home

Home > Dispatches > Daily Dispatches 2021 >Daily Dispatch #221

August 11, 2021: A letter to a Neighbor

Dear Sebastian:

Welcome to the neighborhood. It’s been fun getting to know you. Both Pete and I are glad that someone who is community minded is hoping to set down roots up there at the far end of Jim’s Road.

You recently wrote in an email to me: “Keep an eye out for my Blog coming in the fall of 2021 that focuses on the positivity and joy of living, working, and sharing in an off-grid community.” I am looking forward to reading what you experience and write about.


I began writing dispatches in 2012, 9 years after moving to this place that we call Squalor Holler. I didn’t, as you have, have a thematic emphasis – being an essayist, I merely began following the path of my thinking and will continue to do so.

I had no idea when we moved here, in 2003 what we were getting into. We consisted of me, Pete, an old dog named Bootleg and a young dog named Rainbow. We were hoping to find a cheap piece of property with a dwelling on it – we got a semi-cheap piece of property with four cabins and an outbuilding. There was no running water or electricity, which gave Pete reason to pause. Me, I was all gung-ho about living here. I liked the quietude and the rural atmosphere. The untrammeled single-track trails were also, for me, a draw. I hoped to someday have a horse.

Pete and I did not have the goal of living a sustainable lifestyle, like say, Scott and Helen Nearing. Nor did we respond to dystopian concerns. Instead, we simply started to do what we most enjoyed doing – he likes to construct things and to garden. I like tending to livestock. Our interests coincided, which was fortunate for us both, otherwise, we would have pulled up stakes and moved.

What I thought would be two years of ongoing, sustained labor was a bit more protracted. We are now nearly twenty years into it. Our food, at least a part of the year, is primarily property-based. We eat our own eggs, milk, cheese, and yogurt. We harvest our own fruit and vegetables. We make our own compost and give the remaining manure to local gardeners. Yes, this has been a lot of work. The title of Poet Adrienne Rich sums it up nicely: A Wild Patience has taken us thus far.

Next: 222. 8/12/21: Among Friends

Horse Care Home About Us Dispatches Trips Alys's Articles