A changing ecosystem: on wildlife small and large

Coming back to my cabin after months away always evokes feels that old John Denver song, Back Home Again. Things seem pretty much the same as I remember from last year, and then I start to notice the differences. There’s always the weather, some years being wetter, others drier, and the result is more or fewer worries about fire. This year Linda and I have been talking about how the eco-system is decidedly different from other years. Top changes are the disappearance of ground squirrels, the fewer numbers of hummingbirds and the proliferation of an animal that rivals humans for domination of the planet: ants.

Below is a photo of a ground squirrel, taken a couple of years ago. Ground squirrels live in burrows underground, sleeping for most of the year. By the time I would arrive in the early summer, the young ones were out of the nest, gamboling in my compost pile and chasing each other through the yard. At one point I worried that they would reproduce in such numbers that my backyard would start to look like those 19th century photos of the American West, the ones showing thousands—no, millions—of prairie dog burrows along train tracks. But the population never exploded, as predators kept the balance. Still, I always had mixed feelings about the ground squirrels living next door to me—enjoyment of their playful antics and annoyance that outdoor gardening was impossible.

Those critters are nowhere to be seen this year, and it’s pretty clear there are two reasons for that: evidence (large holes) of one or more badgers during the winter and the appearance last fall of a family of feral cats. Mercifully, the 3 cats are all male, one the father (presumably) and the other grown kittens. How do you know they're all male? I asked Linda, picturing a future “prairie dog village” of felines. “I know,” Linda replied. “I felt their balls.” Reassured by her confident assertion, I began to appreciate them more. They are actually semi-domesticated, and they have names. Linda, who loves this little family, built a hay fort for them to get them through the winter and supplemented their hunters’ diet with cat food. One of the grown kittens, Buttons, likes to be petted, and all three can be seen napping in the shade on Linda’s doorstep during the afternoon. Here is a photo of Babe, the other grown kitten, looking, well, quasi-feral.

Yet, even with these three, it’s clear how the introduction of a predator species can alter the wildlife landscape. The wild rabbits are gone, hopefully safe and nesting in a neighbor’s woodpile; so are the mice (no regrets there, I confess). There also seem to be fewer flies. Is there a connection in that fewer rodents means fewer insects/fleas for flies? Is there a connection with the drop in the number of hummingbirds, who, contrary to popular belief, rely on airborne insects for food as well as on the nectar I still faithfully put out. At the same time, a male broadtail I call “bully bird” has been guarding my feeder, chasing away others except for one female, presumably his. Perhaps something else is going on in the hummingbird world, something we don’t see. Or, as it’s a dry year with fewer wildflowers than usual, the birds could have found a more hospitable micro-climate. With complicated ecosystems, all we can do is speculate.

Then there are the ants. Plenty outside and sometimes they bite. Not too many inside, but enough to bring out my murderous instincts: too close to my kitchen counter? Swat! Hoping to balance out my ants-as-pestilence attitude, I checked out a DVD of a PBS special on E.O. Wilson, the renowned biologist who dedicated much of his life to studying ants. There are 16,000 species of them in the world—which I find astonishing—and that’s just the number that have been discovered. Professor Wilson, now Emeritus, contends that if you put the weight of all of the ants in the world on one scale and the weight of all humans on the other, the weights would be roughly equal. I confess that didn’t curb my swatting instincts. Since our species seems well on the way to promoting our own extinction, I find myself mumbling to them, “You’ll have the earth soon enough!) Wilson says people often ask him what to do about ant invasions. “I tell them to crumble a cookie on the counter and then watch their behavior,” he advises. Clearly it’s better to ask a scientist about curiosity, not extermination. As for me, most days I just focus on not dribbling hummingbird nectar on the floor, cleaning counters and hoping for the best.

In the years I’ve been coming to stay here for stretches of time, my sightings of larger wildlife have been astonishingly few. A small herd of pronghorn crossing the land at a distance, a discreet coyote near the dry stream bed at dusk, an occasional deer jumping the fence across the road, a few wild turkeys. Neighbors with forested land or rocky outcroppings can usually add bears and occasionally, a mountain lion, but here, on this open former pastureland, they would never pass during daylight. Include the semi-wild mammals, and I can add visiting herds of donkeys that stayed for a day or a few before heading out the always-open gate. Then there are the domesticated llamas, cows and horses seen along the road from time to time.

