Autumn in the Air

This morning I woke up to 65 degrees. That wasn't unusual for this Summer. There have been plenty of cool mornings like this, but today was different. For the first time, Autumn was in the air. I could feel it in the trees and see it in the sky. The shady awning of Autumn has now dropped across the northern hemisphere, and it won't beginning lifting again until the first day of Winter.

Our four seasons

I brought in a load of firewood a few days ago and told myself that is was for Autumn campfires with friends. But some of it will remain as Winter approaches, to be burned in my woodstove in the coming weeks. I'm not ready for Autumn yet. Usually by the end of August, I'm happy to see shorter days and cooler nights, having spent too many hot Summer nights sweating as I lay in bed. But not this year. It's mid-September now, and I miss the heat of Summer already.

A Different Way to Search for Land

I plan to move to Rappahannock County, Virginia next Spring. It's the next county over from where I live now, just to the northwest. It's beautiful. The Blue Ridge Mountains occupy the western part of the county so there are plenty of clear streams, and mountain views everywhere you look. There's plenty of raw land, too, with only 8,000 or so people living in the county. It's a great place to live, and seems ideal for tent living.

I only decided upon Rappahannock County a few weeks after conducting a more general land search last July. I ran the usual craigslist ad and put the word out on Facebook. I got the usual interesting responses and met some new people. I even had an offer to stay on some property in West Virginia, but that didn't work out. During that search, a couple of Facebook friends mentioned Sperryville, Virginia, which is in Rappahannock County. I had always liked Sperryville, so when my friend, Darlene, mentioned that she had met a lot of interesting people at The Headmaster's Pub in Sperryville, I decided to go check it out.

Following her advice, I went to the Headmaster's Pub that next weekend and immediately realized that Sperryville was my kind of place. The people there are great and it was easy to make new friends. I go there nearly every Friday now, and at some point I'm sure that I'll make a connection that leads me to land.

I've tried the craigslist approach three different times now. Each time it's been somewhat fruitful, and has led me to some interesting people, but I've yet to find land that way. On the other hand, I've had good success finding land by getting the word out to friends. So from here on out, I'm giving up on advertising to the general public. And now that I've decided upon Rappahannock County, I'm going to keep hanging out at Headmaster's Pub, meet some new friends, and wait for that certain sequence of events that leads me to my new home.

What is Tent Living Really About?

When I first started living this way, I thought I knew what it was going to be like. After all, I'd done a lot of camping in my life, so I just figured that living this way would be like an extended camping trip.

Turns out I had no idea what I was getting into. Living in a tent has taken me places that I never could have imagined.

When I first started out, I thought this way of life was all about getting my tent set up properly and solving all the technical problems. And it was, for awhile, but soon I got everything worked out. Then, I realized that this way of life was really about living simply and reducing stress. And it was. But then, from that relaxed state of mind, I began to realize that this way of life was really more about reconnecting with Nature, and seeing myself as part of it. So that became the focus of tent living, for awhile, until I began to clearly see that there is an incredible, beautiful, simple and yet complex, awe-inspiring natural order to how all life on this planet behaves and interacts. And from that new vantage point, it became clear that we humans are largely in violation of that natural order, and that we suffer dearly for that. So I became a "tentvangelist" for awhile, spreading the good news about tent living! Until I finally had to acknowledge that I would probably never "convert" even a single modern human to this way of life.

And now, after nearly three years of living this way, I see that tent living is about living freely, and being true to ourselves, and staying close to God.

Living in a tent has been an incredible journey. It's been a winding road, with new surprises around every bend. And surprisingly, tent living isn't really about tents at all. It's about living. Living close to nature, without the distractions of electrical devices. Living without a "to do" list. Living without debt, and without the need for full-time employment. Living a healthy life in which you are rich in time and free to pursue your gifts and passions. It's about being free, and living the way God intended us all to live.

I've journeyed pretty far down this road now, and I'm getting further away from civilization all the time. I'm pretty sure this is a solo journey, since new recruits are hard to come by. So I'll just keep reporting from the other side, and keep hoping that maybe, someday, a struggling soul will have the courage and faith to take the leap, and find their own way to freedom.

Bad Neighbors, The Conclusion

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Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m not normal. I live in a tent. I don’t have electricity. I carry in water. I mean, come on! I realize that society can only tolerate so much deviation from the norm, and I’m one of those anomalies. The threads of our social fabric must remain more or less aligned, in a normal pattern, or the social structures that we all depend upon will weaken and tear. My lifestyle doesn’t fit well in society and that bothers some people, like Alan.

When Alan and I were talking that day, he tried to explain to me why tent living bothered him so much. "What if everybody lived that way?" he had asked. I knew the point he was trying to make. When he imagined millions and millions of people living simply, off the grid, largely removed from the economy, and unconcerned with property, he saw chaos.

"That’s not a fair question", I said, knowing full well where his imagination had already taken him. "Because I think it would be wonderful."

