This Place is Trying to Kill Me!

I swear it is!

Let me tell you about the string of mishaps this past week.  First off, we've had about 10 days of mostly wet weather so the ground is quite soft and mushy. Again.  Mud is my constant companion.  And enemy.  I've decided I dislike mud almost as much as snow... slimy, slippery, oozing over the top of my shoes mud everywhere.  I don't have a single kind word to say about it and after it introduced itself to my bottom (clad in clean pants no less!) a couple of times I refuse to even try to find kind words about it!

It's made the main drive into what I now refer to as Deathtrap #1.  There's a part of it where one side is a steep 4 or 5-foot embankment, the other drops off 10-12 feet to a tributary creek, and the part where your car needs to be is... mud.  It's only that way for a few yards but a few yards is plenty!  My back wheels find absolutely nothing to grip through here so I fishtail wildly.  Usually falling short of making the top, I slide backwards down the hill until  my tires can grab on some stray bits of grass convinced that if that drop off doesn't kill me I will be injured badly enough to wish it had.  By the time I make several tries and fling enough mud to crest that little rise and roll on up to the cabin, my hands are shaking and I've screamed a rather creative string of profanities.

As an alternative, Jason showed me where to turn off by one of the natural gas wells and come up the back way through a pasture.  A couple of days ago, that presented itself as Deathtrap #2.  There's a specific spot where the car is tipped so far to the side that I'm scared I will roll so I've been going around it, just a few feet lower around some young trees. I spun out there and slid backward down the hill.  By the time I got the slide under control, my back wheels were about 6 inches from the edge of the high creek bank.  It took 45 minutes of inching forward and back and desperately trying to convince God this was not a good day for me to die to get the car turned sideways so I could back up enough to find a different angle to get up and around that corner of the fence. I did it!  Mud put up a heck of a battle that day, but I won!!  And when I got to my parking spot next to the cabin, I sat there for a few minutes shaking and saying a prayer of thanksgiving.

I also have to tell you about Gizmo's new habit.  He has taken to grunting when he wants something.  It's a deep, gravely, irritating sort of grunt and then he raises his little eyebrows and stares off into space with a coyly innocent expression while I try to devine what it is he wants.  Outside, food, water, a treat, a R-I-D-E to the P-A-R-K... it all gets the exact same grunt.  He woke me up with the grunt a few nights ago.  I figured out that he was going to barf pretty quickly and struggled to get Jack and Lightning off me so I could jump up and open the door.  The doorknob fell off in my hand.  And Gizmo did not get out in time...  Is there anything more disgusting than cleaning up a giant dog barf in the middle of the night?  Unfortunately, yes.  There's the part about fighting him back from eating it, as if round 2 is going to sit any better in his tummy, while you clean it up.

After a half hour of fidgeting around I did get the knob to slide into place but it's still coming off about every third time I need to open the door.  Mostly that's just a nuisance but it has potential to make a real problem into something even worse.

Like last night.

I was feeling rather pleased with myself for beating mud at its own game 2 days in a row and wanted to sit down and peacefully sip a cup of cocoa before bed... I put a pan with some water on the Coleman burner and proceeded to put the hot chocolate mix in my cup.  I've said before that thing ain't right... but Jason can't find a problem and dismisses my discomfort with using that flaming little burner.  So I grit my teeth and so far have managed to cook a few meals on it. I still say that thing ain't right!  I think it might be possessed and whatever is in there sure as heck doesn't answer to "Genie!"  It flamed out. Again.  This time worse than ever before... It spit up fuel like a fussy baby which caught fire all over the top of the dry sink and nearly lit up my sleeve while I tried to shut it off and smother the flames with a damp towel. The flames jumped to the floor this time so I did a little dance stomping them out. And I managed to burn a dishcloth, too.  Not just a little singe on the edge either... half the dishcloth is a gaping black hole.  And the cabin is filled with the acrid and ever attractive scent of Eau de Ashes.  Or is it Charcoal #5?

