Do you wonder what a day is like for a person that is a freelancer writer/ homesteader living on a tiny island? You do? Oh good! I'm going to tell you, because recently I've been having days where I take a minute to reflect on the day I'm in the middle of having, and thinking "what a crazy amazing weird day. I am so dammed lucky."
I guess first of all I should say that no two days are alike. For that I'm extremely lucky. That notion, plus a Chemex brewed cup of single origin coffee, is what gets me out of bed every morning. I can't wait to see what I'll get up to, or how I'll get my clothes dirty, which lucky me, I do! Every day.
So here's how a day starts.
Wake up at 7:45a.m. because I have a call with my freelance clients in Boulder. I love these freelance clients so I don't mind getting up a wee bit early. [Yes, since Sylvia isn't living with us at the moment, it's early.] Since I'm the first one out of bed - usually it's Silas - I like to imitate his morning routine. So, I do a few laps around the cabin, which is a cozy 400 square feet, picking up things here and there, opening the front door and sweeping off the inside front run. (He likes the start the day with a clean rug.) I stand at the kitchen sink and stretch while looking out the big picture window at the trees and the weather - green and gray. Then I pick out which Slow Loris shirt I want to wear. On Guemes Island, Slow Loris is standard issue, a uniform, a testament that you live here.
I put the kettle on to boil water for coffee, grind the coffee, which sadly, isn't local. It comes from Boulder. There's a shortage of good coffee around these parts. Except, actually, for my neighbor, Gary, down the road who roasts small-batch coffee, and claims it's the best cup of coffee I'll ever have. I've yet to test that theory because he's busy propagating goats these days.
I get on the call with my super-duper awesome clients in Boulder and we talk through some projects that I'll bang out in the next three days. Admittedly, right now I'm that person, working at home, kinda in pajamas.
And here's where my day gets really interesting.
After the call I abandon my business-self and jump into my homesteading-self. Costume change! On go the insulated Carhartts - yes, I do own a pair. Silas and I are going to load some wood. Our friends from Anacortes won a cord of wood at The Woodchoppers Ball* and gave some of it to us. It's been sitting at the Community Center for a few weeks, so it needs to be moved over to our property. We bump down the road in the little red island truck, which I love doing, and toss a cord of wood into the back of the truck. A cord is about this much:
I'm smiling the whole time because I'm outside throwing wood into an old truck. It doesn't get any better or any more real than that sometimes. We bounce back home and unload the wood and stack it, assembly-line-style. I throw it to Silas, he stacks it up. He probably laughs at me because I'm smiling like an idiot while doing a task that is kind-of a pain in the butt. I love it, though. I really, truly, love it. It's my arm workout for the day.
We check on the brushfire that was burning the night before to see if it made progress or needs to be re-started. We're burning a bunch of brush and a stump from a section of land we're clearing to plant a garden and orchard and house a chicken coop in the spring. Making brushfires is so awesome. Growing up in a small town, rather than on a farm, I never got to start fires, much less make huge brush fires. So, when there's talk of clearing brush or cutting down trees I'm the first one to volunteer my help. It's mid-winter, so it's just a mudhole where we've cleared. Lucky me, a few days prior I spent 4 hours in the rain slugging through the mud pulling branches and rolling tree trunks to the fire. Crossfit training. The fire needs to be restarted, so Silas does that while I change my clothes yet again, because I have to go to town. That's what we call it when we have to leave the island on the ferry and go to Anacortes or Mt. Vernon. I scramble because I realize the ferry is at 10:15 a.m., not 10:30 a.m. It's the same ferry schedule M-F, so I don't know how I haven't managed to memorize it yet, but I haven't. Island time.
Then comes one of my favorite parts of each day.
Then comes one of my favorite parts of each day.
