"Farewell, Aquarius"

There’s a scene in the movie, “Apollo 13”, in which the three astronauts, Haise, Swigert, and Lovell, are approaching Earth for reentry. They crawl back into the command module from the lunar module. The lunar module, Aquarius, was just a small, frail craft, but to them, it was much more. “She sure was a good ship”, one of them says as they jettison the craft. “Farewell, Aquarius, and we thank you”.

I lived in a canvas wall tent for three years. It was a wonderful time in my life. The tent itself was just a large piece of fabric, but to me, it was much more. It was my home. It’s where I experienced things that I will never forget. It’s where I regrouped and found my bearings. It’s where I found peace and solitude during troubled times. It’s where I learned how simple life could be. Where I found the rhythms of Mother Earth and heard most clearly from God.

And now, having learned a great deal from it all, it is time to return to my fellow humans and live a more “normal” life among them.

I’m bringing the lessons of tent living with me. The knowledge that we have all been given everything we need to live a happy life, if only we can appreciate those blessings. The understanding that my life is not to be spent living in the woods by myself but rather among the wonderful people that I already know, and those that I have still to meet. The people that I love, and will love, and who love me.

So I’m paddling out of my calm and peaceful cove, and reentering the mainstream of human society, with all of its sharp bends and turbulent eddies. The rough waters of human society used to trouble me a great deal, but now I’m eager to embrace the rapids and paddle alongside the rest of humanity.

I know what it’s like to live a simple life. It’s wonderful, and the peace and security of that lifestyle is always there, for each of us, if ever we wish to live it. It’s with that experience and knowledge that I now return to mainstream society. We are all a bit crazy, and all so beautiful, and by far the most interesting creatures on the planet. So farewell, my canvas tent, and I thank you. I’m gonna go hang out with my fellow humans now.

 

My Third Anniversary of Tent Living

I moved into my tent in November of 2011, so it's been three years now. And what a year this one has been.

The year 2014 has been one of the most eventful and significant years of my life. It's been full of love and heartache and worry and joy. Divorce and severance and the end of the old, but also reunion and healing of broken relationships that were so important to me. There were nosy neighbors and police, lawyers and judges and courtrooms and threats of lawsuits. Such experiences. Such learning. So many life changes.

And on top of it all, or perhaps, at least in part, because of it, I found God this year, and all the grace and forgiveness that comes with that, as well as all the hard work of repentance. I'm just beginning to understand the relationship between Mother Earth and Father Spirit and this way of life, but it's clear to me that these things are all interwoven, and that my life is now taking me down a wondrous path.

So, with all the change and all the wonder and all the distractions of this past year, what has this third year of tent living meant to me?

My simple home has been the one constant in my life this past year. It's been my safe haven. It's been the one area of my life that was never once threatened by loss or change from all the happenings of this year. A quiet, peaceful place where I could spend time alone, figuring things out. My place of prayer, where I heard most clearly. It's been my sanctuary. My place of retreat when I felt overwhelmed. And even though the thin canvas walls of my home bend easily to Mother Earth's winds, they are completely immune to anything that mankind may try to wield against them. Like an invisible, nearly magical shield, these thin walls protect me from all the threats and disruptions that the outside world of man may bring. Peace. Security. Holiness. What a wonderful home this is.

And so, in keeping with my tradition for this time of year, I ask myself whether I will continue this way of life for yet another year, or whether I am finally finished with tent living. Well this year, when I pondered that choice, I could only smile.

While most people consider tent living to be sort of crazy, I find that the longer I live this way, the more sense it makes. It's fascinating to me that when I now consider the notion of packing up my tent and moving back into a house and living like I used to, every part of my being screams, "No!!! That's crazy!!!"

So another year it is. And if I were a planning man, I'd commit to even more! But one year at a time is already a lot to ask, as this past year has shown, so I'll leave it at that.

Recipe for Apple Fritters

I went to a gathering at a friend's house last weekend. It was a beautiful November night, full or stars and not too cold. Early in the evening, as guests were still arriving and gathering around the campfire, one of our friends, Honey Marie, was still in the kitchen, dancing to music and frying up fritters.

These fritters aren't as good as Honey's, but they're still pretty damn good! I fried them up last night when I woke up at 3am with a sweet tooth and noticed that I still had one apple left from the several that I had bought from Mary Ann's fruit stand a few days before.