I miss the donkeys. As a species, they’re the descendants of pack animals used during Colorado’s mining days. They’re legally protected in Colorado, and often something of a tourist attraction. Cripple Creek, a neighboring town, boasts a resident herd and a summer donkey race event. “Our” donkeys stopped coming a couple of years ago after the rancher who supposedly owns them built a better fence (or so we heard), stopping their wanderings in the neighborhood.

I suppose scarcity breeds appreciation. This morning, while walking with Linda and her two dogs through the trees across the road, we spotted a deer, a beautiful young buck, wandering freely through the trees. A beautiful moment it was in a changing and dynamic ecosystem. And as we reached the road, we looked over at the haze above distant mountains. Smoke from wildfires in Utah and Arizona,   where ecosystems will undergo major changes this summer. We're grateful to be spared--today.

A patriotic week

This holiday weekend I’m at Mudbiscuit, my cabin in the hills, and I’m finding contentment in the quiet, the cooler temperatures, and the lack of distractions, enticing or otherwise.  By that, I mean no disrespect to enticing distractions. Last year I was in the city, spending the evening of July 4 on a friend’s high balcony, chatting and enjoying firework displays over Denver. This year I had the possibility of choosing any of numerous rural and small-town events: an arts festival in Green Mountain Falls, an “old-fashioned celebration” in Woodland Park, complete with flag-raising, art, fun for kids, and a symphony performance. In Florissant, I could shop for antiques or try my skill at the “new ol’ time shooting gallery”; Buena Vista promises a “patriotic parade”, kids’ games and “awe-inspiring fireworks”. I decided to pass them all by in favor of unstructured time here on the land. Most days that means time to take morning walks with Linda and her dogs, do a few small chores, check email, read, or collect greens and herb clippings from the small greenhouse Linda and I tend. Evenings, however, bring a structured event—watching The Rachel Maddow Show at Linda’s cabin and talking about the continual stream of breaking news and scandal out of Washington.

Last year I wrote another blog about my conflicted feelings about this holiday—all of the patriotic associations and some difficult personal memories around July 4 This year, this year of Resistance to the party in power, the patriotism issue is even more conflicted. Despite a sporadic effort to reclaim the US flag as a symbol of progressivism, it still carries too many negative associations for me—memories of misguided wars and right-wing rallies. Perhaps that will change in coming years. I hope so.

Instead of the flag, several news photos on Facebook and reports on Rachel Maddow sent a burst of patriotic feeling through me last week. The photos were of the group ADAPT, a disability rights group. Members occupied the Denver office of Sen. Cory Gardner for 2 nights, demanding that any health legislation passed by Congress protect Medicaid and the health care that millions stand to lose of the Republican bill passes. Photos showed their peaceful protest and then later their arrest as they were forcibly removed from Gardner’s office. Their courage and resilience touched me deeply, part of widespread resistance to this disastrous so-called alternative to the Affordable Care Act negotiated by former Pres. Obama. I’ve always thought that this is the true meaning of patriotism: fighting for your country to be a true land of liberty and equality and justice.

A photo taken after the last members of The Denver Ten were released from the detention center*"

The news stories reminded me of some Denver history that I had forgotten—another protest by ADAPT in July of 1978. Rachel reported that ADAPT members forced a halt to bus transportation after the long holiday weekend ended that year. Their demand? The simple right to ride buses that were accessible to them. Today all city buses have lifts and wheelchair space, thanks to their courage and savvy strategy. Today, nearly 40 years later, ADAPT members again took risks to remind us that health care is a matter of life and death for all of us, some more than others, and that their—and our—patriotic fight for equality must continue. Unfortunately, I could not show support for ADAPT in person last week, but I hope to do so as this health care fight continues to unfold. 

