things about living in the country

We're not necessarily getting better at this country living thing, but it is getting easier. Bit by bit. 

All the times I think of complaining, of the living in this tiny little shack with no bedrooms, and no bathroom, and no sewing room, and not spare.space.for.ourselves.whatsoever. Every time I want to complain, I go outside and look around. Up and down and out and in. All around. 

Those are the wonderful and good and ever so amazing parts of living in the country. {We do not live in the 'country-side', instead we live in the forest or bush}.

Looking up I see the trees stretching for years and years into the sky. This tree that lives and grows right near where we have chosen to also plant ourselves is more than 80 years old. It looks like a dinosaur tree, covered in moss and ferns and orchids. With little birds building their own lives within the spiky leaves. And also a giant goanna that climbs up the rough bark and slips into the massive basket ferns that live there. 

Looking down I see tiny ferns and moss and fungi. Ants and beetles. Leaves and buds and twigs fallen. The earth beneath my feet is the same earth that my mother walked upon. And I walked upon with my siblings when I was young. 

Looking all around I see this circle of trees that we live in. Like a fairy circle with trees around us in a ring of life. And the birds that call this valley home. I am trying to encourage the kids to draw each bird they see on our daily adventures. There's lots of birds, and I do think it would make a beautiful journal seen through the kids' hand drawings.

Right now, as I type this, there is a carpet snake in our kitchen. Yes. Yes. You read correctly. A snake curled up in the corner behind a cupboard in our actual kitchen. Remember, we live in a shack with lots of easy-to-access broken windows and chinks in the wall (our kitchen has stone wall in some parts). A carpet python isn't poisonous or dangerous. She has sat there quietly all day, and simply wants to go outside. I think she came in last night during the storm. Our cat will not venture into the kitchen; we had to feed him in the loungeroom! It's good having a snake in the kitchen as it keeps the native mice and rats away. 

Driving to the creek, the kids sit in the boot of the car. No seatbelts. Or perhaps sit on my lap while I drive, turning the steeringwheel as I drive. These things are ok in the country. We don't have traffic jams on our way to town; we have cows across the road, or geese honking at you. One day a turtle was sitting on the road and I had to help it back to the creek. You must slow down for birds. And laugh at the brush turkeys racing across the road. 

Looking up I see the stars. Every star in the sky shines brightly at night. Twinkling and shimmering on us. At night when you go outside you need a torch. We go outside every night - we have no inside toilet. Sometimes cold in Winter, but always so much more beautiful than a regular indoor bathroom. {And not as cold as here!!!}

There are other, oh so many other, good and wonderful things about living in the country. I am counting my blessings to live here, and enjoy all the good and wonderful things about it.

*these sunflowers are from my neighbours garden. She threw handfuls of seeds into a well dug patch - the flower head seeds are intended for chicken feed once they are spent. We did have sunflowers last Summer, and I *intend* to have a flowering garden again this year. Last year was busy with being away from home, and my whole garden suffered badly. 

{living simply} some things I don't talk about

 {before any of you get excited; this isn't our house - it's my dad's house - the beautiful upstairs verandah with bamboo ceiling. And the downstairs entryway with those well worn bricks and the mud-brick style walls}

I've been thinking a bit lately about how we live, and how it probably differs quite a bit to how other people live.
I don't talk about it much, as really for me, it's part of who I am, and almost how I grew up - so it doesn't feel unusual or difficult or different for me. But I am very conscious of how it is for Sam and for my children, and for family and friends who come to visit us and have never experienced this way of living before.
So, I've decided that I might start sharing it here a bit more too.

The way we live on this little parcel of land isn't how we planned, or how we will always live here. But it's how we are living here right now, and have been for the past 16 months, and will continue to for some more time while our house building continues. But much of how we live is how we want to live - and will be a continual journey of slow and simple living.

Firstly - the no electricity thing. Yep, it's hard. It was romantic for the first few months, during Summer and the long evenings. But after some time, and then in Winter when the sun sets at 4.30pm. Well, it's a bit of a drag.
We live by torch light, and candles and little solar garden lights that we take outside to charge every morning, and bring inside every evening (they are more for ambient lighting, and act as little glow-bug / night lights for the children in these dark dark nights). We buy candles, and have also been making our own from the melted wax (I'll blog about that another time). We read our bedtime stories by torch, and in Winter time we cook dinner by candle or torch or good eyesight!

We have a battery powered radio - it doesn't last long if we play cds on it, so mainly we listen to whatever radiostation isn't fuzzy at the time.

We don't have tv, or a little dvd player. We have my one laptop computer (we did have two, but Sam's died a while ago). This means at night time we can sometimes either watch a (borrowed from the local library) movie or I have time for my blogging addiction, or doing online work. I charge my computer at my dad's house on most days - but not all days; those nights we have no computer at all.

We charge our mobile phones in our cars when we're driving to school or town. I take my charger and plug it in whenever and wherever I'm out and about, and I feel I'm not pushing the friendship too far...

We have a small gas fridge, it doesn't fit much, and freezes any vegetables we put in it. Luckily for Sam it keeps beer nice and icy! When we first moved here we used an esky and ice for at least 9 months - this was horrible and tedious. But it has taught us to only buy what we will eat and need for a few days, and not keep unnessecary food at the back of the fridge going bad and wasting electricity. (Go and look in your fridge - do you need everything in there? Do you really need a fridge that big?).

Prior to living here, we were never a high-energy consuming household. This is just a step further, and makes us realise we don't need as much as we ever use when it's at our finger tips to switch something on.

Perhaps you could try using your computer for as long as only a fully charged battery lasts. When it runs out, you have to turn it off - you can't plug it in and spend more hours blog-hopping, or pinning, or all those other things I used to do all hours of the night when I lived in Brisbane.

We spend more time reading or sitting and enjoying the quiet. We go to bed earlier, which means we have a better sleep and wake up earlier as well.

You could set yourself a little challenge to live in the dark for a few hours this week. Dinner by candle light is romantic, crochet by candle light is poetic. Get the kids involved too - reading bedtime stories by torch light is really fun; an adventure. I'd love to hear how you went - go on, it's not hard, just a challenge.
(and before you go to bed, go outside even in the rain the cold the snow to say goodnight to the moon, the stars, the sky, the night, the world).