Back in November, I posted a piece about Pioneer Nights. Seeing this piece from Jamie Lee Curtis about an incident at her families mountain get away home made me both laugh and sad all at one time.

Seems there really is a value to being without some niceties even if it is only for one night.

Jenna from Cold Antler Farm has released a neat little video covering her last few years… Cute!

OK, so the inspiration for this is many fold. I was thinking about it and then saw a post on a site where a couple did the same thing for a time.

I like the idea of forming this as a weekly theme, tradition, whatever you want to call it.

The basic concept is this – For one night a week, we’ll give up a lot of the modern conveniences in order to tie ourselves to the past and in a way, to our future. During this night our activities will became more family focused, no computers, no real housework or other things to distract us. I’d like to just sit around and talk, play games, read, plan, dream and maybe sing?

For us (as with the other couple that I read about) Thursday evenings works well. If it’s not too cold (or hot) we can turn off the heat or A/C and the lights. Start a fire in the fireplace (once inspected) and light the condo with old fashioned oil lamps and candles. Dinner could be simple leftovers or finger food of some type requiring no real energy expenditure.

Anyone care to join us? Create a Pioneer Night of your own? Local friends could join us.

Ideas behind it – togetherness, energy conservation, learning to do without, enjoying what we do have and realizing the value of what we have and the luxuries it provides, realizing what life is like without those “advantages”.

It was driving me nuts in some ways that we sold our teardrop to P&P so I was looking for something to do that wouldn’t take a lot of time, was easily built (and hence easy on my back) and unique.

While researching my dad’s side of the family a few weeks back I stumbled (once again) across the families original name on a site about Romnichels (gypsies). Hmm, serendipity?

The Gypsy Vardo is the project! Timothy Lemke (and crew) have put together a great book and plan set to build one.

More soon!

This site has an interesting article on a very old form of cooling.

OK, so I’m sitting in a major label coffee shop…

Here’s what’s wrong:

• Wi-Fi strength is weak.
• Wi-Fi login sucks. It doesn’t redirect to the correct login page.
• Wi-Fi costs if you don’t surrender your info (competitor offers free wi-fi) and you only get 2 hours.
• The electrical outlets are spaced too far apart.
• It’s far too bright in here for realistic use of a laptop on battery power.
• The staff is noisy.
• The table I’m on is dirty. Drips not cleaned up.
• The manager has washed the cloth she’s using 4 times and not wiped a thing.

It’s just funny to me, is it really that bad or is it our last visit here tainted my view?

The last time we were here the “free” wi-fi link didn’t work and I had to pay to get to the free login page, after getting settled in the on duty manager told us we had to leave due to a water leak and that they were closing the store.

The wi-fi has since been fixed, I assume it’s due to my complaint to their corporate offices. We came back with free drink coupons, I feel like I was bribed to come back but it’s worth a shot I guess.

The competitor we used to frequent has a much better atmosphere and hell, even the coffee is better.

Meh, I’m rambling.

I often get asked what type of things do I read. What do I read as far as articles for work, articles for our property, ideas for the home and land, gardening, cooking and etc.

It dawned on me that since I use Google Reader I can actually share them with anyone who’s interested.

So now you can click here: Articles Rick Shared and see what I’ve tagged for future reading or to save.

Well, we went down to the property this past week. Glad to say not much has changed at all which is a good thing.

We had a great time visiting with our neighbors Dan & Judy! Great folks, always a laugh with them.

We also walked our property some (still having a hard time finding the survey marks. May have to have them come out and show me where they are). We spent a little bit of time walking around where the house will be built. Has a little more of a grade to it then I though which will block the view somewhat but I can live with that.

I noticed that our neighbor to the west has actually taken some trees off of our land which really shows the need for getting the fences completed. Still have a mind to have the amount of lumber taken estimated and hand her a bill.

We’ve been watching Northern Exposure on DVD. And though it’s a TV series there’s a lot of similarities with my experiences with small towns, one in particular came to life when the owner of one of the restaurants in our town pulled a “Maurice Minnifield Maneuver” and bought out and then closed down the other restaurant. So much for fair competition. DOH!

Long time no post. I can believe it’s been 2 months since my last post…

We’re going to the property this week to check things out, pay a visit to our neighbors and generally just to get away. Only 1157 days left as of this post till we move down.

I know Dayna is ready to go now and frankly, so am I. But there’s so much to do before we can move.

More soon!

So I made my choice a few years ago. I left NYC for Truth or Consequences, NM, a tiny desert town that was never fully dependent on the national economy. Folks here have skills: welding, sewing, woodworking, canning, growing etc. The domestic economy is vibrant, in fact barter is more respected than the dollar which says so little of one’s character. When a developer came here with big plans to “help us” I realized that he could not see that poverty is being redefined. While one in four American homes are empty, here in T or C we have a nearly full occupancy. He sees trailers and mobiles, “poor folks!” I see balance, living within one’s means. This is wealth! This is a place that skirted through the great depression of the 1920′s and 30′s. Here locals grew food and stocked the supermarket for those who could not grow. That supermarket is still here.

The things that make us believe in an independent life! I love the description of the contractors skewed view on life and the active level of the community in the local community instead of trucking out their goods.

I think that a community like this is more able to survive fluctuations and failures in the much larger economy of the U.S. Communities with more macro/micro economies are less effected on the larger scale failures like are currently happening in the greedy world of the lenders which now, we the average citizen have to bail out. Nothing like having a society geared more towards welfare for the wealthy…

Read more of this article here.