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April 30, 2019: If I’d Foreseen . . . .

Spring has finally sprung here. The birds are back. Yesterday I heard a robin. Today I heard a woodpecker. More so than any other year, I’m attentive to their appearance and appreciative of their song. Winter seems darker and longer when they head south. I wish that people around here were more appreciative of our feathered friends. And I saw Mikey the Porcupine waddling up Murphy Road. He is huge. I hope that no one shoots him. We do so little for all the wild animals and yet they do so much for us.

Trip preparations continue. I’m now in cleaning mode, going today to clean my writing cabin and the outhouse. Outside stuff, because the weather’s so nice. Right now, at noon, it’s about 50 degrees and the sun’s shining brightly.

Yesterday evening, at 11 p.m., I found myself wondering why it now takes us so long to get stuff done in preparation for any outing that’s more than a day. It didn’t used to be this way. It used to be that I could pack some clothes in say 15 minutes and be out the door in half an hour. With the addition of Pete, things got a bit more complicated – it took a few days before we were able to leave the nest.

Chickens and goats
Chickens and goats

The answer to my question is that we have become entrenched here. Animals, a garden, our off the grid lifestyle, they have all contributed to rootedness and the inability to move out quickly.

If I’d foreseen this was the way it was going to be 20 years previously I would have been aghast. But now, I seem to have accepted the situation for what it is, totally fucked up. We are going to get out of here by May 15th. I’m putting my strong shoulder to the wheel and pushing hard.

I suspect that on our day of departure that we’ll get a few miles from home and recall something we’ve forgotten and have to go back and get it. Far better to remember to retrieve an item a mile down the road than 350 miles down the road.

Will we ever again be as mobile as we once were? This is really the question. The answer is no. But things could take another form. The key is going to be to find a reliable house sitter. The last time we headed out we had an unreliable house sitter. Now, this time around we still don’t have a house sitter, but we do have several prospects.

Right now the lack of a house sitter is our only missing link. It would be cool to find someone who we might call at a drop of a hat, and say “we’re taking off for the weekend. Can you come over and tend to the horses, goats, chickens, dogs, and alternative energy system?

“Yes,” this house sitter would say, adding “I’ll be over in 15 minutes. And I can stay as long as you like.”

Dreams do become real. You just have to tap your feet together three times and say “It’s possible to leave home.”

Next: 119.5/1/19: Not So Random Acts of Kindness reconsidered

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