About

I’m not certain when I first realized that my preferred way of going about life is to savor it. It may have been in the year that I lost my job and my boyfriend, had a months-long painful shoulder condition that rendered my left arm partially unusable, dealt with a drought, was told by deputies to carry a gun to deal with burglars on my off-the-grid ranch, and had chosen to deal with all of these by moving to the aforementioned ranch and enjoying the serenity of primitive living conditions close to nature.

I use the term ranch accurately, but perhaps the image you envision is far from the reality. You may assume there was a house that I moved into. There was not! I had purchased bare ranchland surrounded by 4 strands of barbed wire fencing and spent five years building a small barn and adding a chicken house, hay storage, rabbit pen, and dog pen onto it, along with planting hundreds of seedling trees and shrubs into what were supposed to become windbreak rows.

What I moved into was a thirty-year-old mobile home I had purchased for $500 for storage. Its plumbing had been gutted; its furnace, water heater, and refrigerator removed. The holes in the floor and the non-working swamp cooler on the roof had been left as-is, and came in handy for summer cooling by allowing cool air from beneath the mobile home to enter through the cat-sized floor holes as hot air vented through the roof and swamp cooler. Cool! The nearest power lines were a mile away. The mobile home had comforting powder-blue walls and coordinating sky-blue shag carpet that reminded me of my childhood bedroom. It also had a never-to-be-identified scent that welcomed me home. I loved it.

Every task I performed; every project I took on; every thing I looked at, watched, pondered, or observed – each of these got my full attention. The dogs, the rabbits, the cat. The cattle and the horses. Feeding. Watering. Building something. Putting up a new fence. Planting a tree. Even a trip to an antique store in Limon to tarry and enjoy conversation with the proprietress over tea. There were no distractions.

With no electricity, life is very basic. It’s easy to focus on a single task, and to feel a sense of fulfillment and pride when completed.

I ripped a 4’x8′ sheet of plywood lengthwise with a handsaw. It felt like a big accomplishment.

I built a stout door from 2″x6″ tongue-and-groove lumber and hung it myself.

I stood atop a hill amid a field, a dog at my side, and watched a dark sky full of stars, planets, and the Milky Way begin to turn rosy as the night went to sleep and the dawn awoke to the soft tinkling of Horned Larks across the fields.

I watched a huge full moon rise atop a windmill, as though the moon itself were returning home from a day out working in the fields.

I read at night, or wrote, by the light of an oil lamp. Gas lanterns hissed too loudly and spoiled the feeling of serenity, so I didn’t use them much.

During July, I sat for hours, moving from tree to tree after giving each about a quarter-hour of sunwarmed water trickling from a hose. I watched dragonflies coming for the water and ants scurrying to escape it. I watched horned toads, and noticed a wavering line where a snake had passed. Western Kingbirds darted out to catch flying insects before returning to their perches on the fence wire. Pea shrubs hadn’t proved as hardy as I’d been led to believe. Cotoneaster looked beautiful with its dark green, shiny leaves. Skunk bush and New Mexico forestiera proved to be the hardiest of all. I wrote of these things I observed.

I had a particular way of making the best-ever French Toast. I made the best baked navy beans I had ever eaten from scratch, starting with the overnight soak and adding bacon, bacon grease, brown sugar, and molasses before baking.

I lived on $325 a week – and that makes you focus on every little expense.

The bed I slept in was in a room with very large west-facing windows, a smaller window to the north, and one-and-a-half-inch-thick walls. This provided a panoramic view of the outdoors, and a sense of being part of that outside world. There was a great view of the sage-green fields, of the mountains beyond, and of the night sky and its stars above.

I could hear everything – the squawking bark of a passing fox, the yip of coyotes, the pickup truck of burglars at 4 AM a quarter mile across the property, middle-of-the-night litterers and trespassers dumping carpet remnants and trash, or the straining engines at 2 AM of thieves more than two miles away dragging a utility trailer of tools from a job site where an old schoolhouse was being converted to a home. Three passing vehicles at those hours meant the volunteer fire department had been called out to deal with something or someone.

There were brighter moments. Laughing as the cows lined up side-by-side, pairs of eyes all leveled between the bars of a pipe gate as they watched me go about some task they thought interesting. Lucky, the energy-filled little Scottish Terrier who dashed full-speed up to the gate in exuberant greeting whenever I returned from the cafe’ or a rare trip to town. A visit with the neighbors across the way. The birds who nested in the birdhouse I’d built next to the rabbit pen. A migrating hummingbird stopping to fill up at the honeysuckle vines while adding their own dash of color and vibrancy. The thrill of a rainstorm. The sound of rain on the roof as I read a good book. The croak of toads when the pond filled. A horse quietly munching its hay in the barn at night. Fulfilling interactions. Satisfying sights. Comforting sounds.

Nature. Peace. Serenity. Life lived at the lowest level of Maslow’s Pyramid. Focus on food, nature, shelter, and safety.

Life took its time. It later dawned that I had been savoring it. Every little bit. The serenity and the savoring of life that it allowed – it healed me.

This savoring of all that you do – it brings peace to the soul.

This is a soul-felt peace that’s worth sharing, and that’s what we’re doing here.

If you want to savour your life, stick around. 🙂

Welcome!