We havin’ fun yet?

When someone says, “It’ll be an adventure!” under less-than-ideal circumstances, with a strained smile, through gritted teeth, I have to take them at their word. I mean, doing battle with adverse conditions may be their idea of a good time.

In related news, here we are on a mountain in Arkansas, living temporarily in a tired old camper. The temperature dipped to 18°F overnight and icy 40mph+ winds buffeted the west side of the RV. Our propane furnace is dead. For personal comfort, we run two electric space heaters in the living area (750W each). To prevent our fresh-water supply from assuming a solid state, two more ceramic heaters (400W and 500W) warm vulnerable lines in the camper’s “basement.” Between the well head and the RV, we also employ a heated hose, three separate runs of heated conductor, a 300W heat lamp and a windbreak fashioned from four bales of straw.

When we awoke this morning, the temperature inside the camper was between 70°F (at the wall thermostat in the center of the living space) and 60°F (ten feet away in the southwest corner, where we sleep). Our fresh water had remained a liquid. Because we push the limits of what the onboard electrical system can handle without tripping breakers, we had to unplug one of the space heaters in order to make coffee, then connected it again afterward.

Scout and Smudge both weathered the cold night okay, settling in the warmest places they could find. Deb and I slept under thick blankets.

Now, does that sound like an “adventure” to you?

Sure it does.

More than anything else, the way I look at it, this Life is relentlessly interesting. Seriously, we’re in a position where we have to figure shit out every single day. Going back to a mindless push-button existence would be boring as hell.

Winter or summer, day and night, it’s also an endless series of experiments. Whenever we don’t know how best to do a particular thing, we’ll try this and that until we land on what works. Learning and accomplishing make Life that much better.

Simple example — when I walked the dogs at 5am this morning, instead of donning my warmest coat and hat, I layered with what was hanging next to the door. To trap body heat for the short time I’d be outdoors, a puffy polyfill vest. Since it was windy, a hooded rain jacket. Work gloves and a microfiber stocking hat from my pockets.

I wouldn’t want to be stuck in a deer blind for hours in that improvised getup, but it worked better than I’d expected. The exercise gave me useful information, too, which (other than staying warm) was the whole point.

Whether or not all that qualifies as an “adventure,” I don’t know, but it’s how I’ve chosen to spend the final chapter of my Life. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I read this in an off-grid/homesteading forum yesterday afternoon:

“I’m thinking about buying 120 acres in north-central Arkansas and creating an off-grid community. It’d have a community garden, along with beef and poultry, and we’d freeze-dry excess production. Five-acre lake, one-acre pond, 40 acres of pasture.

“I’d like to build a number of 800-square-foot cabins, 20 in all, solar-powered, on one-acre lots, and sell them for $100,000 each. Thoughts?”

Yeah, I definitely have thoughts about that.

The price, which some folks objected to as unaffordable, isn’t out-of-line. Considered on its own, in fact, it’s damned reasonable. I speak from experience, of course, knowing firsthand how much money it takes to carve out a humble Home here, to say nothing of building a homestead.

Plans for food production and solar likewise are sound, at least in concept.

But if the idea ever comes to pass, I won’t be buying in. The problem I have with it comes down to my personal preference for Liberty.

Ask yourself — what’s the biggest benefit of being off the grid? Independence. What’s the primary payoff of living on acreage? Independence. Why raise your own food? Independence.

This “off-grid community” wouldn’t make good on the fundamental promise of all the things it proposes to do. You’d live on an acre, but you probably wouldn’t own it — and if that land was deeded to you, the rest of those 120 acres would belong to other people, or to the community, or to the developer in perpetuity. And everything would be shared.

Heavy on lifestyle, light on Liberty.

Who pays property taxes? Who pays for the livestock and other community assets? There will be fees and special assessments, as well as a thick book of rules. Guaranteed.

At the risk of putting too fine a point on it, “community” is just another word for “homeowners association” or “religious cult.”

I’m not a communal kinda guy. I’m damned sure not a collectivist. I didn’t move to 20 wooded acres on a mountain in Ozarkansas to join a club, obey rules, seek permission and depend on pooled resources.

Liberty is priceless. It’s not negotiable. Neighbors are all the “community” I need. I wish this fellow the best of luck, but his idea doesn’t appeal to me.

Technically, and eight days behind last winter, we got our first snow yesterday — intermittent squalls of tiny, wind-driven ice crystals that gathered in crevices and on cold surfaces. Deb captured this image around 7:30pm last night.