Just as our tight living space in Guatemala, Ecuador, and on the road in our trailer took some getting used to, so too our adorable living quarters on the homestead come with a learning curve. We affectionately refer to this as the "gnome home."
This sod-covered stick-built structure is where we'll do our cooking, eating, and sleeping during October and November.
Half the floor of this one-room hut is exposed dirt, the other half is dirt covered with balsam fir which gives it a little spring and lovely aroma each time we enter. We cook and heat with the wood-fired stove.
Without running water, we collect rainwater for "wash water" and carry in buckets of water from a nearby spring for drinking and cooking water. Though we could sleep on the fir boughs, our family is trying out sleeping in the loft we access by a wooden ladder. The floor space is roughly that of a queen bed, but more oddly shaped.
Without electricity, our abode is always a little dim and in the evenings plain dark. We supplement with rechargeable lanterns and headlamps but we still find ourselves drawn in by our circadian rhythms. Never a family to go to bed early, sometimes we're all in bed by 8:00 if we've finished the chores for the evening.
It'll likely warrant a full blog post, but for now we'll finish the brief tour of our living space by answering what a few of you are likely asking at this point. Where is the bathroom? Well, it's an open air outhouse with a bucket.
Back to the land indeed! We look forward to sharing with you our day-to-day activities, other neat structures, living systems, and the people we work with at this beautiful place. It's a pretty time of year to be harvesting the late-season crops from the garden.
Looks great! Bilbo would love it...
ReplyDeleteA hobbit house indeed!
Delete