I’m abnormal, and therefore to some, I’m a threat. Many people in this country are afraid right now. It’s an uneasy time for us. We’re completely dependent upon our social institutions, and the systems that we’ve always depended upon for employment and protection have shown themselves to be fragile and weak. This generation is slowly waking up to the fact that our social institutions are not built of stone, but are built of cards. And we are all sitting on top of that house, having been told all our lives that is was the right thing to do.

If Alan lived in a more stable society, built upon a solid foundation, then I think he might be less fearful and more tolerant of people like me. He would know that nothing could possibly threaten his social order. But unfortunately the institutions in Alan’s world were built upon greed and the desire for power. In our society, it’s normal to take what you can, and unusual to give what you can. So I understand Alan’s concerns, and I still believe him to be a good person. And who knows, perhaps one day, if he can get his mind around it, he might decide to leave his fears behind, jump off his house of cards, and move into a tent! But before he does that, I’d have to warn him about the neighbors.

The End

Bad Neighbors, Part 7

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Having finished my conversation with Detective Clark, I spent the rest of the day pondering what had happened. I was still very upset by the way the police had mishandled the whole situation, but I also couldn’t stop thinking about Alan’s role in all of this. Had he put his friend up to this, or was Alan truly unaware of what his friend had done? I wanted to find the truth.

The next morning, I called Alan to talk to him about what had happened. He didn’t answer, so I left a voice mail. "Hi Alan, this is Dave, the guy in the tent", I said. "Listen, I’m out-of-town right now but I just heard about the incident at my tent. I’m getting a lot of broken information and I don’t want to draw the wrong conclusions about you, so please give me a call so we can talk about what happened."

About an hour later, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number but answered anyway.

"Hi, this is Dave", I said.

"Hi Dave, this is Tracy, Alan’s wife", said the caller.

In the two years that I had lived in Brandy Station, I had never met Tracy, but I had heard about her. She had a bad reputation with the people I knew. While Alan seemed somewhat reasonable about things, she was apparently obsessed with my tent being so close to her house. My friends had described her as being controlling, obsessive, and manipulative, so I wasn’t quite sure how this conversation was going to go.

"Alan’s busy right now. He’s gonna call you back tonight but I just wanted to reach out to you and talk about this. I’m so sorry about what happened. We had nothing to do with it. I told Alan that his friend was bad news. He’s Alan’s friend, not mine, by the way. I’m just so sorry that this happened", she said.

I said very little during the conversation, but she went on talking for nearly an hour. She was very polite and respectful. She admitted that she didn’t like the tent there, but said that she would never do anything like call the police. And since the incident, she said that her life was a mess. Apparently she and Alan were receiving unwanted phone calls from the guy in jail in West Virginia.

It was an odd call. Tracy’s voice sounded sincere, she even cried a few times during the conversation, but the things that she said didn’t add up somehow, and the whole thing left me with more questions than answers. Why did she feel so compelled to reach out to me when she herself hadn’t done anything wrong? Was she just a really compassionate and empathetic person? Not according to my friends. And why was the guy in jail harassing her if she wasn’t somehow involved in all of this? What could he possibly have to say that was so urgent? And why did she emphasize that he was Alan’s friend, and not hers? So I wouldn’t think badly of her? But why would she care what I thought when we’d never even met?

It was a very odd call indeed, and Alan never did call back.

I would find out a few days later that thing weren’t adding up for the police, either. It was the phone calls from jail that finally led them to investigate Alan and Tracy. Like me, they felt that the whole thing was just too coincidental and that Alan and Tracy may have had a part in it. They investigated for over three months, but in the end couldn’t find enough evidence to charge them. I can only conclude, therefore, that Alan and Tracy are completely innocent in this matter, for they have not been proven guilty.

Maybe I’ll have a chance to talk to Alan about all of this someday, but then again, maybe not.

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Bad Neighbors, Part 6

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The detective and I talked a bit more about the incident. He told me that they had charged the guy with breaking and entering, filing a false police report, and a few other misdemeanors, and that he would be held in West Virginia until he agreed to be transported back to Virginia for prosecution. Apparently the guy had a criminal history of trespassing, illegal entry, things like that, so he would probably do some jail time for this one.

Toward the end of our conversation, Detective Clark mentioned that he had read my tent living blog. "It was part of our investigation, so I read the whole thing", he said. "By the way, I really respect what you’re doing out there, and I really like your setup. I think we should probably all be living simpler lives."

"You read my blog?" I said. Wait a minute! If he had read my blog then he knew who I was and why I was living this way. And surely he had also checked my criminal history and found that it was clean.

It was at that point that I started thinking more about the role of the police in all of this. Not only was I squeaky clean, but so was my landlord. He’s an upstanding citizen, well known in the community, with no criminal record and a security clearance! Shouldn’t that have raised some alarms? And did they even bother to check out the guy making the false report? He had a long criminal record! Couldn’t they have been more diligent before sending a bunch of guys into the woods surrounding my home with guns? What if I would have been there? What if my grandchildren would have been visiting!