Apple fritters frying in coconut oil

Served up with honey and molasses

1. In a small mixing bowl, combine 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1/4 cup wheat flour, 1/4 cup nut or soy flour, 1/4 cup biscuit mix, 1/2 cup sugar, and lots of cinnamon
2. Mix in one egg, 1/4 cup olive oil, and just enough water to bring to a thick batter
3. Add one peeled and diced apple

Mix batter well. Heat 1/4 inch of coconut oil to medium-high heat in a small frying pan. Drop spoonfuls of batter mix into hot oil and fry to golden brown, flipping as needed. Remove from frying pan and place on paper towel to remove excess oil. Top with honey and molasses when served.

Enjoy!

Bringing Electricity into my World

It's mid-November now. Thanksgiving is next week, and December is right around the corner. Soon it will be Christmas, then New Year's Eve when I will drink a toast to 2015, the start of a new chapter in my life, for I'm retiring from the software industry at the end of this year.

Retirement will bring big changes to my life, so it's a very interesting time for me. I've been doing a lot of thinking these past few months about what next year may bring, and over the weekend I made some final decisions that will impact my life in the tent, the most important of which is the concession that...

I'm gonna need electricity.

Yep, that's right, I have to bring in electricity. I'm actually okay with this decision, finally, but I must admit that I didn't like going down that road to begin with. Electricity is just too...tempting. Once I have an AC outlet in my tent, I'll be tempted by other things, like televisions and DVD players and...God, help me! So I'm about to begin my battle with worldly temptations again, and I hope I have the strength to persevere.

In any case, for better or for worse, I've decided to flirt with that temptress in order to pursue my passions next year. I plan to write and make music for hours at a time, so I'm gonna need to plug-in.

I'll use a laptop for writing. I'm still shopping for one, but it will be very basic. Just a small system with Internet capabilities. Small, cheap, and low power consumption. For music, I plan to do a lot of recording and to rehearse once in a while for live performances. I already own an eight-track digital recorder, and a small acoustic amplifier for live performances.

I plan to build a 12V system with a single AC inverter. To correctly size the components, I need to look closely at my consumption.

First, I need to determine the peak load by adding up the wattage of all devices that could be running at the same time. This sum will determine the inverter size that I'll need.

The devices that I'll be operating are:

• Laptop = 100W
• Digital recorder = 20W
• Small acoustic amplifier = 150W

I might actually want to operate all of these at the same time. For example, I might want to mic the amplifier and record the output, then download the recorded tracks to the laptop. So my peak load could be as high as 100 + 20 + 150 = 270W. I'll round that up to a 400W inverter which I can easily find for under $30.00.

Next, I need to find my average daily consumption by multiplying the wattage of each device by its average run-time. That will give me my average watt-hours per day. But what will my "average day" look like? Hmm. Well, some days I may write all day long, so a day of writing would cost me 100W x 8 hours = 800 watt-hours. Other days, I might be recording all day long, so 20W x 8 hours = 160 watt-hours. I don't plan to do much rehearsing through the amplifier, so maybe a few hours here and there would be a big day for that, something like 150W x 2 hours = 300 watt-hours per week at the most.

Ok, that helps, but it still doesn't give me a good sense of what an "average day" might be like, so let's explore that. The writing days are the heavy consumers, but if I'm really writing all day long, then I'll probably want to get out anyway, maybe go to a coffee shop and socialize a bit and get on the Internet. So I'll just budget for one day of at-home writing per week. Now, for the digital recording. My recording time will probably go in spurts. I might record for a few days in a row, then take an entire week off. So on average, I'll budget for two full days of recording per week. So that gives me: (800 x 1 day) + (160 x 2 days) = 1120 watt-hours per week. I'll round that up to 1300 watt-hours per week.

Now that I know my average consumption, I can start to think about how many days I'd like to run before having to recharge. At the moment, I plan to recharge my batteries at a local auto parts store (I'm still looking into that, so I'll have another post on recharging later). I don't mind taking batteries in once a week for recharge, but I'd like at least five full days of continuous operation on a single charge. And I don't want to draw the batteries down below 50% depth of discharge, so I'll double the weekly consumption rate to 2600 watt-hours and size the batteries based on that figure.