Instead, I showed some small patriotic spirit yesterday when I visited nearby Guffey. It was Heritage Day for this small town, and if anything was an old-fashioned celebration, it was this event. Linda joined me and we decided to make the library book and bake sale our first stop. I know some of the bakers personally, so I jumped at the chance to stock up on Peg’s delicious chocolate chip banana bread, Rita’s baklava, and Lani’s healthy oat cookies. Next stop was a lemonade stand, staffed by students and parents from the Guffey Community School.  Excellent quality with real lemons, so I turned down the free refill offer and tossed another dollar into the coffers. What could be more patriotic than supporting two major cornerstones of democracy—libraries and schools. Later, I contributed to another worthy institution—the fire department—which was serving ice cream and brownies in the firehouse.

Although there were a number of artisans selling handmade and recycled items, I chose to hang out with Pier and Steve, the couple staffing the Park County Democrats booth. Park County, which includes Guffey, is considered a Republican stronghold despite this town’s former counterculture reputation, so I thought Pier and Steve were doing an important and rather brave thing by putting up the booth. Most festival-goers passed them by without comment while I was there—except one dude, decked out in fancy Western gear a la Wyatt Earp, muttered something about Obama and Kenya. That was truly surprising considering how soundly the old “birther” accusations were discredited and the fact that Obama is no longer president (alas!). A few stopped to chat. One was a man who said he’s from a long line of Republicans and is married to a Muslim immigrant. When I expressed sympathy for what has become of his party, he declared, “It’s not my party anymore!” As I wondered how many other Republicans feel as he does, I felt suddenly cheered. Another couple stopped by and rummaged through bumper sticker choices. I finally made a donation and chose one as well, expressing my hopes that we will all survive today’s epidemic of fake news and tweets: “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”

By mid-afternoon I was home,  back to my unstructured weekend, sans fireworks and hoopla, but with time to read, reflect, and feed the hummingbirds. Rachel is taking a break this weekend too, but she and I and all of her other viewers will be back tomorrow. The patriotic struggle continues.

*Comment from Front Range Resistance: "By approximately 2:30 AM on Saturday, July 1, all nine of the remaining ADAPTers had been released from the Denver Detention Center. Sisters Dawn and Hope Russell and live-blogger Carrie Ann Lucas had already headed home for the night, but the remaining seven disability activists took a moment to celebrate the achievement of the entire Denver Ten. These brave advocates represent all of us: our diversity, our similarities, and our interdependence."

A Memoir of Sounds

I wish to hear the silence of the night,  for the silence is something positive and to be heard.  --Thoreau

I sometimes wish I had an album of sounds, from childhood through the present, in all of the places I've lived. Turn the page, hear a different one. Sounds are harder to recall than visual images, yet hear them again, and a memory jumps into place. Favored ones, pleasant ones, tend to float to the top of the memory pile; my survival instincts push others, such as the sound of quarreling relatives, to the bottom. Others, mercifully,  get filtered out as noise: screeching tires, yapping small dogs, yesterday's buzzing mosquito. This blog entry is a journey through sound memories, enhanced through technology. Of course, music is a soundtrack for life as well, but that’s a subject for a another day.

The first sound I heard--and you heard--when we were tucked into our mothers' wombs was a heartbeat. You can hear it again today, courtesy of this Youtube recording of womb sounds. Listen for a few minutes, as I did today. Designed to calm sleepless babies, they’re still comforting for adults, aren't they? Looking for something more complex, we have all sorts of other sound comforts in adult life, also thanks to YouTube. I loved this one: what’s more conducive to sleep than soft rain falling on leaves?

One of my aural memories of Hammond, Indiana, the town where I lived from age 6 to 15, was a train horn. Hammond had a lot of train tracks, and legend had it that more women gave birth unexpectedly at train crossings than in any other town. I remember the train sounds at night, a kind of sweet melancholy. Here's one 41-second train horn recording I found--just like what I remember and hear sometimes in Denver now too.  Also recalled from childhood summers: the “hiss of summer lawns”—to borrow the title of a Joni Mitchell album, the whirr of a push lawn mower, the barely audible broadcast of a baseball game on a transistor radio, passing trucks on a nearby highway, the bells of ice cream vendors riding bicycles.

