supply of vacuums. The soot and other emissions from the plan soon filled the town and covered the rugs of all the women. But it wasn't anything a daily application of the vacuum cleaner couldn't handle. And when it broke down from frequent use, no problem – there were plenty of new ones being made by the factory right there in town!

I don't have anything against conveniences or electricity itself – I have something against mindless consumerism and its unintended consequences. From periodic rug beating to daily vacuuming. From personal effort to a machine that breaks down and has to be replaced, adding the broken one to a landfill (in somebody else's backyard, never in one's own backyard). From removable rugs to wall-to-wall carpeting. Exactly whose life was improved by this wonderful invention? And how many other inventions have stories that follow the same arc? And how often do we, as individual consumers, question our assumptions of improvement?

Surely there must be a better way to fill our needs and wants. Perhaps beginning with questioning those needs and wants in the first place?

I’ve (finally) Gone For a Walk (again)

I find it ironic that I walk much more in urban areas than in more scenic rural ones.  Apparently, it’s a proximity issue.

Living in rural New England, the closest town was 10 miles away.  The necessity of a motorized vehicle was unavoidable.  (Although there were two eccentric fellows who biked everywhere, it wasn’t something I felt capable of.)  I was lucky that when my vehicle stopped working this fall, I had someone willing to share one of theirs – nearly identical to the circumstances I found myself in last fall after an accident destroyed my vehicle of that time!

Motor dependency was only one of the issues that finally prompted a change – for many reasons, it was time to move.  To move on, to move forward, to move elsewhere and explore someplace new. 

The drive from Maine to Washington is quite lovely, especially when timed to visit friends over a holiday!  And thus I find myself exploring Spokane, enjoying the walk.

The last day of November was my first day in town.  After returning the rented moving truck, I explored parts of the downtown area, took an unofficial tour on the city bus, and explored just a small segment of a 60 mile trail that winds along the Spokane river.  The first day of December found me wandering through several neighborhoods on route to the weekly indoor farmers market I had seen advertised at the library the day before. 

So I am car-free once again, with all vehicular burdens removed from my mind.  It’s an incredibly freeing feeling!  While I am apprehensive about living in an urban area again, I am enjoying the different benefits that it offers.  Both urban and rural areas have their own benefits and drawbacks – perhaps by occasionally swapping between the two, I will better appreciate each one.  But for now, I have a smile on my face thinking “I’ve gone for a walk!” 

Solar Showers

You’ve been working hard all day, sweating up a storm, and it’s finally time to relax and prepare for the good nights sleep your labors promise.  You’re tired yet feel good about the progress made by the day’s efforts, and now it’s time for a small indulgence – a solar shower!

A lot of the tools I use for minimalism and sustainability come from my camping and backpacking days.  The solar shower may very well be my favorite.  While I’m working up a sweat on a sunny day, that same sun is heating the water in my solar shower bag.  It’s quite a simple yet ingenious device – a plastic bag that is clear on one side and black on the other.  It has a handle and a filling hole near the top, and a short tube with a sprinkler-type nozzle at the bottom.  Fill with water, place the clear side towards to sun to heat, hang above you when ready to shower, and operate the nozzle to turn on and off the flow.  A basic solar shower bag is about $10 anywhere camping supplies are sold, although you can get fancier models with temperature indicators and mesh pockets for soap and whatnot for up to $40. 

It takes surprisingly little water to feel I’ve had a very effective and refreshing shower.  Maybe a gallon at most!  I credit the short hose the nozzle is on for much of that – being able to direct the water exactly where I want it requires considerably less volume than the conventional 2gpm (gallon per minute) drenching shower head.  I suspect the directability also compensates for the low water pressure allowed by such a short drop.  I’m also a fan of being able to see, through the clear side of the bag, just how much water I’ve used and how much remains.  I have a firm belief that the ready availability and lack of quantity reference of standard taps contributes, and almost encourages, our wasteful use of water.  Even though the areas in which I choose to live are rich in water resources, I don’t feel that gives me (or anyone) permission to use resources mindlessly. 

