The past year has been an absolute mindfuck in so many ways. You can read a little about how it started here). But something that stands out for me has been how we cling to our technology in the face of a pretty insular life. We often talk about how we could not have moved here even five or seven years ago -- the internet and the growing acceptance of distributed workforces are really the only reasons we can keep our jobs and still be at Bear Creek.
But there are a handful of especially kooky paradoxes we live with that always bring a smile to my face. As it happens, today was an amazing highlight of those things from start to finish... I want to remember them as they happened, so...:
- 8:40am - wake up to two of the hens -- Goldie and Edie -- squawking away. Pick up iPad and read for a while as I listened to...
- 10:00am - David testing the GIGANTIC UltraHD TV we bought yesterday. Recognize everything from Nightmare Before Christmas to Three Kings. Finally plod downstairs.
- 11:30am - Pull out our Christmas ham, two quarts of home-canned Thanksgiving turkey stock, and get started on dinner. Giggle again at the awesomeness of our 6-burner, two-oven, 50's-era O'Keefe & Merritt stove.
- 1:00pm - start an email to the folks who refurbished aforementioned stove about problems we're having. Refer to the email that brother-in-law (uber-mech guy) sent while he was here at Christmas regarding the various problems the stove has post-refurb. Use Evernote to attach photos and notes to the email.
- 2:30pm - walk the garden, mind blown at the growth of broccoli, kale, and cress in face of icy nighttime temperatures. Squee a little bit after noticing a few onion shoots poking through one of the beds. Pull a few weeds while catching up on a Radiolab podcast.
- 3:30pm - Turn the compost, do a couple soil tests, and wonder again how the hell anyone did this without the internet for reference.
- 6:30pm - settle into a dinner of hyper-locavore split pea soup and cornbread. The evening's entertainment? Star Trek: Into the Darkness. Only... in 3D... in our weird little mountain living room.
- 11:00pm - sync all the Kindle-enabled devices, check the woodburning stove, and call it a night. Remember again that you're living in a weird reality where science fiction and homesteading exist in parallel. Be infinitely grateful for this anachronistic life.