After moving to Chicago with my family as a teen, graduating from high school and moving on to college, I often heard the city’s iconic elevated trains. No doubt I also heard them during my first 5 years of childhood in that city. Perhaps I heard the sounds of “the el” in the womb, along with Mom’s heartbeat. Chicago trains helped me realize how the brain filters out repetitive sounds, noticing them only in the absence. Low-cost apartments, where I usually lived, were often near the el, so my brain did a lot of filtering. Here's one of the el in the snow. Another Chicago sound memory: waves lapping on the shore of Lake Michigan. Mundelein College, where I spent 4 years, was located right next to the lake on the city’s North Side.

I missed the trains and the lake when I moved to Denver in 1976. Sometimes at night I could hear freight trains passing, but for the most part, I don’t connect Denver with trains. Lake Michigan sounds were replaced by those of rushing mountain rivers, as moving to Colorado introduced me to my first real non-urban soundscapes. Encountering mountain wilderness on camping trips taught me to listen to natural music: the wind blowing through Ponderosa pine, the distant howl of coyotes, the crunch of heavy boots on gravel.

The sounds of urban Japan entered my life in 1990 when I moved to Machida City in the greater Tokyo area. During those first months, on some mornings, I thought I heard the strangest sing-song phrase coming from trucks passing by my apartment building; could it be a Buddhist chant? Eventually, I learned that those trucks were selling laundry poles! Listen to the last few seconds of this 30-second link to hear the laundry pole “chant”.  A pleasant sound, unlike the ubiquitous loudspeakers on campaign trucks during election season. Those were only a periodic annoyance, fortunately.  Years later, living in my own place a train stop away, I awoke to frogs nearby, exactly where I was never sure, and the muffled sounds of the Odakyu Line train. Japanese trains do not run at night, a boon for sleepers, if not party-goers. Miss the last train, and you stay out until they start again at 5 a.m. in the morning--unless you splurge on a taxi. Nights were relatively quiet except for occasional bozozoku, young men who were or fancied themselves members of motorcycle gangs, racing down the Tsurukawa Kaido a block away. Their unmuffled motors were almost impossible to filter out. As summer progressed, the cicada chorus grew louder, and its vibrations made the air hum. Last year I was Skyping with my Japanese sister, Junko, and I could the cicadas in the background as we talked. I was surprised at how homesick for Japan they made me feel. Here's the sound of autumn crickets.

Now I live in Denver most of the year, and my brain continues to filter sound, pleasant from unpleasant. Every time I hear a loud leaf blower—which always seems to accomplish very little actually—I miss the soft swish of the bamboo brooms that staffers used on the Tamagawa campus to rake fallen leaves. My apartment is on busy Grant Street, near downtown and the State Capitol building, and if I had no sight, I could clearly tell the time of day from the first pre-rush-hour traffic sounds to the constant stream at its height. Annoying sounds include shouts of inebriated nightclub-goers when the bars close at 2 a.m., but not long after that, a silence ensues, punctuated by an occasional siren.

In Florissant, where I spend a good bit of the summer, sounds have a different rhythm and I take notice of different things. Windows open, I hear the buzz/chirp of the hummingbirds at my two feeders from early morning to sunset. Nearly all were on their way south by Labor Day, and when I came back in September from a short trip to Chicago, the silence of their absence was deafening.  Occasional sounds from the summer that has just passed: tires crunching the gravel of Ranger Station Road, a distant generator, Linda’s dogs, Hop and Belle, barking at something. Very occasional sounds: target practice gun shots (a former neighbor’s grandsons visiting the now-mostly-vacant family cabin), a passing herd of cows, a couple of braying burros announcing the arrival of the herd for a day or two of grazing. Owned by a somewhat neglectful neighboring rancher, they used to visit the land periodically but haven’t been around all summer this year. We've had good rainfall this year, so the grass is probably tasty enough in their home pastures.

By sundown, the land descends into true silence. Sometimes I hear the sound of rain or distant coyotes. Otherwise, my ears seem to ring, seeking some auditory vibration. I have electricity and access to technology; I could watch a DVD or listen to music, but I generally don’t. I enjoy the quiet—for awhile. Nights are generally much cooler than the days here, and by the middle of the night the house begins to make sounds. I often wake with a start when I hear a small noise: Was that a mouse or just a creak? A nighttime visitor (that elusive badger who’s been digging holes outside)? My hearing is acute, so acute, too acute. Like Thoreau, I want the positive sounds of silence, yet too often I just wish the sounds of morning would arrive and calm my beating heart.