You could hang the bag indoors to shower, but for me the real decadence is showering outside in the woods.  My latest arrangement includes a black plastic pallet to stand on to keep my feet out of any mud.  My bag is hung on a cat’s paw (a style of small crowbar) across the top rungs of my worksite stepladder.  The stepladder also makes a handy towel rack.  I’ve strategically places a citronella torch nearby to dissuade any bugs from their own evening indulgences!

I used to have a smaller 1-2 gallon solar shower that I used when backpacking.  That one I could simply hold over my head.  The most deluxe arrangement was when I was camping with a group of about 20 people on the Manitoba prairie during the Winnipeg Folk Festival in the late 90s.  The camping area was a walk-in location that didn’t have many trees, so the engineers of the group rigged up a tall triangular frame of 2x2 wood wrapped in tarps.  We used pulleys to ease lifting the shower bags to the top of the frame, which allowed plenty of standing room underneath.  Because of the size of the group, we had 4 or 5 shower bags and had pitched in towards the cost of a collapsible cart that used to haul the bags to the water spigot daily, and also to haul gear in and out before and after the festival itself. 

When I first came out to Maine in 2002 to help the owners start construction on the main house, I introduced them to the solar shower concept.  We simply placed the bag on the cab of the pickup, and enjoyed warm showers instead of a cold hose-down from the new well.  In 2010, I had the opportunity to introduce another friend to solar showers while helping him with some cob construction.  There we used what is probably the most typical situation, and simply hung the shower from a tree branch.  Use your imagination and ingenuity to arrange your own solar shower! 

It is quite possible for the solar shower to get too hot, so some attention is required.  You have to remember to fill the bag, set it in the sun to heat, but also pay attention so it doesn’t heat past your comfort level.  Or give it an opportunity to cool down, perhaps in the shade or simply as the sun sets to where it’s no longer striking the bag directly.  On the plus side, your water won’t rapidly change temperature when you pause the flow or someone else uses the toilet! 

I suspect this attention is something most Americans would consider onerous – we’re so accustomed to being able to simply turn on a tap and fine-tune the mixture of hot and cold water, that the idea of having to plan ahead is nearly unthinkable.  But this is exactly what I see as being a leading cause of our excessive consumption of world resources – we want everything to be immediate, convenient, with little need for thought and foresight.  Microwaving instead of retained-heat cooking is another clear example.  Living a satisfying and sustainable life requires attention, planning, and an attitude shift to finding joy in that mindfulness.  Many people have learned to combine their errands to reduce fuel consumption; what other things could you do mindfully in order to live a more sustainable life? 

Surprise!

I shouldn’t be surprised, yet I am.

Do you ever have those days where you think you’re going to do one thing, but something entirely different actually happens?  I don’t mean externally, like running errands turning into a visit to the auto mechanic; I mean internally, where you conscious and subconscious seem to go in opposite directions.  This phenomena frequently plagues homeworkers – your conscious mind says I’m going to work on X assignment, but before you even realize what’s going on, your subconscious had moved you to clean the kitchen and catch up on laundry, possibly with a couple games of free cell or sudoku thrown in the mix.

If only it were that simple.  Nope, I had to discover that my conscious and subconscious were pulling in dramatically diametrically opposed directions.  The surprise was realizing that my subconscious had won the tug-of-war when I didn’t even realize the battle I had thought resolved was still raging. 

But I believe (maybe? hopefully?) that this time, the war truly has been won. 

The war was between my desire for an independent, self-sufficient (or more accurately, community-sufficient) lifestyle, versus my desire to be a nomadic life student.  I really did believe that I had finally settled down in one location, where I could carry out long-term projects like planting food trees and permaculture gardens around my personally designed and built cabin, to happily live out my days in the type of woodlands that are so dear to my heart and sense of well-being.  That was my conscious decision and life choice. 

But it never quite got there – insufficient attention to the gardens, insufficient focus of time on building.  And now I finally know why – my subconscious still battled to retain my nomadic tendencies, my love of exploring and learning new things and new situations.  My desire for minimalism conflicted with the accumulation of “just-in-case” supplies.  I’ve lost weight, but hung on to too-big clothes in case I gained it back.  I have materials for hobbies I might go back to, once I “find” the time.  And I still have far too many interested to devote my time and effort to just a few. 

