Spring Is Unfolding
For this week’s Empty Mountain blog post, I find myself in what I consider to be one of the best pickles a writer can be in: having too many subject matters to write about and needing to pick a path to follow so as not to overwhelm the reader! Sometimes when I sit down to type these weekly blog posts I come up blank for a little while, until my fingers find their inspiration and spring into action. Believe me. I way prefer having too many topics to sift through over grasping for straws about what to write about. So I’ll take this particular pickle any ole day.
Best of all, at the end of last week, we had a good friend of ours come and stay with us for a few days. As an avid outdoors woman and winter camper, staying in our guest cabin, aka our van, even though the temps were in the 30’s, was no prob for her, and she reported staying plenty warm and snug with all the blankets we provided. She was also not only up for but excited about trying out our shower house. So we had the genuinely fun pleasure of having a community shower day when she was here. We each took our turns using the shower, while someone stood outside helping to monitor and regulate the temperature. Mike is considering whether it might be possible for us to mount the machine with the temperature dial on the inside of the shower house, so that the person taking a shower can have direct access to it, but I think we’d have to figure out a way for the system not to get wet. In any case, the temperature dial right now is situated outside. While the person showering can certainly go outside and change the temp themselves, with the coldness factor right now, it’s really nice to have someone stationed outside that can help with that. And personally, I really like that we have a buddy system for showering. While you’re showering in privacy inside the shower house, someone is standing outside to support you in changing the water temp if you need it adjusted. AND, you have someone lovely to chat with!
Since the temps are mostly still colder out, taking a shower involves a little bit of set up. We have to hook up the pump, which we store inside the cabin so it doesn’t freeze, and hook up the battery which operates the pump. Then we have to attach the hose and get the water bucket set up. It doesn’t take long, but once we get it set up, it’s best for everyone who wants to take a shower to do so in succession, because we have to drain the system and unhook the pump and battery when we’re through. This time around, too, we tried out putting our small propane heater inside the shower house while we all took turns showering. Despite the shower house not being insulated, it’s so small that the propane heater worked great for making the space warmer when toweling off and getting dressed.
This past week we had two days which climbed up into the 60’s, which is rather unusual here for this time of year. And, because it’s springtime in Montana, we also had snow! On the warm days, there were a ton of butterflies flittering around the cabin, which was a great delight.
Mike worked off site on a job for pay this past week, so I managed our first humanure load into our compost pile since we got back 5-weeks ago on my own. I also filled our crew of propane bottles that our 2-burner kitchen camp stove uses. I enjoy having the capacity, ability, and interest of doing certain tasks solo here at EM that often tend to reside in Mike’s realm and domain of things, at least once in a while. I appreciate the challenges of doing certain things here at EM on my own, and the strengthening of character that results from rising to them.
I was inspired by the two warm days this week to bust out one of our hammocks, and walkabouts in the woods are now becoming a common occurrence. In other words, spring is slowly unfolding and peeling back the frozen layers of winter here in the mountains of western Montana. And I am thoroughly enjoying being able to spend more time outside in the lovely woods in a more leisurely and comfortable fashion.