For a 12V system, I'll need 2600 watt-hours / 12V = 217 amp-hours per week. I can get that from just one battery, albeit a pretty expensive one (something like the Trojan J185H-AC 12V 225AH flooded deep-cycle battery, which costs over $300.00!). Or I could build a battery bank from 12V or 6V batteries.

So the problem now comes down to acquiring the batteries and figuring out how to recharge them. I'll need to do more research to figure that out, so stay tuned!

New Propane Heater

I'm still experimenting with different space heaters to heat my tent in Autumn. The wood stove is just too hot to fire up until December, so I need a space heater to get me through October and November.

My first two Winters, I used a kerosene space heater. Kerosene heat is very economical and puts out about 22K BTUs, which is more than enough for my needs. But while kerosene heat has some nice advantages, I just didn't like the mess and the fumes, so last year I switched to propane. I chose a Mr. Heater MH15T tank-top heater, which puts out about 15K BTUs. The tank-top heater was also very economical, provided plenty of heat, was very convenient, and gave off no fumes. But the tank-top heater was a bit difficult to connect to the tank, and I just didn't like the design, from a safety standpoint. It had an automatic shut-off in case it tipped over, but I still didn't like the higher center of gravity on the tank, and the idea that the heater was physically connected to the tank. Also, the wiring from the thermocouple to the shut-off valve was just sort of hanging off to the side where it could be easily damaged. In fact, the thermocouple failed last Spring, but whether that was due to the wiring or to something else I don't know.

A few weeks ago, I went shopping for a new propane heater to replace the old tank-top that broke last Spring. I had been pretty pleased with the tank-top heater, and fully intended to just buy another one, until I saw the Mr. Heater MH9BX Portable Buddy propane heater.

Mr. Heater MH9BX Portable Buddy

The Portable Buddy had a lot of features that I really liked. It was a separate unit that attached to the propane tank with an adaptor hose, which meant that I could keep the tank outside of the tent if I wanted. It also had an electric ignitor, which wasn't available on the tank-top heater. It had an automatic shut-off in case of tip, like the tank-top model, but it also had a shut-off in case of low oxygen. And it was much easier to move around than the tank-top model. The Portable Buddy also had a more refined radiant panel, which provided a much quieter burn.

On the down-side, the Portable Buddy is nearly twice the price of the tank-top model, and it only offers 9K BTUs. That's only enough heat to raise the temperature in my tent by 20 degrees or so (compared to 30 degrees with the 15K BTU tank-top model). With only a 20 degree increase, the 9K BTUs will only get me into the low-60s on those cold November mornings in Virginia.

After scratching my head a bit, I decided to go ahead and try the Portable Buddy. I also purchased a 5' adaptor hose and decided to just leave the tank inside the tent for now (probably a mistake!) I've only used the heater a few times so far, but I like it a lot.The heater is nearly silent when it burns, and has a beautify orange glow that lights up my dark tent in the early morning. As the days get colder, I'll probably have to supplement the heater by burning my propane cook stove, too, which I occasionally do anyway. But the lower BTUs is more than compensated for by the improved safety over the tank-top model, which is a big advantage for me.

Reflections on Election Night

It's Election Night 2014, and millions of my fellow American citizens are voting. I won't be joining them. I don't vote anymore.

I know that it's my duty to vote. And I know that we are blessed in this country to have the opportunity to vote. That democracy only works when the citizens speak their will at the polls. I still believe in democracy, that it's the best form of government that man has so far devised, and perhaps ever will devise. But lately, the very idea of voting in America turns my stomach.

The US Federal Government is an abomination. It is a vile and shameful thing, and I detest it. It epitomises the very worst in human nature. Greed. Power. Ego. Injustice. Deceit. And I will not be a part of it any longer.

I don't complain about how thing are going in this country anymore, either, for I know that this ship is on its own course now, the captain and crew having some time ago left their positions in order to meet with lobbyists and capitalists and other powerful and influential people. And although the multitude of passengers sense that something is amiss because the vessel is listing so badly, the officers on board remain confident that between them all, they will always remain in control, each taking their turn as captain or commander or lieutenant or midshipman with each passing election. And so it is tonight, when the passengers are allowed to cast their votes, and the crew is obliged to switch their hats and uniforms in accordance before returning to their politics. But the ship! Is anybody tending to the ship!