*Photo from npr.org

With a little help from my friends: Part 1

If you saw my first blog, you saw me sitting on the porch shortly after my cabin was delivered, smiling as if all I had to do was move in, buy a few sticks of furniture, and start enjoying country life. Well, that was by no means the case—not by a long shot.  The real amenities of country life were not yet in place: lights, heat, water, refrigeration, a way to handle sewage. It’s taken 12 years to provide for those things, correct mistakes, expand when necessary, and keep everything maintained. That job would have been impossible without more than a little help from my friends.

Many people—friends along with skilled, hired help—have made life here possible for me. In this blog, I’d like to honor the “A” team. First on the list are Linda Lane, her sister, Barbara Lane,  and Barb’s husband, Sam “Reed” Arnold. Tied for second and third are Duane Zimmerman, who I think of as my solar guru, and LeRoy McCarthy, handyman extraordinaire.

Please note that I’m following in Henry David Thoreau’s footsteps once again (smile). Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond was made possible by his friend, the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, who bought the land and allowed Thoreau to use it.  Thoreau built it mostly by himself—being pretty handy with carpentry tools, as so many 19th century American men were. (He and his father had built the family home the summer before.)  However, he too, relied on friends. When it was time to frame his cabin, Thoreau invited them to join the party. A confident (brash by today’s standards?) 28-year-old then, Thoreau says the invitation was more an “occasion for neighborliness than from any necessity”.  However, his group of 8 helpers*, including Emerson, surely did more than stand around and cheer him on; exactly what they did do seems lost to history. Perhaps they smiled at this whippersnapper’s grand plan while lending a hand.

Linda Lane is my Emerson. She got the whole process in motion by driving me to the Cavco store in Fairplay to place the order for the cabin, while offering her land for its home. In the years since Mudbiscuit arrived (2003), she has been instrumental in overseeing projects and keeping an eye on the place during the many months when I haven’t been here. During my first couple of years of living here (meaning 4–5 months each year), she helped me get used to this big change in my life, including crises involving wildlife….I mean, mice—under or (eek!) inside the cabin.**

Equally instrumental were her sister and brother-in-law, Barbara and Reed. Barb and Reed live down the road on a beautiful piece of land they bought and built on starting in the mid-80s. They’ve since created a beautiful home with small-scale greenhouses and additions to their original cabin. They are also artists in the folk art tradition. I’ll write about their work in a future blog.

Work is, however, the operative word here. Both could be called workaholics, given how much they do apart from their day jobs. Over the years, I’ve seen their commitment not only to making their own place beautiful and functional, but to doing the same for others, namely Linda and me. I’ve joked that their idea of a good time on the weekend is to build another cabin, but that would only be half the truth. They are also great lovers of the outdoors and of animals, and are frequently off on a trip to another beautiful place. It seems fitting that I show a picture of them working. Here they are in 2011, repairing Linda’s roof.

A partial list of tasks they were hired to do and have done well and efficiently for me and Mudbiscuit: installed cabinets in the kitchen (following a disagreement with the builder which left the cabin without cabinets for a year), built temporary stairs and a deck, bought a stove and propane heaters, arranged for propane tank delivery and subsequent monitoring of the tank, which later sprung a leak, which the supplier refused responsibility for—at first before Reed insisted they repair the problem; they also fielded bids for a septic system and a water cistern, and paneled the inside of the porch-turned-mudroom. There were also recommendations on problem-solving and problem-avoiding (e.g., staining the wood shingles so they wouldn’t deteriorate under the high-altitude sun). They have my undying gratitude, especially for their work while I was still living in Japan and visiting the cabin for only short periods. Mercifully for them, by 2010, when I retired and came to live here, the important set-up tasks had been done and I was able to take on responsibility for maintenance. 

Linda and I both have off-grid cabins, meaning we rely on the sun for all electricity—basically light, water pump, and more recently, satellite Internet. (Heaters, refrigerator and stove all use propane gas). In the first year of Mudbiscuit’s existence, Linda located a young solar installer, who set up two panels and storage batteries so that the cabin could have lights. He later left the area, and then Duane Zimmerman entered our lives. Ah, what a gift of fate! Duane has extensive solar engineering experience and has been willing and able to share it with us. Duane and his wife now live in the area in a self-sufficient manner that might put Thoreau to shame. 

