Favorite memory
I used to think my aunt and uncle were crazy. Don't get me wrong, I loved them, and I loved what they were doing, but they had to be nuts. I mean, who would deliberately build a house without a toilet or running water?
"You need to understand a simple legal principal called 'adverse possession,'" my uncle tried to explain to the twelve-year-old me. He said that it meant if they lived on the land long enough, but without being sneaky, the old owners had to let them keep it. I thought it sounded a lot like my aunt and uncle were trying to steal the land, but what did I know?
I knew loved going to visit them. It was easy the first spring and summer. My aunt, uncle, and their two kids pitched tents on a big field right next to the woods. There was a fresh stream nearby, where my aunt would get water for everything from cooking to washing. They had a goat for milk, a bunch of chickens for eggs, and a several cute, fluffy bunnies... that I didn't know were for food until later that fall.
The first building my uncle built was a combination smokehouse/storage shed. I was mostly oblivious to the building, since I was a girl. See, my uncle had the "traditional" notions about chores. My aunt, with my help when I came with my father, worked in the garden, cooked over the fire pit, and was generally responsible for the domestic stuff. He dealt with money, important decisions, and generally everything that was "man's work."
Once the smokehouse was finished my uncle, my father, and some of my uncle's hippie friends, cut trees for a log cabin. I did not get to watch all of the building, but I did get to sleep in it during that first winter. It was so cold! It was also absolute heaven. Wrapped in a blanket, I went outside, drank warm goats milk with carob powder and beet sugar, and saw more stars than I have ever seen since.
It was a magical time, a magical place. When they abandoned it, a year or so later because they could not afford to buy the staples like flour and sugar, I wanted to take it for myself. If only I had been a little older, I might yet still be a hippie, living on my own plot of stolen land, hidden in the woods of Maine.
"You need to understand a simple legal principal called 'adverse possession,'" my uncle tried to explain to the twelve-year-old me. He said that it meant if they lived on the land long enough, but without being sneaky, the old owners had to let them keep it. I thought it sounded a lot like my aunt and uncle were trying to steal the land, but what did I know?
I knew loved going to visit them. It was easy the first spring and summer. My aunt, uncle, and their two kids pitched tents on a big field right next to the woods. There was a fresh stream nearby, where my aunt would get water for everything from cooking to washing. They had a goat for milk, a bunch of chickens for eggs, and a several cute, fluffy bunnies... that I didn't know were for food until later that fall.
The first building my uncle built was a combination smokehouse/storage shed. I was mostly oblivious to the building, since I was a girl. See, my uncle had the "traditional" notions about chores. My aunt, with my help when I came with my father, worked in the garden, cooked over the fire pit, and was generally responsible for the domestic stuff. He dealt with money, important decisions, and generally everything that was "man's work."
Once the smokehouse was finished my uncle, my father, and some of my uncle's hippie friends, cut trees for a log cabin. I did not get to watch all of the building, but I did get to sleep in it during that first winter. It was so cold! It was also absolute heaven. Wrapped in a blanket, I went outside, drank warm goats milk with carob powder and beet sugar, and saw more stars than I have ever seen since.
It was a magical time, a magical place. When they abandoned it, a year or so later because they could not afford to buy the staples like flour and sugar, I wanted to take it for myself. If only I had been a little older, I might yet still be a hippie, living on my own plot of stolen land, hidden in the woods of Maine.