After many months of questionable preparation and self-doubt, we have finally decided that West Virginia is going to be our new home.
In actuality, we decided some months ago but with all the excitement in our daily lives I simply had no time for something like blogging about my move. Now things are different. We are excited!
And we are leaving very soon.
July 5th is the day when we will roll up the rugs on the old homestead and pack the wagon down Florida Hill-billy style for the long trip across the Blue Ridge Mountains and seemingly back in time a hundred years, to the still very Wild and Beautiful mountains of West Virginia!
Near to the inlet of the fertile Ohio Valley is where we are headed. However, being a man destitute of all of the means and ways of this world's fortune, we will be stopping a bit short of that rich, loamy land long known for it's tendency to triple even the most haphazard labors of it's blessed inhabitants. Instead, our little caravan of pilgrims will end our trek while still within the Gilpin-Upshur laden range of the Allegheny foot-hills, where man's best efforts to yield his daily bread are most assuredly, by the sweat of his brow!
The locals call the sloping mountain-side of slip soil that I am stopping upon a holler', but being ever the romantic optimist, I prefer to describe it as a hamlet-on-high! It is nearly 11 acres nestled between two peaks of a very long and expansive ridge. The road of sorts, that leads up to the entrance of my property was at one time the access point where mule driven well-men climbed to the ridge top to travel along an odd shaped, winding path in the forest heights in order to reach the various wells of natural gas that still dot the area. Of the several times that we have gone there to prepare our little cabin, most afforded motorized entry to the actual living site. A few occasions where too wet and slippery, and resulted in a rather long and steep walk to get to the shelter among the trees where our beds are housed! This is something that we hope to correct in time, but is perfectly in keeping with the one, most prevalent difference between the aforementioned Valley of ease, and our given plot of life's toil...MUD! If there is one thing that we know about our new life, it is the sure and certain fact that we will never again have to worry about sand getting tracked onto the carpet. In fact, we are glad to announce that the whole expense of carpeting is another thing that we will be able to fore-go in our new domicile.
What an adventure!
I will be updating as often as possible once we get there, via the local Public Library computer since we are 100% off-grid and about 10 country miles from town and I expect that gas will still cost money. We will be working tirelessly to get a water catchment system up and running, along with finishing the Atlas Ram Pump which I plan to build. As you can imagine, water is pretty important, even in West Virginia ;), and we have none coming to the property by the "normal" venues. My long term goal is to have a deep well drilled and attach a solar outfit, coupled with a 10,000 gallon cistern which will gravity feed the property just like a water tower used to do in towns across the country. This runs between $4-$7k from what we have gathered in our research. Research is about the only part we have gathered....I am still disabled and show no improvement from all the latest medical wisdom that I have received this past 12 months. I had a period where it seemed that the spinal injections and my inversion table seemed to be working, so being a father of a large family I figured that, if these things were working, I should be too! That lasted about a week and I ended up pushing around my old rolling walker, and making nightly visits to the local E.R. because of the pain. End result...another disc herniation and a few new neurological twitches that I have learned to deal with. Lesson learned: Degenerative Disc disease is a part of me. I am learning a new argument for my quiver-full theology! Large families are very practical, AND are always mentioned as a blessing of God! No complaints here. We are amazed at the goodness of God in supplying this estate to us! Until we get the well system, we plan to make use of the Ram pump by utilizing the huge seasonal spring volume on the property. It is enough to provide 100% of our needs when things are wet. We have figured out a few ways to deal with the changing locations of the wet-weather springs and to "trap" the run-off into a few main areas for use. This will involve a week, or two with a ditch-witch trenching machine and a few hundred feet of concrete in places, but is still doable for around $1200 we figure. I got the idea while driving through beautiful Virginia along the Interstate. They really do a better job of managing the water run-off by the roads there, and I noticed that they did this by installing long sections of concrete lined ditches right down the side of the mountains! The idea is to find several areas where a lateral ditch is cut that will catch the whole mountainside at the foot of each landing, and then cutting in several main branches for the water to escape, thus forming a man-made drainage system that can easily be converged at some points to provide a usable flow of several gallons per minute, and VOILA! You now have enough water to pressure a Ram-pump for cistern storage. I have walked the land and drawn the plans. This is a very achievable system and I can't wait to be able to start. All in the Lord's time and provision. One thing that I have learned, is that God delights in answering prayer. I can't wait to see how He answers these!
What an adventure!
God has blessed in so many ways and through so many people as we prepare for this new chapter in our pilgrimage here below. We look forward to the next few years of learning new skills and developing a fuller Christian understanding of the agrarian lifestyle.
I am not calling it "Christian Agrarianism" anymore because this title has become a stumbling block for some of my brothers, but I will still say that we are consciously and joyfully seeking a life of simplicity and one with an agricultural basis as part of our understanding of living an obedient Christian life in this current time. Not that some wealthy, city dwelling brethren may not be able to properly prepare for the next 20 years where he is, I am just saying that for a financially destitute individual like myself, it seems that the wisest path for me, is to develop a comfort with sustenance living now, rather than having it forced upon me after years of soft living and fattening up on the Food stamp system. I have had that most of my life and will be well prepared if American Socialism pulls-one-out-of-the-hat and we all get free EVERYTHING over the next 20 years. I will need little survival training to figure out how to choose a PIN number and load up the grocery cart with frozen Chinese food and potato chips! BUT, if things don't exactly turn out that way, and the next few years begin to look like the facts of today indicate instead of like the Information Bureau, ( News Agencies), suggest, I will have absolutely zero real knowledge of how to survive even a few months without the current system of industrialized food and travel unless I start preparing now.
God has forced the preparation upon me by bringing me into poverty. I praise the God who has always cared for me.It will be exciting to see what He does in our lives over this next year.
May we be found faithful. In lean times, or richness.
What an adventure!
