mooretrees journal

[mooretrees]

First week in the bus/tent down. Lot's of learning happening here.

In no particular order:
- it's difficult to keep a five year old clean in a normal house, but extra difficult in a bus with huge dirt piles 15 yards away. I made him put socks on today so I didn't have to see his dirty toenails. A bath is happening soon.
-most of our days are outside now, it's fantastic. dinner outside, coffee outside, tea and stargazing outside, playing outside, exercise outside, bus construction outside.
-due to the previous point, we're going to bed MUCH earlier now, especially DH. This is a big deal as he's struggled with insomnia his whole adult life and now is getting some longer hours of sleep-much needed.
-birds, the moon, chickens, steer, plants are a bigger part of life than ever before.
-very little need for both DH and I to jump on the internet
-washing dishes is harder in our tent set up than it should be, I'm going to make it better in the next few days.
-burritos and sandwiches are a staple now, very easy to clean those dishes!
-our cleanliness standards have gone down now, which is probably not good, lol.

We moved in last Thursday. It rained a lot that night. We were dry, but it was hard to get up and start moving when it was cold and wet the next morning. It's been dry since then and the temperatures have been amazingly perfect for living mostly outside. Sleeping with a five year old has been tough. DH worked hard to get his 'bedroom' ready and last night he slept in it. What a relief! It was the first night I slept through the night. But every night I was awake involved a trip outside to go potty and some mind blowing star gazing. Orion is so huge early in the morning these days. I think it's worth the interrupted sleep to see the stars. I put his bedroom in quotes as it's really just the framed in sleeping area. But, he's not in our bed which is amazing.

Cooking is ok, mostly doing quick fried foods, lots of meat and burritos. We're using an induction stovetop for all of our cooking. Our favorite all purpose cast iron skillet is not level on the bottom, which means it's sorta useless to us now. The induction works only with ferrous cookware and if the skillet is bowed the way ours is, then it only has a small surface that actually gets hot. Anyway, we've got back ups so that skillet has been replaced.

Washing dishes is not great now, it's too hard in our current set up. We're hauling water and usage has gone waaaay down. Still going through five gallons every two or so days.

Bathroom:
The site has a large composting toilet a short walk away, we're using this primarily. We thought we weren't supposed to use it as the owners were worried about it getting overwhelmed with their work crew, but it seems ok now. I put together a primitive dry toilet with a used toilet seat and lid, lots and lots of sawdust and a bucket. DS is the only one who uses it as it's a bit rickety. He's a fairly adaptable child just keeps rolling with the new situations we keep putting him into. I am grateful for his flexibility.

Work:
The first day I worked after moving into the bus, I biked to and from work, 32 miles! It took longer than google said it would, but my tires were pretty low. I'm not a speedy biker either. I'm down for doing that ride again, it was just long but not really hard. Also, it felt good to work somewhat hard for a good amount of time. Deeply satisfying to be tired from that much exercise. It did highlight that my hip is still wonky as my left knee hurt on the return ride.

We're biking DS to school now in our cargo bike. It's chilly in the morning, so he gets bundled in winter gear for the ride. And then we see girls on the playground at school in shorts, wth?!!

Pictures to come.

[AxelHeyst]

-our cleanliness standards have gone down now, which is probably not good, lol.

"Is this spoon clean?"

"Yeah. Totally.

...

I mean, I licked all the food off it, so yeah."

I don't see the problem?

Exciting stuff, thanks for the update!

[mountainFrugal]

The first day I worked after moving into the bus, I biked to and from work, 32 miles!

YESSSS! Way to get after it!

[RoamingFrancis]

The first day I worked after moving into the bus, I biked to and from work, 32 miles!

Impressive! I have been a wimp recently and driving 6 miles to school. Not too long ago I was being extremely stubborn and biking even when conditions were probably unsafe. So now I'm going to have to balance out when is really the right time to bike and the right time to drive.

[mooretrees]

Three weeks in the bus.

Our composting toilet is up and um, soaking? The urine diverter is not working for me, too tight an area for me to aim at. So, until we order a proper one, I'm just not diverting my pee. The reason to divert the pee is to reduce the stink, so it's best if it only is temporary. I've sealed a good amount of the wood around the toilet and need to do more, as both me and the five year old can have bad aim.

Temperatures are dropping tomorrow, as well as a big stretch of rain is on the way. DH did as much waterproofing the roof raise as he could and we'll see how it holds up in the coming days. Lots of caulk and cooper flashing should make a huge difference. We've debated about the next project he should focus on: wood stove, insulation, lean-to.....and settled on wood stove. He has to do a little bit of work to the wood stove, and prepare the site in the bus for it. So, it's going to be a bit before it's installed. We didn't make it out to cut wood this year, so we're buying some from a friend. I spent some of the day harvesting apple tree limbs from spring pruning and turning it into kindling. I figured that the smaller stove means more making fire from scratch so kindling is essential.