I think it's time for a new adventure.  And this next one really must include a hot shower, a real indoor toilet, and a fully functioning kitchen!  I've proved I can survive an off-grid prepper sort of existence.  Maybe not thrive in it, but I can survive.  And that's good enough for  me.

A New Adventure

Toward the middle of July, I had an old friend pay a visit.  We had a great time together and decided I needed to venture north and visit him.  And then we decided that maybe my life could do with a real shakeup and I should just move.  So in the spirit of saying ‘yes’ to adventure, I said ok.  And that, folks, is how I ended up in West Virginia.

The hillside I see looking out the front
door of the cabin.  Makes me think of the
opening credits of Little House on the
Prarie!

Ellenboro is a tiny little town.  Their Wikipedia page says there are just over 360 residents, but I’m not so sure they didn’t count a few cats and dogs to get up to that number.  There’s a couple of little fast food restaurants, a convenience store/gas station, an insurance agent, a couple of other small businesses and a window factory.  The nearest grocery store is about 5 miles down the road and, while I’ve been getting by quite well, it does not have the selection of the big city grocers I am accustomed to shopping.  To find those kinds of stores, it’s 27 miles in one direction or 42 in the other.  Let’s just say those special purchases take some effort…

Part of the drive to the cabin after you
turn off Highway 50 and cross the creek.

I am staying in my friend’s hunting cabin on a burned out old farmstead that’s a couple of miles out of town.  The property, which is mostly leased out for natural gas wells, is primitive.  Power could be brought in fairly easily, but it hasn’t been done.  Right now anything electrical would require a generator.  And there isn’t one on site.  So, long story short:  there is no electricity.

Or indoor plumbing.

Or refrigeration.  Or a washer and dryer.  Or any of those other modern inventions we think we need to live.  

We don’t.  Think about camping.  There flashlights and lanterns to light your way.  And camp stoves to cook your food.  Or that nice big BBQ grill we moved with me.  Or the fire pit I’m currently assembling.

There’s a scary old outhouse. It’s functional, just frightening.  And next trip into a city, I am stopping at Home Depot or Lowes and getting the stuff to make a camping potty out of a 5-gallon bucket to shortcut some of those urgent and oh so inconvenient runs in the black of night.  Actually… I’m getting several buckets.  One for the potty, one for a clothes washer, 2-3 or whatever the plan says for a clothes wringer, and one to rig a shower.  You can go search Pinterest now or just stay tuned and I’ll post my misstep-by-misstep instructions, hints for using and a review of how well they work (or don’t) here over the next couple of weeks.

Ha!  I got all excited about 5-gallon buckets there and jumped ahead in the story.

Looking off one side of the submersible
bridge.  I'll do a whole post on it later.

There’s a creek.  The water is ice cold and pretty clear.  It's nowhere as muddy and brown as it looks in my photo... Not perfect but drinking it hasn’t hurt the dogs.  I’ve used some to rinse out a few clothes between laundromat visits.  And it’s been the site of more than one rather invigorating bath.  You have to cross the creek coming into the property by traversing a submersible bridge.  My friend calls it a submarine bridge… Which might be a good description after a storm or in the spring when there’s a lot of runoff.  A submersible bridge is made for water to flow across when it gets high enough.  Yes, you read that right.  Water flows over the top of the bridge.  On purpose.  And yes, the thought of driving across it when there’s water flowing over it kind of freaks me out. I think I could summon the bravery for it if there were only a few inches but from what I understand a few feet is not beyond the realm of possibility.  And that’s just plain scary!

The first few times down there, I saw minnows from ½ inch to 2 or so inches long.  I keep looking but so far nothing bigger for me to try catching for dinner.  Yesterday there was snake swimming for the far shore.  I didn’t scream.  Or cry.  Or jump and down.  I didn’t do much of anything but observe and try to get a good look at the shape of its head.  And then I dipped dog water as calm as you please.  And turned up an old brown glass medicine bottle.  I don’t have it cleaned up enough yet to make out more than “Vick’s” on the bottom but I think it’s a pretty cool find!