I understand people like Alan. I even understand people like his friend who are willing to break the law and do bad things in order to "protect" their friends (if indeed that’s what happened). I don’t excuse such acts, but I understand how people can behave badly sometimes. But I expect much more from the police. How could they have been fooled by this guy so easily, especially when they knew who I was and why I was living in a tent? Had they just been sloppy? How incompetent were they? Or worse yet, were they corrupt and actually wanted to raid my place for some reason? The more I thought about it, the more upset I became. Nobody was hurt during this particular raid, but that was only by providence. Was this a typical example of the general caliber of the Culpeper County Sheriff’s Department? If it was, then something had to be done to correct them before they injured or killed an innocent person due to their ineptitude.

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Bad Neighbors, Part 5

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All was quite during the Winter months. I had completely lost contact with Alan, and in April of 2014, I took a trip to Michigan to visit family. I was there for three weeks, and toward the end of my visit I received a text message from my ex-wife. It said that the Culpeper County Sherriff’s Department had contacted her and would like me to call them. They had given her a detective’s name and phone number to call, but no other details.

The next day, I called Detective Clark as requested. "Thank you for calling us, Mr. Shilling", he said. "I’m sorry to interrupt your vacation, but there’s been an incident at your tent."

"An incident?" I said.

"We received a report that your tent was being used as a PCP lab", he continued. I immediately thought of Alan, but I didn’t say anything. "We got a search warrant and searched your place", he said. "I’m sorry about all of this. The man that made the false report is in custody in West Virginia. Your tent is fine. We put everything back in its place and I hope you won’t even notice we were there." Holy crap! My jaw dropped.

"Who was this guy?" I asked.

"He was a close personal friend of Alan, your neighbor", he said. I knew it!

"Wow. That doesn’t surprise me", I said. As soon as I heard that the guy was Alan’s friend, I became convinced that Alan was somehow behind all of this. Here it was, late April, and I was still sporting my silver tarp and hadn’t yet moved. Alan had been quiet and patient up until now, but had his patience finally worn out? I didn’t want to give too much information about Alan to the detective just yet. First, I wanted to hear what else he had to say about this other guy. "So what made this guy believe that my tent was a PCP lab?" I asked.

"Well, apparently he had visited Alan and saw your tent, and took it upon himself to check it out", he said. "He told us he went into your tent and looked around. He said it looked like a PCP lab. There were mason jars, a gas stove, firearms, and tunnels outside nearby."

"Wait, so he just saw the tent and thought it was suspicious so he took it upon himself to check it out?" I asked.

"Yeah, that’s what he said", he told me. "He said he was ‘Alan’s protector’. He’s known Alan for many years and is apparently a very close friend, like a father figure."

"Well, it doesn’t surprise me that there’s a connection with Alan", I said. "I spoke with Alan a few months ago and he doesn’t like me living next to him in a tent."

"Well, we’re pretty sure there’s a connection there, too. But we don’t have any evidence of that", he said.

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Bad Neighbors, Part 4

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Alan and I continued talking for another half hour, and things actually turned friendly. He mentioned that his ten-year-old son was interested in survivalism and would probably really enjoy my place. We exchanged phone numbers and I told him I would call him in a few days so that we could arrange an evening for him and his family to join me for dinner around the campfire.

To this day, I still believe that he was honest and sincere during that first meeting, and that when we shook hands and parted, he no longer considered me a threat. He still didn’t like me living there (indeed, I would find out later that it was still a sore spot), but I felt certain that the situation had been defused and that we might even become friends one day.

The next week, I called Alan a few times to try to arrange an evening for us to get together. We went back and forth, leaving each other messages and talking briefly sometimes, trying to find a good evening that fit both of our schedules. This went on for several days until it was obvious that Alan was no longer returning my calls. A bit disappointed, I stopped calling him, too. And that was the end of my contact with Alan. Over the passing months, I would see him drive by occasionally, but was never able to catch his eye with a wave.

During our conversation, I had told Alan that I would move in April when my lease expired. I had been thinking about moving anyway, and his attitude had tipped the scales for me. I also told him that my rain fly had to be replaced before Winter anyway, and that this time I would get a camouflage tarp instead of the bright silver one that I had always used. It seemed to please him that I would soon be disappearing.

I started my land search in October, a few weeks after talking with Alan. I was still working in Manassas, Virginia, at the time so it was difficult to find suitable property within commuting distance to northern Virginia. I ran the usual craigslist ad and started talking to friends, but after a few months it became clear that finding a nice spot near Manassas was going to be tough. During that same time, I shopped around for camouflage tarps. I found a few on the Internet that were heavy enough for my needs, but they were more expensive than the silver ones that I’d been using. I wasn’t real happy about using camouflage anyway. The dark colors would absorb more heat in Summer, and I just didn’t like the aesthetics.

Throughout all of this, I was becoming more and more troubled. Alan had convinced me that I should be hiding my home, but that ran contrary to what I truly felt. Living in a tent has been such a blessing for me. It’s a great way to live, and I naturally want to share it with others. But now, I had bought into the idea that I should hide from society because my home and lifestyle were somehow not acceptable. I knew that the real problem here was Alan’s attitude, so why was I trying so hard to legitimize it?

I continued the land search for a few more weeks, but just couldn’t bring myself to buy the camouflage tarp. In the end, the land search failed, too, so I decided that I would just renew my lease for another year and stay put, silver tarp and all.

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