I get to the ferry dock just as it's pulling up. Phew. I'm walking on, so there's no stressing that I won't make it on the boat. (We keep one car on the island, and one car parked on the Anacortes side so we don't have to constantly drive across, which costs a bit more than walking on.) I notice how much the shoreline has changed in the last week due to the coastal storms and the weather we've been having too. The island lost power last weekend because of a wind storm. There's a ton of new driftwood and the tide is at flood level. There are a few other people waiting to walk on too, and they're talking about the driftwood, so I join in their conversation. "Storm really did some redecorating, eh?"
We shoot the shit for a few more minutes as we're walking on the ferry. I wave at a few islanders in their cars and comment on Carol, the ferry worker's, new hair color.
I get my town errands run, then hole up at the library to work for a few hours.
Hit the 4:30 ferry just in time to see the sunset. I try to always ride outside on the car deck instead of inside where passengers can sit unless it's stormy weather. There hasn't been a time in the last 9 months that I haven't savored every minute of the ferry ride. Whether it's a beautiful sunny day, mild temperatures and calm winds, or a cloudy day with a soft mist, or a clear, cold day I enjoy the elements. This particular day it's glorious. Cold, but glorious. That's the deal we have with Mother Nature in the winter. It can be sunny, but it'll be cold. The warm-ish weather comes with the clouds. It's just plain awesome that I ride a ferry to get from my house to the grocery store.
When I get home Silas and I cook dinner. One of my favorite parts of living on our tiny island is that there's no take out or pizza delivery - though I've heard a rumor that a pizza place in town will deliver a pizza to the ferry. Anyway, the point is cooking or making every meal is a part of my day now and I'm actually not as bad a cook as I thought I was. I constantly burn myself, because I'm a klutz, but I can improvise a recipe here and there, which is something I used to fear.
And that's my day. There probably won't be another one like it.
One day I brewed beer. Another day I shoveled wood chips into a wheel barrow and hauled them around the property covering the rain-saturated paths between our cabin and the other two on the property so we can walk between them without getting too sloppy. There's a day that was totally devoted to writing. Another day we cleared brush again and made another huge brush fire. Today I wrote, watched a friend's baby, then sanded the floors in the cabin with a hand-sander.
Hit the 4:30 ferry just in time to see the sunset. I try to always ride outside on the car deck instead of inside where passengers can sit unless it's stormy weather. There hasn't been a time in the last 9 months that I haven't savored every minute of the ferry ride. Whether it's a beautiful sunny day, mild temperatures and calm winds, or a cloudy day with a soft mist, or a clear, cold day I enjoy the elements. This particular day it's glorious. Cold, but glorious. That's the deal we have with Mother Nature in the winter. It can be sunny, but it'll be cold. The warm-ish weather comes with the clouds. It's just plain awesome that I ride a ferry to get from my house to the grocery store.
When I get home Silas and I cook dinner. One of my favorite parts of living on our tiny island is that there's no take out or pizza delivery - though I've heard a rumor that a pizza place in town will deliver a pizza to the ferry. Anyway, the point is cooking or making every meal is a part of my day now and I'm actually not as bad a cook as I thought I was. I constantly burn myself, because I'm a klutz, but I can improvise a recipe here and there, which is something I used to fear.
And that's my day. There probably won't be another one like it.
One day I brewed beer. Another day I shoveled wood chips into a wheel barrow and hauled them around the property covering the rain-saturated paths between our cabin and the other two on the property so we can walk between them without getting too sloppy. There's a day that was totally devoted to writing. Another day we cleared brush again and made another huge brush fire. Today I wrote, watched a friend's baby, then sanded the floors in the cabin with a hand-sander.
I love how the standard of the island is to expect the unexpected and roll with it because chances are it won't be just a standard day.
*The Woodchoppers Ball is an annual event held on the island on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. There's a potluck, open mic, a band and dancing, and the culminating event is the woodchucking competition. Contestants chuck as much wood as they can, as far as they can, out the back of a truck in 29 seconds - because it's the 29th annual Ball - and the winner gets a rick of wood. It's a highly coveted prize as most people out here on Guemes Island heat their homes with wood-burning stoves. Long, wet, cold winters need lots of wood.
