Re: [Homesteadingfamily] New to Group

oh how FUN!

Dont know if I could do it, but it sounds glorious! very simple living!

Angelia in OR~

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rose Lieberman" <lapis@frontier.com>
To: <Homesteadingfamily@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, September 17, 2010 6:28 PM
Subject: 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
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
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