I've been helping on the bus. I waterproofed the toilet, not enough though. I also installed some furrowing pieces. Learned how hard it is to drill into metal! It's been fun and frustrating to work on the bus. My complete lack of useful skills is painful sometimes. We've figuring out areas that I can work on that fit my skill level. I am learning.

We also hired a local friend who built her own gypsy wagon. She's working on insulating DS's room tomorrow. She put up walls in his room today so that when the ceiling is installed it won't need trim. Our friend doesn't have work and needed some money coming in, so it was perfect timing. She doesn't pay rent, as she's a caretaker of some property. I think she'll be able to work on the bus for as long as we're willing to pay her. With winter coming, my death grip on the purse strings is GONE. We've done cheap and good work on the bus so far, now it's time for fast and good. This is a failure of our ability of plan ahead. And I'm not overly concerned about it.

The two main downsides to the bus right now are strange. I'm realizing I can't share too much about the 'hardships' of this lifestyle with my normie friends. They just can't understand why we're doing this. And it's hard for me to deal with their weird, subtle judgement and they usually don't have any good suggestions. I'm finding different people to lean on during this period (thanks AH!).

The second problem is a parenting problem I created. We put our son into pull ups when we first moved into the bus because we were all sleeping together. I was too stressed with the idea of him wetting the bed and dealing with that on top of everything else that was new. Fast forward three weeks and he's doing this weird regression thing where he 'forgets' to go pee in the toilet. He's had two big accidents at school where he didn't even try to go to the bathroom. One was super gross as he just peed in a big rug that all the kids sit on while the teacher reads stories. He just sat in his pee and didn't do or say anything. I was floored by that. The teacher was initially kind of an ass about it, more concerned about how to clean the rug. She got better as I showed clear motivation to try and do something about this. So, now we've taking him out of pull ups at night and started waking him up sometime during the night to get him to pee. That's a giant pain in the ass and it hasn't paid off yet. Three nights of no pull ups and he's wet the bed every damn night. I've figured out the laundry situation so at least that's somewhat managed. I guess he just has to learn again that he should go pee in the toilet and not just anywhere.

Misc:
I've made the tent kitchen better and dish washing is better. We're still cooking a lot of burritos as they're just so dang good and easy. I'm focused on easy right now until we've got the hang of this lifestyle.

Sex. For several reasons I'll not get into, our sex life is great right now. I didn't see that as a natural consequence of bus life but I'll take it.

I biked to work again. Only one way as DH had to pick up some stuff for the bus and gave me a ride home. I've also got two connections for rides in the evening. The second commute was 20 minutes faster though a combination of plain working harder and pumped up tires. That ride was way more fun.

Where we live is a native plant nursery with four large hoop houses. One is heated, minimally. I've been helping my farmer friend who owns one of the greenhouses and she keeps giving me food. I've got a huge bag of basil to make pesto with in the cooler now. Another friend and I canned six quarts of free crushed Roma tomatoes last weekend. And I have another large box of tomatoes ripening for canning in a few days. We also canned five quarts of applesauce from scavenged apples. We barely made a dent in the apples. I'll be drying a bunch of them and making more applesauce over the weekend. It's a mad scramble to harvest and process food right now.

[7Wannabe5]

When my son was very young, we took him on an extended rough camping trip. Took me a while after that to convince him that it wasn't okay to pee on the trees by the city park playground

[Hristo Botev]

I remember our son regressing a bit with the potty-training at one point, and so we ended up doing that thing where I took a Thursday and Friday off of work, and Thursday morning we very ceremoniously threw away ALL of the diapers (donated them, I'm sure) and every other potential potty-training type crutch; bought him big-boy underwear; and then watched him like a hawk and never left his side for the next 72 hours--just me and him--making sure to get him to the bathroom as soon as he started to feel the urge to go. It clicked with him immediately and is one of those early memories that he still remembers to this day (which pains me to say, because I know the reason it meant so much to him was because we were shipping him off to be raised by strangers for 8+ hours a day at the time, and that was the most intense Dad-time he'd ever had until that point).

[mooretrees]

It's always good to hear other parent's stories about their particular tough moments, thanks @HB and @7w5.

DS is making a tiny bit of progress with the potty stuff, few to no accidents at school, and a few dry nights at home. Importantly, he doesn't seem to feel any shame or weirdness about his body.

Skoolie life:

We're in fall/winter-lite weather now and our systems to stay warm are doing their jobs. The few keys to staying warm are heavy wool blankets as curtains, reflectix in a good amount of the windows, and a small electric space heater. Also, down comforters and two dogs do help.

