Why I decided to sell my house and 90% of my stuff. Swapping robin's nests to travel full-time.
An ode to the beauty of simple living and chopping wood. And the rough awakening to change everything and become a nomad.
In 2016 I lived in a unique 2400 square foot barnwood home on 20 acres in Idaho.
These are robin’s eggs in a nest built in a hanging basket on my deck.
Birds built nest on the eaves every year and woodpecker’s ‘knocked’ on my door so often I couldn’t tell if people or birds were knocking.
I lived there four years alone and loved much about that living.
The Land
It was quiet and simple living. I adored the land.
Two streams (one seasonal) were near the house.
And three eco-systems; a pine forest, an aspen grove by the spring-fed stream and meadow grasses.
Plus a couple of hills with wildflowers and round stone outcroppings. Magic.
I was there alone in a 2400 square foot house with my Great Pyrenees, Zeus, and my rescue cat, Miss Merlin.
I loved the land and became friends with the wind and the sounds of coyotes and owls.
Coyotes and Owls and one Wolf
Once I heard coyotes at night 15 feet from me.
Great horned owls flew overhead so close I could hear their wings.
I had a daytime stare-down with a barn owl sitting in a pine tree. Weird that it was out during the day.
Do you know if the coyotes go quiet when there is wolf passing through?
I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t heard coyotes yipping at night for a month and asked my neighbor.
“Oh that’s because the wolf is coming through. A lone wolf comes through here every year and the coyotes know to keep quiet”.
No WiFi, No Cell phone
I had a landline. I did not have WiFi or TV.
The cell phone reception was poor and I was glad about that.
My computer had a cable
I read a lot and wandered a lot and looked and communed with most everything…the trees, my herbs, the birds, the snow, the wind and the stars.
People came to visit me and I went to town often.
Sleeping on the Ground in Late Fall
For a time I slept outside on a pad directly on the ground. There were plumbing problems and stinky sewer gasses in the house.
I made makeshift shelter from cement blocks, wood and a piece of tin roof.
It snowed on me a few times, but I was snug and warm and could see all the stars through the trees that surounded me.
I looked straight up see the deep night sky filled with stars through a circle of tall pine trees.
You can smell the pine needles in the clean, crisp night air.
I loved that time.
This is when I heard the coyotes crying at night only 20 feet or so from me. It was a little scary, but only a little.
Coyotes don’t hurt people and I knew it. So I just stayed and listened.
WINTER
We get real winter there in Idaho. Feet of snow.
It was hard but beautiful.
I shoveled snow on my long and steep driveway. I had a snowblower.
I had a 1990 red Ford F150 truck. I loved that truck!
It gave me power and a sense of stability. I could haul lots of stuff and get out in the winter.
It was satisfying to know you arranged to get the best wood, split a cord yourself over the summer, and made the fire in the stove daily from the kindling you chopped.
The fire in my soapstone woodstove was my friend in the winter.
Sometimes I made homemade soup with bones and veggies and herbs and let it slowly cook on the woodstove.
SUMMER - food forests
I created experimental food-forest gardens for veggies and flowers.
Also tried hugulkulture (you bury a log with a ton of soil and plant on top of it) and other cool things.
My gardens produced food with minimal effort after they were created.
I planned and even bought fencing to get a couple goats.
And I had great plans for a strawbale greenhouse/chicken house.
Travis and D’Wayne
In summer I hired Travis and D’Wayne, self-proclaimed rednecks with chainsaws.
They bushwhacked, cleared trucklouds of debris and routed out a family of packrats in my barn.
They treated my place with respect and kind of ownership.
They probably couldn’t hold down regular jobs due to PTSD issues, but they knew how to do all the things I needed done and took pride in their work.
They loved Zeus. They came up with ideas.
We got a lot accomplished and I was happy in the summers.
Why I left:
Winter was beautiful. Stunning at times. Hard. And lonely.
I did not realize how lonely I had become until I left and went to Tulum, Mexico for a month.
I actually rode a bike around talking to people every day!
I had forgotten how it felt to be that happy on the daily. I was wilting in my house and unable to make all the things happen that I dreamed about.
The personal energy wasn’t there, by myself, to do projects that would bring people to me, like an Airbnb cabin, community cider pressings and garden workshops.
But I wasn’t aware of my very sad soul…I just felt vaguely tired and unhappy.
Until one day.
“You don’t even want to be here”
That’s what my outspoken bodyworker said to me out of the blue.
I was surprised and didn’t get it.
“What? What are you even talking about?”
“Nancy, you just said these words, ‘I don’t even know what I am doing here since Dad passed’.
I really had spoken those words without even realizing it.
Vibrant Living
I was deeply lacking a feeling of community and vibrant living. Even though I knew a lot of people in town, I had changed.
The town had changed also since I first moved there.
I needed badly to have new experiences, meet new people, be in places where meeting and talking and sharing were daily activities.
Epiphany
I realized if I sold everything, I would be free.
Free of the burden of trying to figure out how to make the house work financially and emotionally.
Free to go where I pleased, when I pleased.
Six months to freedom
Once I decided to become nomadic, I was ready to leave in six months.
I did all of this in six months:
Fixed up the rest of my house and sold it.
Gave away/sold 90% of my belongings.
Found loving homes for my cats and dog.
Created a financial plan for myself, moved some belongings to my cousin’s house in Texas and left for Canada in my Honda Fit.
The Hardest Thing
I was prepared to live with my dog even after selling my house until I found a wonderful place for him.
But I found a loving family with goats for him to guard and dogs to be with.
My cats went to my longtime friend and neighbor.
I would never have put him or my cats in a shelter. This was very important to me.
NOW
Now it is almost 6 years later. I writing from a friend’s house in northern California, in a little minding town in what they call ‘gold country’.
I have been traveling based on my intuition.
If I am invited somewhere and it feels right or if somehwere is calling me, then I go.
I have just gotten back from 5 1/2 months in Morocco and France.
Before that I spent 1.5 years in the Okanagan Valley in Canada, two months in New Orleans and many other places in the US and Europe.
Slow traveling means, for me, settling into places. Walking and talking and absorbing the land and the people.
After writing this I am realizing that I was slow living in the country…paying attention to the small things that mattered to me, that made my heart sing.
Now I do that slow living in different cities and different countries.
It is such a joy.
That’s it for now. I leave you with the “graceful ladies”, the aspen grove at my country place:
. . . And now I have a bit more of the story. Thanks Nan. I enjoyed this calming read this morning.