Fourth Week (in pics)
I pinky swear that after this week, I’ll start coming up with better titles for these weekly blog posts. In the meantime, in the interest of wanting to keep things real, and not wanting to lead folks down the path of romanticizing what it means to live off-grid in the woods, I want to let ya’ll know that it’s hella hot out. Unpleasantly hot. Almost painfully hot. It’s 96.8-degrees inside the van right now, and we’re parked under a canopy with the windows open to allow a breeze through. Thank goodness it routinely and wonderfully cools off quickly as soon as the sun goes down. I’m not sure what the heck we’d do if it stayed this warm out all the livelong day & night.
Living in the woods means, well, living outside. It means adjusting to the weather; acclimating to the bugs; getting to know the local critters; soaking up the sun in the A.M to warm up, and then avoiding it like the plague as soon as the warmth of morning turns into the heat of day. Living in the woods, sans structures & services, means growing accustomed to showering less than maybe preferred. It means keeping the cooler rockin and rollin with ice. It means keeping an eye on the water supply. It means all sorts of other stuff, too.
Allow me to clue you in on one aspect of things: our shower situation. First let me say this, I have a lot of hair. I mean, really. One might even say that I have TOO much hair, especially for living off grid in the woods. I’ve seriously considered lobbing it all off. (Fun fact: if I did chop it all off, it would make for the fourth time in my life that I’ve gone from having a waist-long mane to a shaved head.) But with me it still remains, at least for now.
Since starting to live the #vanlife in late March, we’ve been showering once a week at my good friend Amy’s house, which has been working great and we’ve been super grateful for. (Side note: we also have truck stops around that offer showers for a fee. Turns out they aren’t cheap. It costs around $12 per person to grab a shower at such places. In a pinch it would work but ongoingly not so much.) But now that we’re on the land, chopping wood and moving rocks and living outdoors in 90+ degree heat, we’ve been making additional use of the solar shower our dear friends Robert & Kim gifted to us as a land warming present. It’s been coming in super handy out here. I’m also acutely aware that our season for such things as showering outdoors is short here in western Montana. So there’s that.
(Above pics: new solar panel stand and cool old bottles we found on the land)
Up until this week, I’ve been avoiding using the solar shower to wash my long hair. I’ve been saving that high water use task for my friend Amy’s shower. I’ve only been using it for body washing. But I decided to give the ole hair wash a try this week in the solar shower, to see how it would go. With the hanging height of the shower bag on the tree we have it secured to, paired with the length of hose attached to the shower nozzle, a new strategy was needed. A bend forward, flip the hair over, and wash it upside down approach was required. It was also necessary to time the hair wash sesh appropriately as well, sun angle in the sky wise. It went better than I expected. I even managed not to use all 5-gallons of water in the bag, so there was still enough for Mike to use later on.
Okay. Temperature update. Remember how I said it was 96.8 in the van when I started typing? Well it’s now 99.5. This is me wishing there was AC in the van that I could turn on. Gadzukes it’s toasty out - and in! It’s toasty everywhere when you live outdoors! It’s not my fave, friends.
Things I’ve been finding helpful to live amid this heat:
Spritzing myself in the face with a spray bottle
Splashing around in the kiddie pool (note to self: get more pool toys, along with a net for getting rid of bugs)
Reminding myself that it will cool down; heat, like all things, is impermanent
Eating cereal for dinner instead of cooking
(Above pics: Mike’s current build project: an outdoor shower stall.)
Mike’s currently in Missoula getting a lead on some trusses for what’s looking to be our first build project: a temporary dwelling place/winter storage building, so we can fetch our stuff out of our storage unit in Lolo. I’m considering taking the truck and running down to the nearby swimming hole to cool down. Oh! And Mike’s work truck has AC! That sounds amazing. I’m totally going to go do that.
