Lately I’ve had a lot to say about Country livin’ and how it suits me. Ok, maybe I came to (or came back to) this Life in my twilight years, but here I am. I’m grateful for that.
Now imagine what it might’ve been like to be brought up Country, raised on a farm, never feeling more right than when you watered stock, worked the fields, walked the woods. But war and schooling intervened, and the woman you married wanted nothing much to do with the Life you loved so much.
And so you set it aside, you compromised, you adapted. You built a successful career, created a comfortable lifestyle and raised a couple of kids. In your later years you retired not to the gentleman’s farm of your dreams, but to a planned community in suburbia.
At the age of 83, your well-lived Life came to an end. You never got back to the Country.
That was my father.
Some of this blog’s readers met him, knew him, because they grew up with me and, well, he was around. A few of you, however, came to know a different side of the man, as the veterinarian who visited your family’s farm and treated your animals. You were gifted with glimpses of the Country kid he’d once been and the simple man he aspired to be.
He never forgot where he came from. He loved his farm calls. They were, I think, part of how he coped with his disappointment.
Though he never complained, more than once he counseled me to resist the temptation to compromise. I didn’t fully grasp what that meant until after he was gone.
So here I am. I’m no “tall dog in short grass” when it comes to Country livin’, but I’m givin’ it my best. In Deb I have a partner who shares this dream — and we’ve known we wanted this Life since shortly after we met.
Yeah, I’m grateful. Now maybe you understand a little better why that’s so.
A tarped woodpile isn’t nearly as pretty as an uncovered one, that’s for sure. But lacking a woodshed with a roof, that’s what we’ll do to shelter the fuel that’ll heat our cabin from rain and snow.
Since we’re expecting rain tomorrow, I threw tarps over our stacked cordwood this morning. At least they’re camo.
I also re-secured my kindling-splitting jig, replacing deck screws and fender washers with proper galvanized lag screws. Much better.
Our electrician showed up earlier than we thought he would. (His medical appointments had gone quickly and fine.) He ran almost 200 feet of the required 6/3 wire (which is like wrestling an anaconda), pulled it through conduit and made the connection at the pole. Down at the well, he mounted a separate breaker box and a 20A outlet (so we can plug in a heat lamp in cold weather).
Once everything was hooked up, I connected a hose to the hydrant and he flipped the breaker down at the well. After allowing the pump to build pressure, he turned the valve on his end and I raised the lever on the hydrant.
Naturally, it took several minutes to purge the air from the line. We heard gurgling in the pipe. A gurgle became a splurch became a gusher — water, our water, water from our well, shot from the end of the hose.
We have running water on The Mountain!
I’d have a hard time describing how Deb and I feel right now, so I won’t spend a lot of time trying. We had a celebratory dinner of brisket street tacos at Carolyn’s Razorback Ribs. When we got back, we tidied up the new setup.
I installed a Y-adapter on the hydrant, as well as quick-disconnects, an inline filter and a fixed pressure regulator (40psi to 50psi) on the fresh-water hose to the RV. Tired washers and screens got replaced, too.
We ran the hose across the driveway in the vacant channel of the “speed bump” that protects our shore-power cord. Last, after making the connection to the “city water” inlet, I stuffed steel wool around the hose where it passes through the RV’s body (to discourage mice).
There were no leaks — not a single one, neither in the pipe from the well nor in the hose to the RV. Realist that I am, I found that astonishing.
Before we called it a day, we filled both of our transfer barrels. Though we no longer need them for hauling our fresh water from elsewhere, we now have 110 gallons in reserve in case the grid goes down.
Needless to say (but I need to say it), this was yet another milestone day. We capped it by climbing up to The Amphitheater and watching the sun set over our favorite place on Earth.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB