Teepees

It was early June and our planned move out date was fast approaching - less than three weeks away.  By now, Josh and I had decided against teepees.  A family visit out to see some actual teepees made by a local company solidified that decision.  Jacob and Luke’s relief was palpable.  I’m not sure if they were relieved that they were not actually going to be living in teepees or if they were relieved that their parents turned out to be - not quite, that kooky.  Either way, both boys took a sigh of relief.  James was actually disappointed, but had to agree when he saw for himself that the hole at the top of the teepee where the structural poles came out, really was a fully, open hole, through which rain and snow and bugs could freely enter.  The teepee builder that we toured had made the teepees for the movie, Dances With Wolves.  Their work was amazing and very beautiful, but even the owner of the company gave us the sideways eye when we admitted we may end up wintering in them.  As we toured the models, romantic as they were, we quickly realized that there was no good way to heat the dwellings or to keep the critters and bugs out.  They were awesome, but expensive, and if we didn’t get a house or cabin built right away, particularly before winter, they would allow for living conditions that really were rougher than what we were prepared to deal with.  

The teepee concept was cool and definitely the grittier, more authentic way to go for our canyon adventure, but maybe we weren’t quite that cool, or gritty or hard core, after all.  I remember, when I was growing up in Winthrop, the remote, mountain valley town in eastern Washington, I knew a few characters who had lived in teepees for a spell.  If memory serves, it was a semi-temporary thing, while they had slowly worked on building more permanent dwellings over the span of a few seasons.  These folks were part of my inspiration for our teepee concept.  In retrospect, and after seeing the reality of a teepee, up close and personal through my adult lense, I have a feeling I may have missed the more nuanced particulars of the teepee living experience, like perhaps how the people I knew from my childhood had likely spent some of the colder, snowier, winter months, shacked up with a friend, or a relative... in a house... with a wood stove … and an indoor kitchen… probably, with indoor plumbing and electricity… maybe even a tv… you get the idea. So, back to the drawing board on the whole, house/dwelling/roof over our head concept.  Maybe wall tents?  An RV?  A cob house?  Go immediately into a cabin build or construction project?  A lot to consider, a lot to do and in the meantime, nowhere to live.  

Whatsmore, as we worked on the property, and the more work we did, the more work there was to be done.  This was counterintuitive and a bit crazy-making at the time; however, now a year later, a year wiser, it is a tenet upon which I plan all endeavors hertowith. But, I digress.  In a nutshell, we realized that we still had a lot more to do, which meant our time-line was becoming increasingly, unrealistic.  Josh, and the kids, and I had been heading out to the property nearly every day, clearing brush and limbing trees, just enough to be able to drive in and turn around, let alone have a spot to live.  At this point, while working at The Forty, we had encountered rattlesnakes and black widows, had our truck stuck in the mud for a week, and been caught in a tornado/torrential hailstorm during which all three kids had to be rescued from the top of the canyon wall.  Besides all that, we were still fixing fence, capping t-posts and smoothing hazards in preparation for bringing the horses.  Once, while fixing fence, I beaned myself in the head with the metal post driver, so hard that I flew, ass over tea kettle, landing ten feet from the fence, disoriented and in tears.  That’s The Forty, for you.      

Still on the to-do list: an outdoor kitchen, shower and bathhouse, some sort of a toilet situation, and of course, a main dwelling plan, as in a home of some sort.  Until we came up with more permanent infrastructure, water and power were partially worked out.  We bought a huge cistern and set it up on the property to hold water that would be hauled in weekly from town by Josh.  In theory, power would be provided by a combination of solar and propane generators, all of which, at this point, were unproven in terms of supporting a family of five on a regular basis.  We had tested the systems before the move, but had no idea of how they would hold up with regular use, over time.  Oh, and all the while, we were also packing, cleaning and preparing to turn our Tumalo home over to the powers that be, for which the deadline was upon us. To say the least, we were in the weeds. 

This canyon move was supposed to keep us less tethered to the world, so we could shift our family life and our work endeavors to a more creative, synergistic place.  We were trying our best to come up with a plan that was practical and actionable, but it also needed to keep with the spirit of our adventure narrative including a detachment from typical worldly bonds.  The dream: an offgrid, permaculture utopia where our children and animals would freely frolick, where Josh and I would have the time, space and inspiration to create, build, and thrive.  The reality check was this: The Forty was a hot, dry, dusty, desert canyon landscape with no road, no water, no power, no shade, no nothing.  I wasn’t panicking, yet; we were too busy for that.  But, I was beginning to realize that this project had a larger punch list than we had originally planned for. 

It was at this point, Josh’s mom, noticing that our pace, in spite of our best and gallant efforts, was about to be overcome by our deadline, offered up an interim solution.  We could get moved out to their place, in their RV, a retro, but mint condition gem, lovingly referred to as The Silver Bullet, with power and water access.  His parents had a couple of acres in Madras, which was conveniently, just ten minutes away from The Forty.  We could get the horses moved out to The Forty, and ourselves moved into The Silver Bullet.  At that point, we would could keep working on developing the Forty as we figured out the plan and hopefully, within a couple extra weeks, be fully operational, living our dream, within the canyon property.  Spoiler alert:  nothing, within the span of this whole endeavor has gone according to, or in alignment with, any plan.  In addition, the notion of “two weeks” as a time-line, is now our family’s inside joke as code for “in perpetuity”.  

Even so, as our family forged ahead and as everything got harder, literally physically, mentally and logistically harder, I sensed that Josh and I were on to something good.  As the pandemic raged on, and as the future of the world and society at large loomed more and more uncertain, our family was busy, occupied with the business of figuring out how to meet our most basic needs, which had become stripped down so that we were forced to focus on our most elemental motivations, as well as our individual emotional baggage.  Worldly layers, the possessions, status symbols and packed schedules that had once served as helpful distractions, buffering us from  the realness of our existence, were peeled away so that there was no longer a barrier between us and the the harshness of living.  It was a paradoxical experience, simultaneously thorny and beautiful.  Everyday was new and exciting, even though it was uncomfortable and hard.  This duality created a holistic, yet delicate balance in our daily lives that reminded me of how nature exists.  It made sense to me, even though, it really, mostly, totally sucked, and on paper, or in conversation with anyone outside my immediate family, nothing we were doing made sense.  It was a gut feeling that I just felt compelled to heed.  

As the world was distracted by the fear and anxiety and politics of the pandemic, as our businesses were shuttered indefinitely, as our kids were home, unable to go to school or see their friends, as we were quarantined from our friends and extended family, as we watched our community and our nation lock horns over masks and protests and presidential campaigns, we put our heads down, immersing ourselves in the here and now, in problem solving, moment by moment on a micro level.  This is not to say that I stuck my head in the sand, Josh either.  We were both all too aware of the chaos that was all around us, and at times, guilty of engaging fruitlessly, in ridiculous, go nowhere arguments on social media or even in person.  But, these pursuits became fewer and farther between as we got busy living in the now, procuring water, and shelter, avoiding heat stroke and rattlesnakes, caring for our animals and children in the unforgiving, real as it gets, canyon.  As I dropped deeper into my family’s new mythology, the world’s noise became a distant, insignificant hum.  I imagine that it is close to the way the outside world may sound to the horses, sometimes when they are grazing through the canyon on a quiet evening.  Maybe, it is a low, garbled, faraway din that makes no sense to them and perhaps feels a little ominous, a little dangerous.  It is a noise that gets carried into the canyon from time to time, by way of loud mouthed visitors or the distant, jeep roads winding through the neighboring BLM or the railroad cut through the surrounding valley. Thankfully, religiously, the evening breezes, as they pick up each evening, never fail to blow the disquieting noise away, once again.

- Victoria Williams