Re: [Homesteadingfamily] New to Group

Hi, Kathi. Thanks for remembering me. Well, in the interests of sharing, I'll describe that period of my life to which you refer.

Actually it wasn't one winter, it was five. Fred and I lived in a hoophouse, the likes of which you could see at www.hoophouse.com. That's just the idea, of course. We have no connection to that company.

The hoophouse was 10' wide, 48' long and was covered with a single layer of 6 mil poly. At the 24' mark, we had a plastic sheet dividing the tunnel so the small woodstove wouldn't have the burden of heating the rest of the volume of space. So, we actually only lived in a 10 x 24 foot structure that was only about 7' high at the highest point.

We heated with a small woodstove. When groundwater rose, we created a diversion ditch under the bed frame and in the spring we would literally hear a stream running beneath us. We lived on the ground. Not on a platform or a foundation of any kind, but on the actual dirt. The legs of the bedframe sat on cinder blocks. This was a futon frame.

In the early spring, dandelions would grow in the back of the hoophouse and we'd have our first greens!

There were only two bad experiences: one was the mosquitoes which were unbelievable during the nights of those warm wet months, so we had to go to bed with head nets on. We never really got bit up, so it wasn't that bad, but the constant buzzing did get annoying. The other bad experience was the deafening sound of hard hitting rain and sleet, or driving winds. You literally could not hear your own words. But in all that, the great things were the 360 degree view, including the view above us when the moon came out or when there was no moon but a very dark and star-filled sky.

We're now living in a very old singlewide trailer whose primary advantage is solid walls, but I do miss the hoophouse life. It was the essence of simple. And for six years we lived that way. Sometimes we cooked meals on the woodstove, sometimes we washed our hair just standing outside in a downpour, sometimes we had visitors, but they left without fanfare. Pepe Le Pue came a callin' one night. I woke up to the sound of "unfamiliar" chewing. (We have three cats and one gets to know their sounds intimately. This sound was different.) I figure he came in through the flap in the corner of the hoophouse which allowed the cats free access. I figure he'd go out the same way, so I went back to sleep. In the morning, the food dish was empty, no telltale odors, and he never returned.

All this in rural upstate New York. Snow would cover the greenhouse in the winter and then slide down as the woodstove heated it up. That would allow us some insulation as the sides of the greenhouse would be covered by an ever growing layer of snow.

All in all, a wonderful experience. I'm always half-tempted to return to it.

Rose

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