He helped me water my sprouting bean seeds.

“Please let me hoe the garden Uncle Lee”.

If I may say so, I think he did an excellent job taking out the weeds.

He wasn’t sure what he thought about the chickens.

So he took over my garden hose instead and tried to figure out how to use it himself.

Right after we left on vacation, a freak storm hit Oregon and buried everyone in snow. I couldn’t believe it. We left and missed the snowstorm of the decade! (We were getting a sunburn in D.C. at the time.) Anyway, I guess things were a real mess here, nearly everyone was out of power due to fallen trees, and emergency snow routes were in effect. I didn’t even know we had snow routes!?! Our neighbor, whom we love to pieces, was taking care of our chickens and cats. He called to say we had limbs down all over.

The day after we got back, we went outside to survey the damage. I was shocked to discover that a number of our wild Hazel nut trees were completely flattened. I didn’t think anything could take out a Hazel nut tree other than chainsaws and dynamite.

It looks like we are going to have a firewood project coming up. The weight of the snow broke up their root stocks into pieces. We don’t mind that these particular trees were killed because they are really just big weeds. (Filbert trees need proper trimming to produce well. Most of ours were planted by squirrels with no arborist training.)

We started collecting broken tree limbs and building an enormous burn pile with them. All I have to say is only crazy people start hauling limbs the day after they get back from vacation. It felt like I was moving though mud and finally I gave up. We will finish cleaning up later this week after the jet lag has worn off.

We had a huge pile of limbs in our front yard which we did clean up before I decided lounging in bed sounded like a better idea. The tree in our front yard makes really groovy looking cones that you don’t see very often because the limbs are so high. When they do fall they look like grenades and feel heavy like rocks. This isn’t a tree you want to park your car under. I decided to get crafty (lack of sleep can make you do funny things) and had a Martha Stewart moment. Instead of a pine cone vase arrangement inside my house I made a pine cone arrangement in a stump. HA! Take that Martha!!

We mowed before we left but the grass is out of control. Hopefully the weather stays nice so I can start some mowing later this week. Mowing grass when it is up to your armpits is never a fun project.

Some of the fruit trees are blooming already. YEAH!

The Camellia is putting on a show.

So is the Magnolia. I’m surprised the huge snow storm didn’t freeze all the flower buds and wreck the blooming.

The flowering Quince is also out in bloom.

We were shocked to see how much our garlic sprouted up while we were gone. I guess now that we are back home we need to get serious about gardening.

It’s good to be back home. In the evenings during our trip we would watch HGTV shows (we don’t have cable at home) which really made us want to go home and start drywalling and painting. Now we just need the good weather we experienced while away to stay here for us. We have so much to do this summer.

Firewood can be hard to find this late in the season. We discovered that our local forestry products company occasionally sells seasoned (untreated) pole ends, and we picked up a third of a cord for 36 dollars.

The only down side was that you had to haul it and split it yourself. Lee and I got busy and the truck load was split and stacked within an hour.

As December drew to a close, Robin and I considered writing a traditional year end review. Highlights would have included the house facelift, shed construction, and chicken debacle, but the most significant milestones of our past year were beyond such things. Rather than write a post that felt empty by comparison, we decided to write something more meaningful. This will not be a regular feature of our blog–the normal parade of projects and levity will continue in 2012.

Robin and I were both raised in the same high control religion. For many churchgoers, religion is a Sunday activity. For us, religion defined our lives. It told us what to believe, how to live, and what to think. From childhood, we were taught that only our religion was true, and that very soon our God would kill the 99.9% of people who believed differently. We were taught to be fearful of non-believers, and friendships outside the religion were strongly discouraged, even with family members.

Over the last several years, Robin and I separately came to the realization that our religious beliefs were a sham, built entirely upon fear, emotional manipulation, and misrepresented facts. We knew our life would be simpler if we maintained the pretext of belief, but intellectual dishonesty would have violated our integrity. By the beginning of 2011, we had made it clear to our family that we still loved them unconditionally but we no longer accepted their religion.

Unfortunately, extreme beliefs are fragile and require extreme measures to protect. As dictated by their religion, nearly all our friends and family began to shun us immediately. This meant that they regarded us as dead until such time as we accepted their religion again. Believers convince themselves that this type of emotional blackmail is a loving act. As my mom said to me during a rare phone call, “In the Old Testament, parents threw the first stone when a child left the true faith.” (i.e. To shun your child is more loving than to stone them to death.)

It’s a terrible thing to be thrown away by your family. The mind fluctuates between denial, anger, depression … all the stages of grief. We grieved for the relationships we had lost and for the people we thought they were.

At the same time, Robin and I were determined not to live in isolation, crippled by our childhood indoctrination. We pushed past our irrational fear of outsiders and resolved to find new friends, reconnect with non-believing family members, and reintegrate ourselves into society. For two introverts trying to rebuild their lives from scratch, our efforts were surprisingly successful.

We can honestly say that 2011 was one of the best years we have experienced, despite the trauma of losing our family. We have met many amazing people this past year who have welcomed us into their lives and their homes. We’ve had dinners and grand conversations over wine, debated books and ideas, and shared stories and grief. Each and every one of these people will forever be dear to us for their kindness and concern.

In late November the year took a tragic turn. A close relative of mine in his late 20′s committed suicide. He had been raised in the same religion, and while he never questioned it’s validity he found it impossible to conform to its rules. To avoid being shunned, he attempted to live two lives, and the resultant discord wrecked his self esteem. He never spoke of thoughts of suicide, but religious guilt and fear of abandonment weighed heavily on his mind.

Robin and I found no closure at his funeral. The service spoke little about the man who had died and much about the dogma he had been expected to follow. To be present in a room full of people mourning someone in death whom they would have shunned in life was one of the single most hypocritical displays I have ever seen.

While progress around the homestead was slow this past year, we invested in our personal development and it was definitely a better use for our time. The end of 2011 finds us far happier, well adjusted, and better connected than at the beginning, partly because we have a new circle of friends and family who judge people based on their character and not the conformity of their beliefs.

Robin and I are excited about the new year, and look forward to continued progress both in our personal lives and on this wreck of a homestead. We wish all of you out there the best in 2012.

I got busy stacking and soon there was a very straight pile. Our wood stove doesn’t seem to mind burning furniture grade material.

When the olive oil freezes on the kitchen counter, it’s time to stoke up the woodstove.

As a placebo, we brought home a big stack of drywall and pretended to be warm.

I’d say we don’t mind nights in the 20′s but I’d be lying. All other projects have been dropped in favor of house wiring. Tomorrow, if all goes well, we should be installing the first sheet of drywall on the upstairs ceiling. This step has been three and a half years in the making.

I’ve read that baking soda can ease bee stings. (I have a book that insists that baking soda cures everything.) It didn’t seem to do anything for me, other than made it awkward to scratch.

After I chopped off their pumpkin heads and scooped out their guts, I filled them full of the pie filling.

I hate to say this, but I felt very Martha Stewart’ish while making these. They were that cute.

They didn’t taste quite like pumpkin pie but they were good. It was a delicious fall sort of comfort food.

Three years of successes and losses,
of planning and strides and delay,
But from three hundred meters the view is,
a life getting better each day.

Thursday was the third anniversary of our folly.