Our Return

Today is Saturday March 23 and we returned home after 4-months spent at Deer Park Monastery (DP) on Tuesday. It was an unseasonably warm 62-degrees out when we arrived at Empty Mountain at around 5pm (43-degrees inside the cabin). We’ve been slowly and intentionally increasing our cold weather time here in the woods. As we are new at this whole living off-grid and without running water lifestyle that we’ve chosen, we are still in highly active learning mode. 

We departed south on Nov 17, which was 3 or 4 weeks later than the year before. And this year we returned home about 3-weeks sooner. In case you are not familiar with winter in the north country, it is our longest season. It’s cold and dark and snowy. Having spent the last 4 winters in southern California, I now more fully realize by way of actual experience, rather than just cognitive understanding, how very different the season of winter expresses itself in different locations. 

I was born and raised in the suburbs of Philly and moved west to Montana when I turned 19, and Mike was Montanan grown. We are 44 and 45 now. With the exception of a 2-year stint away to live in Alaska, road tour the country, and test drive living briefly in Arizona when Mike and I were in our early 20’s, our home and hearts have been firmly planted here in western Montana. I don’t mind telling you it’s felt a little strange leaving for the full season of winter these last 4-years. It feels like I’m abandoning my roots somehow. I have inherited, for better or worse and prolly for both, a mentality that to be a “true Montanan” one must winter-over here. 

There is something to the act of feeling the mountain winter in my bones and allowing it to guide me to new inner places of reflection and rest. I am someone who misses the north country winter when we’re away. I miss the hibernation season. The season I affectionately look to for its extra support to assist my love and craft of writing. I don’t mean to imply that I don’t dearly appreciate the sun and outdoor romping possibilities that exist in SoCal throughout the whole of winter, but to my particular arrangement of molecules in body, mind, and spirit, there’s just something not quite right about bypassing the season of deep rest. Personally speaking, I can only dip my toes in the shallows of hibernation mode when surrounded by nearly constant sun and spring-like daytime temps. 

Since we purchased and moved onto the land we’re now situated on in July of 2022, this was only our second winter coming back to Empty Mountain. Still, we’re quick studies and well-versed in Montana winters. We never know what we’ll find in terms of snow when we get home. Even if you look up the weather in one specific location, based on the varying elevations, terrain and canyons, one never knows exactly what the situation will be even just down the road or around the bend. We are new to this wooded pocket of Montana, so it was a question mark about whether we’d be returning to snow or not. 

As mentioned, it was 62 out when we rolled in, which is unusual for this time of year. But then, most places seem to be experiencing uncommon weather patterns and temps these days. There is snow up higher in the surrounding mountains but none on the ground, save for one small patch of ice on our property resting in an especially shaded spot. (Mike had to do some snow shoveling at EM when we got back last year in early-mid April in the same location.) The gravel road to EM was pretty smooth sailing. Our cabin weathered well the winter and the rest of our spread looked just as we left it. Another unknown when we return home from months away is the state of our belongings. Living as remotely, but still quite accessibly as we do, we have minor concerns about theft. It’s always a possibility regardless of placement or lifestyle, but ultimately we’re interested in not having fear dictate what we do and how we live. We install ounces of prevention and hope they equate to pounds of cure; we follow our hearts and hope for the best, while knowing that we’ll handle whatever happens as it comes. 

We set ourselves up well when we left in order to return, which was time and effort well spent. Mike was able to reinstall our PV panels and cell booster and get our solar powered system up and running all within an hour of our arrival.  We carted the batteries which serve as our electricity sources with us to DP, in order to keep them conditioned over the winter, and then charge them up so they’re ready to roll when we get home. Between our two batteries - which can be charged by our two PV panels (200-watts each) when it’s sunny out or a gas-powered generator when it’s not, or via electric battery charger - we have 2400 watt-hours of run time. As a practical way of thinking about it, we can run a 100-watt lightbulb for 24-hours. We acquired two new batteries when they were on sale last fall, so technically we now have four batteries. However, cuz reasons I don’t fully understand (but thankfully Mike does), we can’t just hook them up to our current system without doing some fairly involved work to add them in. So in the meantime, we plan to rotate them as needed. 

Given that it’s still generally on the cold side out (it was 28-degrees this morning), we’re running an experiment on using the outside as a fridge for storing certain food items in a cooler (without ice) rather than plugging in our small fridge inside the cabin. This way we save a lot on electricity draw from our system. So far we’ve been getting just enough sun to meet our power needs through the PV panels without having to run the generator to charge our batteries, which is nice. But that’s only possible because we’re not running the fridge. Other than the fridge, our electricity needs are pretty small. We need power to run the cell booster, charge our devices, including the laptop I use for working remotely for DP, and also charge the batteries we use in some of the tools we have. Oh, and we also have one plug-in lamp that we use sparingly, due to the amount of natural light that comes in through our windows (at least during the majority of the time we’re here for - we used it way more in October & November). 

To wrap up this long post I’ll end by sharing that I am adjusting, and starting to remember & appreciate, how much slower things move in the woods, at least here where we are and with how small & simple we’re living. Things take time. Yesterday we field tested an awesome new Lifestraw filter our good friend Nikolay recently gifted us to make use of some nearby creek water. It took over an hour to filter a 5-gallon bucket of water, one scoop at a time, for the purposes of drinking and cooking with. I also uploaded a video I took on our EM YouTube channel, which took close to two-hours, given the low cell signal & 4G strength we get even with the booster and the hotspotting action we use for such things as internetting. The sunrise takes more time popping up over the mountains too, and the day starts at a slower pace in the cold of early morning. The woods are still and nourishingly quiet and slowly unfolding in the dawn of springtime. We are settling back in. Refamiliarizing ourselves with the land. Lighting fires in the woodstove when it’s time for such things as warming up, which is wonderfully easy to do in our small, well-insulated cabin. And while my heart still aches from leaving the monastery, I am also very delighted and uplifted to be home.