Our first winter

I just realized that it's been since November that I last posted. Time flies when you're having fun, and this time by having fun I mean going from one low to the next. 

December 18th, the forest and city formally denied our access. And let us know that they'd be locking the gate on the 20th. Merry Christmas, homesteaders! 

We were supposed to have spent that weekend at Hueco Tanks, and instead spent it miserably looking at apartments, which we wouldn't have been able to get regardless because everyone here breed restricts. Tim, Rob, and I spent a lot of hours going back and forth and back again, trying to figure out what to do, and ultimately, after consulting a lawyer, decided that we're not going anywhere. This is our home, and we're not going to let the forest manhandle us out of our home. 

Shortly after Christmas, Tim, Havoc, and I left to spend some time in Texas with our families. Rob stayed behind to take care of the dogs and hold down the fort. Our trip to Texas consisted of illness, missed connections, misunderstandings, arguments, and as much fun as we could fit in between all those things. Meanwhile, Flagstaff was getting hit with the heaviest snow storm in 130 years. We got about three feet of snow at Serenity Valley, and Rob learned the very valuable and also costly lesson that the 4x4 in his Tundra is not up to the challenge of three feet of snow. 

See the truck down in that gully? Later snows buried it almost completely. The guys estimated that they moved 16,000 square feet of snow to get the truck out and back to the house. The truck runs fine, thankfully, but sustained body damage that broke Rob's heart a bit. 

The good news was that Tim's truck had been in Texas, and therefor was not snowed in. The bad news was that we were snowed out, and we could not get home. Our neighbors, Tom and Melinda, graciously offered to let us park at their house, and we hiked 1/4 mile, very literally uphill, home. 

That first hike home was, needless to say, goddamn brutal. 

It didn't take long before we realized that Havoc and I simply couldn't handle that hike on a twice daily basis, to school/work and back, with groceries and laundry, etc, even after Tim and Rob shoveled the entire 1/4 mile walk out of nearly knee deep snow. Gods among men, these two, I'm telling you. So, we bought a quad. Which I promptly wrecked, bending a rod a week in, required a week in the shop. 

Our water trailers are frozen. We can fill our jugs at midday on warmer days, other days Tim has a system rigged up with heat tape and the generator that thaws the valves enough to function. 

The coyotes are getting frighteningly bold, coming within a few dozen yards of the house a lot of nights, which is unsettling since I have to go outside every night to pee (in the snow, and it's usually in the negative degrees. Yay, homesteading!) and I can see them, like, rightfuckingthere. Three of them even followed Havoc and I one morning on our way to the truck. I didn't care for that so much. Neighbors have reported bear and cougar in the area recently as well, which hasn't done a lot for my peace of mind. 

The shiniest of all the many silver linings so far has been the wood stove. The glorious, glorious wood stove. Most days, we've been letting the fire go out around midday, because even if it's 25° outside, it's 80° in the tiny house. It's the best.

We also finally have our solar rig up and running, which means the concept of refrigeration has come gloriously back into my life! It's so cool to be able to just turn around and grab what I need, instead of going outside to the cooler on the porch. No more food spoiling one day and freezing the next! Modern conveniences are awesome. 

I was able to get my truck back home this past week, so no more freezing quad drives to the neighbors for H and I. The road is still very snowy and it's a stressful (but oh man so fun!) drive, but I can get in and out safely and that's been a huge boost for my overall mental wellbeing. 

It's been a tough first winter, you guys, but it looks as though we are tougher, and though we're learning an awful lot of really painful lessons the hardest way, we're getting through. The days are getting longer, and warmer, and we'll be much better prepared for next year. 

Here's to spring! And I promise, I'll post a less miserable update soon! 

Tiny House: Mission: Accomplished

We got our first snow yesterday. 

We barely made it into the tiny house in time, by a couple of nights! There are still details to finish, like the kitchen backsplash, and getting the solar set up, but we're in! 

It's amazing how warm it is in the house! Last night got into the teens, and even though our fire burns out around 1 am, it was still warm at 6:30 when we got up. Hooray for insulation. 

I'm slowly but surely decorating and getting organized. 

Snow days are so different here, in that it actually snows! It's pretty neat that Havoc gets to spend our first two snowy days at home! We're going to bundle up shortly and go find animal tracks; a rabbit ran circles around the trees just outside the living room window. 

It's 28 degrees here right now. It's 75 in Austin. Wow. 

October, already?

On the 19th, we will have lived here for six months. A half a year has gone by. 

It's a beautiful fall here in Flagstaff. The leaves are changing, the days are getting cool and the nights are getting cold. Tim ran 14 miles up a mountain yesterday and found snow on the peaks. 

We aren't quite there on the house yet. Seems there are always delays in construction, especially when you're a three man crew with a five year old helper. 

We added some details that ate up a day, but will be very worth it once we're done! 

Texture went on yesterday, today we prime and paint. Once the flooring and trim go in, we can move in, although there will still be work to do. I know I've said it before, but we should be moving in mid next week. It really depends on the wood stoves arrival; without them it will be too chilly, and the trailer, although cramped, has heat. Next weekend is going to be cold and rainy, I'm hoping I can spend it cozily, unpacking some things and making my tiny house feel like home. 

Tiny house progress.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. To be honest, I've been pretty depressed and just haven't had much to give after the house and family and what have you. Homesteading is rewarding, but it's also really really fucking hard, and I let the hard get too much into my head. I'm feeling a little better here recently, though, so. You know. Onward. 

The house is cranking right along. I spent a week stuffing insulation, and I would be so very happy to never have to see the stuff again. 

I still have to crawl under the house and shop and insulate the floors, but I'm trying not to think about that right now. I'm claustrophobic, so it's going to be pretty awful. 

The last sheet rock peices went up day before yesterday. 