I will always obey the laws of this land, and respect the authority of it's appointed agents, and do my best to be a good citizen in other ways. But I will not sanction this abhorrent government by casting even one single vote in the affirmative, for I strongly disagree with it all. I loathe it's very nature now, and I cannot find even a remnant of anything holy or righteous anywhere in it.

This government only affects me in as much as I let it, so I don't let it. This government is dead to me now, so no, I won't be voting. But to my fellow citizens who still believe in such things: Here's to your candidate winning the election and fixing things up! Good luck! In the meantime, I'll be in my cabin, enjoying what's left of the cruise (and perhaps fashioning a life boat).

Expectations and Appreciation

I used to have pretty high expectation, and the funny thing is, I never realized it at the time. I thought my expectations were just normal. Well, actually, I didn't really even see them as expectations at all. I just figured that things should work the way that they were supposed to work, and when they didn't then something was wrong. Like if I flipped on a light switch and the room didn't light up, or if the refrigerator was on the blink, or the roof was leaking, or the lawn mower wouldn't start, things like that. It was just normal to go through my life thinking that things should work, and when they didn't then it was normal to complain. It had nothing to do with my expectations being too high, or so I thought.

In fact, I used to complain all the time. Like how my dinner was too cold, or my beer was too warm, or there was nothing good to watch on television. Sometimes I'd get a double wammy, like I'd be flipping through the TV channels complaining about the lousy programming and the batteries in the remote would die. Damn it!

It seemed like the more I surrounded myself with things that were supposed to make me happy and comfortable, the more I found things to complain about. Things were supposed to be comfortable and perfect, right? But there was always something going wrong.

Now, after a few years of tent living, I realize that my expectations were ridiculously high, and my appreciation was pathetically low. But waking up to those facts was a slow process.

One of my early realizations came on a cold Winter's day a couple of years ago. It was a Saturday morning. I woke up to the sunrise lighting up the back of my tent. The wood stove had burned down to coals but it was still pretty pleasant inside, maybe 50 degrees. I got out of my warm bed, stoked the fire, started a pot of coffee on my propane stove, and stepped outside onto my plywood stoop. I was only wearing long johns so the 20-degree temperatures really hit me.

It was a beautiful Winter's day. It had snowed through the night, the air was still, and the sky was blue. A few song birds were darting about, foraging for food and perching on sunny branches trying to warm themselves after a long, cold night.

I watch birds a lot when I'm outdoors. I think about them a lot, too, because they're one of my favorite symbols of freedom. They live simply, they're pretty good at avoiding predators and staying safe, and they can fly! But they pay a high price for their freedom, like having to constantly forage for food, and spending cold Winter nights out in the elements.

I watched the birds for another minute, maybe two, but then I got cold and went back inside. The fuel in the wood stove had taken off and the inside temperature was in the 70s now. And while my morning coffee perked on the stove, I got dressed for the day. I had a wonderful, comfortable, simple, peaceful day that day. It was glorious, and I appreciated every moment.

My lifestyle is not easy. It's not what most people would call "comfortable". But it's an absolute paradise compared to the lifestyle of my animal friends, and I'm thankful for that. I have warm shelter in the Winter. I never worry about food. And I'm safe and secure. What more should I expect? I've brought very few man-made items into my life, and I've chosen them carefully. Like a poly tarp for shelter from rain and snow and Summer's heat. And a propane stove for clean, convenient heating and cooking. Things like that, but only a few, important things. Things that are simply and inexpensive. Things that rarely break and serve me well. I appreciate those things because they bring great benefits into my life.

At the same time, I have nothing bad to say about living close to Nature. She has always fully met all of my expectations. Summer is hot and Winter is cold, just as it should be. I've seen all the different sides of Nature, and I have no complaints.

I used to be soft and spoiled, living far removed from Nature and complaining all the time. I'm so thankful that I don't have to live like that anymore. Now, I live a simple life in a tent in the woods. I own almost nothing, and I am so, so very blessed. I know it's counter-intuitive, but that's how it is. The closer I've gotten to Nature, and the fewer man-made items that I've brought into my life, the more appreciative and thankful I've become. There's nothing to complain about in my life now, and so many little, simple things to be thankful for. The birds, they have things to complain about. But me, I'm by far the luckiest animal in the woods.