We just moved from a new-construction tract home on a cul de sac to a charmingly rustic and rather remote log cabin in the woods. It's a bit different. Before the subdivision we were in a condo overlooking a major street in the heart of Chicago, so we're on quite the journey here.
My sisters wanted to know whether I chose this house because it looks like the Little House on the Prairie. I was a big Laura Ingalls Wilder fan growing up. Like, a BIG fan. Not the TV show, the books, mind you. Don't give me that TV show bullshit. When I lived in Minnesota I drove up to the museum at Walnut Grove and I was extremely irritated to find it overrun with references to the TV show.
Anyway, my sisters are wrong.
This is obviously the Little House in the Big Woods. I told my husband that I was looking forward to sitting around the woodstove, darning socks while he mends harness. You know, like The Little House in the Big Woods, I said. Because of course everyone is familiar with this, right? "There you go," he said. "You should wrote a book. That's a great title." Sigh.
Living out here means learning all sorts of new things. Like where my trash goes. No trash pickup in the boonies, unless you arrange it yourself. I thought we could just toss a bag of trash in the back of the car every day or so and throw it out in the dumpsters at the grocery store or whatever. Apparently that's illegal? So we're getting some giant trash cans and once a month or so Trent will have to drive them to the dump. "It's $10 for up to 140 pounds," he told me. "Wait, what?" I said. "You have to pay?" He looked at me like I'd just sprouted ass ears.
The thing that appeals to me about hauling our own trash, aside from saving money, even if it's not free, apparently, is it makes me much more aware of the trash I create. There's an old compost heap on the property, and I'm thinking about reviving it. Thing is, composting involves bugs?
Last night I picked up what I thought was a clump of thread from the floor and screeched like a starlet in a horror flick when I realized I was holding a half-dead spider. And at our last house, my single attempt to do something about the planters full of dead plants that were all over the yard a few months after we moved in--I make no admission of liability here, I think they were dead before they ever became our responsibility--was quickly foiled, never to be reattempted, when I stuck a shovel in one and about a hundred earwigs came boiling out. Ugh. I am still shivering at the memory.
So. Yes. To the extent we realize the full possibilities of this property -- vegetable garden! chickens! -- it will be something of a miracle of personal growth for me. Keep your fingers crossed. (But don't hold your breath.)