This battle, this war, was all brought to light by a recent simple question. 

The owner of an animal shelter I volunteer at asked if I would be interested in becoming a resident caretaker.  It doesn’t pay in dollars, but offers free room and board and more importantly, an esoteric education across a broad array of topics.  Everything from animal care to landscaping, engine mechanics to road and trail maintenance, from dealing with a board of directors to dealing with state and federal regulations, including their inherent contradictions.  All this, taught by a life-long philosopher with a near-photographic memory. 

I leapt at the chance, confusing me as well as those around me.  How could I give up everything I had been working towards?  The real answer is that I’m not, exactly.  Yeah, construction of my own home has been put on hold and I’m sleeping somewhere else now.  But the true core, a sustainable and satisfying life, is still driving me.  Some of the details are necessarily changing (no room for a woodstove here!), but many will not (plenty of sky view for a solar oven and eventually solar panels).  And I’m finally acknowledging that my constant craving for new learning opportunities will likely move me on again in another few years.  I guess I’ll adapt a travel trailer as my cabin instead.  Surprise! 

Thus, I am reviving an old nickname with a new tag-line:

The Curious Nomad: will trade labor for learning

Finding Instead of Growing Food

Ah, the bliss of mild temps after a week of sweltering heat! I swear Mother Nature throws us these loops to enhance our appreciation of “normal” weather!

I have been very busy doing instead of writing lately, which is exactly why I had chosen September as my submission goal even though back in May that had seemed so far away. One thing I have learned over the years is that everything takes twice as long as I think it will. And that's without interruptions or distractions, of which there have been plenty lately.

I find it ironic that there has been progress on several fronts that are *not* construction, which I had intended to be my primary focus this year! But I'm never one to argue against progress, intentional or otherwise, as long as it is still working towards the basic underlying goal.

A third adult has joined to homestead here, bringing some valued skills along with the chaos such a move always entails. The most exciting from my perspective is probably her love of gardening. While I adore the idea of raising my own vegetables, the reality is I attend to animals much better than I do plants. I often joke it's because the ground is so far away, way down there under my feet! But in truth, I think it's the endless nature of weeding, which never seems to have an end point the way feeding animals does. I get far more satisfaction watching the animals grow than I do the weeds! Plus plants don't make the demanding noises that hungry (or just greedy!) animals do.

A couple weeks ago I attended a community lecture at the local town meeting house titled “Native Plant Knowledge”. The title has two interpretations – a knowledge of native plants, but also the Native knowledge of plants. It was less a how-to than a why-to, which surprised me, but the talk certainly did fire my enthusiasm to learn more about the resources that already surround me.

Another of my recent distractions was taking an on-line food storage class. A lot of information was packed into a few short weeks, and I'm still digesting (can't decide if the pun was intended or not) much of the information. It did convince me to finally invest in the Excalibur Dehydrator I have wanted for many years, which is also motivation to harvest, not just eat, wild (and cultivated) foods.

I enjoyed grazing on the newly ripened raspberry bushes for breakfast this morning. I intend to harvest some to dry with the goal of mixing the dried berries with meat to make pemmican. I am not a jelly consumer, so no need to bother with trying to can any. This is what appeals to me about Forest Gardening – the idea that I could encourage perennial plants to give me food with little need for ongoing seed starting, transplanting, watering, and weeding. Perhaps Forage Gardening would be a better term – encouraging naturally wild edible plants to grow in an accessible (and identifiable!) area.

Blueberries are also in season in this area, although I am not aware of any here on the property and will likely have to resort to a u-pick-em type source. The few wild strawberries went straight into my mouth without any pretense of saving some! Soon the blackberries will be ripening as well, but their quality varies considerably from year-to-year so I don't anticipate them as much as the dependable blueberries. Now I just need to learn and find some wild vegetables to go along with the berries. After all, woman cannot live on meat and berries alone! Well, okay maybe I could, but I'm a fan of variety – venison, pork, beef, lamb, chicken, turkey...