DH and DS got knocked down by some virus, not covid, and construction skidded to a halt. Both are on the mend. Wood stove repair and installation are on the docket for the next big project. We've got our friend ready to work on the roof raise insulation and ceiling this week too. She'll be finished with that before the wood stove is up and running. Once the wood stove is up and running, the kitchen will get moved out of the tent and into the bus. I'm really, really excited by that idea.

We're about halfway insulated now. Very toasty in the area that is heated with the space heater and inside the wool blanket curtain area. I moved our dresser into the bus and put up a bookshelf on the dash, very simple actions that make a huge difference in the coziness and practicality of the bus.

Fast vs slow:
We picked up two different types of ceiling material premade. No sanding or manufacturing required. One is an aromatic cedar for the bathroom, it's lovely and we're happy with it. The other is a thin pine that is, well, it's holding the insulation up very well. The ceiling in our bedroom and our sons is an old wall from the local train depot that was pulled out and stored decades ago by a thoughtful fellow. DH had to sand and sand it to get the bat guano and dirt off, but now it's gorgeous. It butts up next to this cheap (looking) pine that is in the hallway. As soon as the pine went up, we were both like, "oh, that's not great." I pushed for fast because, obviously, winter is coming. But we'll tear it out at some point. The point of all that is to say, for the last big section of the bus that needs a ceiling (the curves and the very front), we've decided on slow and good. DH found a local sawmill that had some rough sawn timber and got the last of the wood we'll need. He'll be milling it and turning it into shiplap. It will take a decent amount of time and that's okay. It will be worth it. It's an interesting reality to adjust to as I've struggled with slow pace of the build. More and more I'm realizing that this is likely a fairly normal pace AND that DH can be very thorough. Plus, he's used a lot of raw materials rather than finished products. That adds time. But, he also enjoys that work and has learned a ton.

We've found a place to take regular showers! Farmer friend has a warehouse with a shower and as long as we clean it each time, we're golden. I'm also trying to find some close-ish hot springs to get some lovely full body soaking at....the local hotel has a hot spring attached but it's $20/person to soak! And my kiddo can't come. Anyway, there is the possibility of a diy wood fired hot tub on the property. As always, just need to spend a little time to put it together. So, not happening anytime soon.

[shaz]

Those all sound like very nice developments. Good for you!

A lot of times hot springs pools dump out into a nearby river. If you hunt around you may find places in the river that are warm enough for soaking (for free). I find those places by looking for steam at dawn.

[mountainFrugal]

After staying in our van we immediately made small changes that increased the quality of living dramatically. It seems like this is the same with your skoolie set-up. Hygge AF.

[mooretrees]

Those all sound like very nice developments. Good for you!

A lot of times hot springs pools dump out into a nearby river. If you hunt around you may find places in the river that are warm enough for soaking (for free). I find those places by looking for steam at dawn.

Thanks! I've got a coworker/friend that knows some local spots that is up for showing me so hopefully can report back soon. Might involve a little bit of trespassing, but it's out of the way so I'm not too worried.

[mooretrees]

After staying in our van we immediately made small changes that increased the quality of living dramatically. It seems like this is the same with your skoolie set-up. Hygge AF.

Ha, our process of improving is really slow, but that feels mostly great. Even in it's unfinished state, we definitely are feeling the hygge-vibe!

[mooretrees]

Bus:
Starting our third month in the bus. It's working for us folks. I thought it would before we moved into it, but there was always some concern that we'd move in and think "nope, not for us." However, we love it so far. It's not all peaches and roses of course.

The main cabin at the front of the bus is the problem area. The kitchen is wildly disorganized and, no exaggeration, every time we make dinner we have to move three things to do anything. Ok, maybe just one thing. It's not just because we're not tidy. Things don't have a permanent home yet. DH and I spent some time a few days ago talking out how to rearrange the kitchen/living room. The cookstove is the only area that is a permanent structure. The rest of the kitchen is movable. So, for now we'll move one largish dresser to the front of the bus, opposite the stove. That will open up the middle section of the bus for a table/storage for a pantry. The pantry is likely just going to be rough open shelves and not anything fancy. We need some storage for food that is easy and quick. I like the idea of quick and easy as then we won't be too invested in it to change it if we don't like how far away the food is from the cooking area. Of course, nothing is really that far away in this small space!

DW has slowly made progress on the wood stove. I don't anticipate that it will be in place until January as we're planning a big roadtrip down to San Diego and he needs time to work on the car we just bought. We've keeping super toasty as it is, so it's not a hardship to wait for it. Plus, we didn't get out to cut our own wood and what we have might just last us if we start burning it later in the year.

