words to live by - margaret frese

a few weeks ago i wrote my grandmother a letter. in this letter i explained the manner in which Bob and I were living. yesterday i received a letter back and was amazed at what i read....below is an snippet:

" You are living exactly like I did as I was growing up - Except we did have a house - It probably wasn't any warmer than your van - since there was no insulation in those old houses. No bathroom. We had to go to the "outhouse" which was away from the house. And in bad weather & winter snow + cold, it seemed like 2 miles and you almost forgot what you went there for. ha ha ha - And we carried a lantern along too. Then after you were finished - the Montgomery - Ward Catalog pages finished the "job". Oh yeah - twasn't great. No heat in our upstairs bedroom. The windows were completely covered with frost, and the top of the wool comforter was frozen from"your" breath. Those beds were so cold when you first crawled in - awful. We took irons off the heating stove to help warm up.

When we took a bath, 2 times a week, it was the wash basin behind the heating stove, with everyone else around the kitchen table, the door shut and Dad sitting on the edge of the table nearest to the door - Oh yes - I know how you are living, only it's the two of you. Multiply that by 6 children + mom/dad - we never thought there was any other way.

My job every night after school was to clean the lamp(s) chimney. Sometimes it was the only one on kitchen table - other times maybe 3. We were never permitted to touch a burning lamp until we were adults. I remember exactly the first time I carried a burning lamp. I was almost 18. It was April 1939, I would turn 18 in June that year. I got to take the lamp up to our room to change clothes for a "date" that night, with Grandpa's cousin - Paul Frese. Nothing easy back then...and we were never permitted to wear shoes/slippers when going up or down steps. to dangerous.

I never ever thought one of my grandchildren would be living like i did as a child. Grandpa also had it rough, tho, his folks had electricity by the time he was 3 years old. So that makes everything easier.

Now if you two had 4 or 5 children, you could know how hard my folks had to work. My mom baked 8 loaves of bread every 3rd day, using corn cobs heating the oven. She knew how many cobs to keep oven at 350* (no thermometer either)

p.s. If you want to remember how i grew up, keep these pages as i won't rewrite it all again. "

God Bless

a perfect morning

okay, so it doesn't have lots to do with homesteading but more with ritual. one of our favorite things to do over coffee is to walk and visit our favorite trees on the property. below is one of mine, who i recently freed up from an immense amount of over growth and stifling brambles. then there is Bob's. then heck, there is a damn fine morning with Saveur's top 100 & coffee with heavy cream...GOOD MORNING INDEED!

spartan gets sliced

it's on. and what you see is what is no longer ON the Spartan. Bob has taken the last two days to gut out the vintage babe. ripping out all cabinets, sinks, walls, toilet, flooring, plumbing, electricity, hoses...etc. what he found, ant colonies, mice feces and shotty work.

all must go. all must go. with an almost empty vessel it's intriguing to think of all the possibilities.

Black Bear Begininings

our first tree purchase for the property also doubled as our Christmas tree...Monkey Puzzle.

one of my favorite things about our land is the amount of old growth cedar groves. this is one of the larger dudes growing out of an old nurse stump.

in memory of a wonderful man with a REAL green thumb...my Grandpa Frese.

the free hut

the only semi type of shelter that was on the property when we arrived was a large open carport. bob and i knew that what ever we made needed to be temporary but comfortable. it also needed to be cheap, if not free. the plans included transforming the van into a sleeping loft and then build the later half of the carport into a hut that was enclosed. below are some photos of the transformation using all free and salvaged materials. what now stands is a hut warmed by the rocket stove and all the fixins we need for cooking. mind you there is no electricity.

BEFORE.

the humanure compost

Bob bangs out some simple pallet style bins with chicken wire on the inside of the "to-be" bin for humanure. all in all under $ 10 to make this structure.

X marks the spot. literally. here lies are nice new area for "eh-em" business. i cleared out all the under brush, brambles and sawed off all the lower branches of the trees. i put down some solid boards and then covered with straw and fern leaves. viola! pleasant pooh station.

caught rain water for cleaning. if you want to learn more about composting humanure, visit this helpful site: HUMANURE

i think it's best for me to explain this photo properly. what you are seeing is sawdust that now contains the moisture from humanure. we emptied two 5 gallon buckets of humanure mixed with sawdust & toilet paper, toilet paper rolls. what came out was already semi composted humanure! ZERO smell, ZERO matter, just soggy sawdust. genius. when a solid year has passed, we mark the date and then let the compost continue to cook another full year. then it is ready to be put back into the garden, back into the soil, back into the earth.

project spartan

i removed the chipped ice formica table from this over built kitchen area. we intend on tossing most of the cabinetry and building something different to suit our needs.

not original & what on earth were they thinking?

60 years can accumulate a lot of mice feces, dank smells and weird dust particles. a respirator is a must.

our new project for the property - a 1948 Vintage Spartan Mansion. we secured this travel trailer back in october from a guy in Everett, Washington. now it resides in from of the shop where it is day by day getting gutted, cleaned and slowly restored. check back to see what we make of the old tin can...