We (and by we I mean Tim and Rob) are hard at work filling holes and taping and floating the seams. Spraying texture will be a snap compared to this! Then paint and floors and cabinets and we are move in ready, you guys! We're so close! I'm hoping for mid next week, but we'll see. 

I honestly thought that one of the things I'd be most excited about when moving out of the trailer would be getting a lot of my things back, my creature comforts. Now as the move in day approaches, I'm realizing that I'm actually excited to get into the storage unit and get rid of a lot of stuff, not bring it home. I can't wait to get rid of everything I don't love, that I don't use, that I only have for sentimental reasons. I want to be surrounded by only useful, beautiful, meaningful things. 

Well, useful, beautiful, meaningful things, and at least some of my pretty clothes, because I may be a homesteader now, but I'm still a woman, you know! I will find reasons to wear high heels again, I will. Eventually. 

Construction, even on tiny houses, generates a lot of trash. So much trash. 

It's making me crazy. I can't wait till it's all gone and the land is clean. It feels like the land is suffocating under it all as much as I am. It's not peaceful. It's so much background noise, and I can shut it out. Once we get the cabinets in, that'll be the last of the trash and we'll haul it all away and Serenity Valley and I will both breathe a huge sigh of relief. 

Wanderlust and illness

I don't know what it is about Arizona. Something in the mountain air, I guess, has me aching to explore, to wander, to hike new trails till my feet ache and then cool them in new rivers. I want to learn the songs the trees sing in different forests. 

      Aspens and ferns on Kachina Trail

At the same time, I'm feeling so rooted and at home here in my woods. It's still surreal, that I get to live here, that I get to raise my son among the Ponderosas in the shadow of the San Francisco peaks. How did we manage to pull this off?!  It feels like a dream. It's too beautiful to be real. 

Sunday driving back roads on a Saturday. 

I wonder when the wonder will wear off. When will we start to curse what passes for traffic here, instead of laughing at the absurdity of the contrast to the gridlock of rush hour gridlock in Austin? When will I drive through town without my breath catching in my throat at the sight of the mountains? Will I stop hearing the pines sighing in the breeze? Will I stop stopping to close my eyes and feel that same breeze on my cheek? 

         Horned lizards are everywhere. 

I'm not feeling well today. I've spent the entire day lying in bed listening to the rain, alternating sleeping and feeling sorry for myself. I don't know if I'm coming down with an actual illness or if my body is just worn down from the exhaustion of suddenly working really long really hard days building things, doing my best to run a construction site 1200 miles away, raising a child who came back from a week and a half at Grandmas farm an absolute monster, and trying to run a household from the dirt. It's a lot to handle, and as usual I'm not taking very good care of myself. Hopefully a day of rest and chicken soup will be enough to recharge my batteries, because as it turns out, life doesn't just stop because I feel crappy. 

Onward! And hopefully upward, to an upright position. 

Home sweet homestead

I woke up a few times in the night, restless and a bit irritable, and then I looked out my windows at the moonlight filtering through the trees that stretch till the eye can't distinguish seperate trunks anymore even on the brightest nights. "It's okay, I'm home now", I thought to myself, and settled back into bed with a smile on my face and contentment in my heart.

Rob and I spent a long weekend in Texas this past weekend, and other than a few shining wonderful moments spent with family and friends, it was an incredibly jarring, uncomfortable and often depressing trip. It's weird to be in a place that was home for so long and feel no connection to it at all. It really reinforced to both of us, though, that the move was the right choice. 

Now we're back and hard at work! We've got all four structures floor framed, joists hung, cross bracing in, and sheathing down. It turns out that I am, much to everyone's surprise, quite handy with a chop saw and framing nailer. I did very nearly shoot Rob in the stomach today with said nailer, though. 

Rob heads back to Texas on Friday for his brothers wedding and to pick up the boy from Grandma and Grandpas, so we're holding off on wall framing till Monday. It's really happening, though, and for all my aching muscles I couldn't be happier. We're literally building the lives we've always dreamed of, from the ground up, with the people we love the most. Who could ever want more than that? 

Broken concrete mixers and new friends

I have somehow slipped into being completely slovenly. Every dish is dirty (and in the yard, mind you), but I don't feel like washing them so I'm going to post instead. 

The saga of the access continues. It's now settled as to who owns the road (it's BNSF), now I'm just trying to get them to let me use the damn thing. I have the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that I'll be fighting this fight for a while yet. 

In the meantime, without access we can't permit and without permits we can't build. There are three adults, two dogs, and a boy, all living in a small travel trailer. That is not going to last long before someone snaps. So, after some careful reading of codes and zoning laws and some serious thinking outside the box, we've started construction on four tiny structures. 

Photos by Brooke Biette, who is the best. 

Two tiny houses with lofts, a bath house, and a hand tool shop. 

Rob, who is thankfully a badass with heavy machinery, scraped the sites and dug the piers with a rented bobcat tractor. We foolishly assumed that form tubes would be easy to get, which led to a day's scrambling to every hardware store in town buying a hodge podge of sizes just to have enough! The first concrete mixer... well, let's just say it met with an accident and lost some gear teeth. The second one just sort of stopped working. The third FINALLY worked, and after two days the three of us successfully poured 26 piers without killing each other. 

Meanwhile, I've been having my heart charmed right out of my chest by this tiny amazing person named Brooke who I met on Instagram, of all ridiculous places.  I'm so glad for her sake that we're not insane serial murderers, because this fearless little woman drove several hours to come camp three nights here after only a few weeks of knowing me and never having met me in person. The poor guys, it was just incessant chatter the entire time, and now I am deeply in friend love and she's stuck with me for life. (For LIFE, Brooke!) Some people just... Fit. 

This afternoon, on to floor framing!