ERE failure-sorta: We bought a 1981 VW diesel Rabbit, we call her Thumper. She's our answer to commuting during the winter and longer trips. She averages 45-51 mpg and is in great condition. I'm calling it a failure, sorta, because now we're a two car family by design because we haven't figured out the way to live/work in a rural area with one car. I haven't been back on the bike since the snows and colder weather showed up. I know it's possible to do biking in these conditions, I just haven't found the desire to do it yet. It's not a failure in some regards though, because it will reduce our fuel consumption. I also like the idea of going back in time for the car instead of spending gobs of money on an electric or hybrid. I can see the value of those other options, but feel (I could be totally wrong} that this 1981 car has a much lower lifetime climate impact than a brand new EV. I also didn't want to spend more than 10k on a car. Thumper was 4k. We're keeping the Subaru as our snow adventure car and for when DH needs to do stuff while I'm working.

Side business:
I spent a decent amount of time last week making candles for a holiday bazaar. I expanded my inventory of candles to include votives, two sizes of pillars and a large star shaped pillar. I sold almost my whole inventory of mold candles. I forgot I had some stars in a box under the table so might have sold them as well. I made $252 from candles and $56 from coffee, including the small fee to sell at the bazaar. Both candles and coffee have good storage so not selling them immediately isn't a problem. The tapers were not a big hit, which mystifies me. However, I've learned that my opinion can't be the only opinion for what's good to try and sell. I added more molded candles because I kept hearing from friends that they wanted them. I also picked up votive holders for really cheap at a second hand store. I sold them with my votive candles at a good mark up. I will take the rest of the candles that haven't sold and put them at the two locations where we sell our whole bean coffee and let them sell slowly. I will make a few more candles for friends that will actually buy them and give a bunch away for the holidays. I'm learning a lot and if I do a good job taking notes, I learn even more. I'm not trying to make this candle business a huge part of our income, but it is growing. It's definitely a business that has a season so that's a neat thing. I won't do an online store as that seems too much work and I like the very part time nature of this gig.

[mountainFrugal]

Things don't have a permanent home yet.

This was a crucial piece for making the van work. Everything having a place and always being returned immediately after use. I am way worse at this than my partner in both thinking about it and executing on it. A main point of van friction was relieved when we had strict places for things.

Candle biz sounds fun! How long do the candles take to make from raw to packaged for selling?

[mooretrees]

Candles from wax to customers can be as short as 48 hrs and most of that time is for them to cure. Melting the wax in a huge double boiler takes a long time. The actual making depends on the type of candle. The hand dipped tapers can be an hour or so as each layer has to have 30 seconds to harden and at least 30 dips, though I’ve never counted the dips. The molded, or poured, candles take a few minutes to pour and then they also set overnight. I enjoy the process of dipping the tapers. The molds are the least interesting ones to make, though I should like them as they are quicker and seem to sell better!

[shaz]

I wonder if the lack of popularity of tapers has to do with people not owning candlesticks. If you know someone who does wood turning, you could team up and try selling taper + candlestick combos.

[Salathor]

-our cleanliness standards have gone down now, which is probably not good, lol.

Ha! We moved into a trailer without sewer about a year ago, and this is definitely the case. I regularly go two days, and sometimes a little longer, without a real shower (especially now that it's cold and our solar shower isn't so hot). You get used to it? Definitely some cleaning-up required when you go to meet other people, though!

[ertyu]

The body compensates. Skin and hair get oilier when their natural oils are regularly stripped via soap; if one leaves a couple of days between showers, the skin calms down, at least in my experience. The trick here is to realize when you've started smelling

[mooretrees]

@Salathor, well, even when I lived with a shower I wouldn't take one that often so was already used to it, so when my standards dropped it was not good! We've figured out where to shower now, and camp shower's do for when the shower doesn't work. Thankfully, my kiddo has learned to like showers now. The looking presentable for work and socializing is real though! Is your solar shower outside? We're definitely excited to have an outside shower set up for next summer.

@ertyu, lol for REAL! i've found that shaving armpits and a quick rinse are the best for keeping any BO under control between showers. We were a lot of wool stuff so that helps tamp down any smells. At work I wear a lab coat so that also helps.

My mom likes to tell the story of me when I was younger that is still true today. She was complaining to my grandmother about the cost of the water bill and I piped up and said "don't blame me, I haven't taken a shower in a week!" I haven't changed that much from that little girl. I try not to talk about it though, because most people take showers every day and probably would be grossed out by me.

[horsewoman]

So stupid, right? It's socially unacceptable to do or talk about a perfectly normal thing. My parents were chucked into a bathtub with their siblings each Sunday 60 years ago. They didn't even have a shower in their house. (Actually, our bathroom is clearly installed as an afterthought in our old farmhouse, two rooms have been reduced to squeeze a bathtub in, surrounded by walls.).

Due to extremely dry skin I've always showered as seldom as possible. I can go 7-8 days until my hair gets an " unwashed" look and I seldom have body odour. And that's what a wash cloth ist for! It was the same when I did hard physical work on the farm outside. This is probably dependent on skin type to some extent but I think it's ridiculous that showering once a day is considered necessary and every one else is disgusting.