For years, Duane has educated Linda and me about solar technology. At first, he tended to give too much information. Sometimes, starting to explain something which seemed overly complex to me, he’d stop, commenting that I had that “deer-caught-in-the-headlights look”. Thanks to Duane, I think I have that look less now. One year, he convinced Linda and me to buy a trimetric device, which is affixed to a wall inside our cabins. It displays some very useful information, such as how much charge remains in the batteries and how many amps are coming through the panels. When problems occurred, I could phone him with this info and he could diagnose the problem over the phone. Although I remain a slacker in my solar studies, the process did make me feel a little more confident.  His visits are less frequent now, as my solar system has been upgraded and I’m less clueless than I once was. The batteries, replaced in 2013, are housed in an insulated, expanded water heater cabinet on the side of the house. Two panels have been added to the original two. All upgrades were done with Duane’s guidance and labor. This picture shows him on a visit two years ago. 

Rounding out the A team is LeRoy McCarthy, whose business I discovered from an ad on a lumber store bulletin board. Another gift of fate! LeRoy is anyone’s dream handyman. He knows his stuff, enjoys teaching it, has reasonable rates, and always stands by his work. He returns phone calls promptly and has a cheerful approach to work and life. Problems are “issues”. “Yes, we have an issue!” he’d announce, in a hearty voice, leaving no doubt that it could be taken on successfully. 

LeRoy’s first project here involved replacing the temporary stairs with new ones connected to a fenced small deck. Here he is with his assistant, his son Brandon, upon completion of that in 2011.

LeRoy’s specialty is plumbing, and plumbing has been one of the knottier problems here at Mudbiscuit. One difficult summer, when either the water pump or the tank or the connectors presented "issues", he responded to each one, each time bringing us closer to a solution. Ultimately, the pump issue turned out to be a leak, deep underground, in the pipe between the cistern and the house. In this picture, LeRoy is supervising a crew of young men who dug through the rocky soil and found the problem. We see them taking a short pause in their work and hamming it up for the camera.

As with Duane, visits from LeRoy are less frequent now. Barring the unforeseen, I will not see him until fall when I close the cabin and he comes to supervise the winterization process, ensuring that all water has been drained from the pipes. In spring, he’ll help get things pumping and flowing again.

There you have the story of Team A. Cheers to them all! My appreciation grows as I write about their work, and I’ll do the same for Team B in another post.  With more than a little help from my friends, my life here in the country has been not only possible but relaxing and fun. 

*According to Harding, editor of my annotated Walden: those acquaintances—all male—were the well-respected educator Bronson Alcott, philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, and 7 others, including Edmund Hosmer and his 3 sons, who lived on a neighboring farm. After he moved in, Thoreau got other essential assistance from women: his mother and sister, who did his laundry; and Mrs. Emerson, who often cooked for him.

**My “mouse issue” continues. I’m not sure how much progress I’ve made with that. Unbelievably, just as I wrote this section last night, a small mouse caught my eye, running along the wall—first I’ve seen inside this year. Eek! Subject for another blog.

Thoreau's Cabin and My Cabin

Five years ago, with much anticipation and trepidation,  I left Tokyo, Japan, one of the largest metropolitan areas of the world. I decided to move to rural Park County, Colorado, where I had a small cabin. During those first months on the land, I decided to write a blog, chronicling my new hopefully more “authentic” life. Yes, I could hear Thoreau laughing—no doubt a chuckle rather than a belly laugh. He’s considered humorless by some scholars, but that’s only if you don’t appreciate the satire on almost every page of Walden.* And also if you don’t appreciate his somewhat whimsical approach to hairstyling.

The blog did not last beyond the first entry, except for a brief attempt to jump start it two years later. As I admitted even then, my early 21st century life seemed to bear little resemblance to the one lived by Thoreau in the mid-19th century. What was simplicity then is far, far simpler than today’s version.

The charming picture of Thoreau’s simple cabin was drawn by T’s sister, Sophia, an amateur artist. He was not happy with it. She didn’t quite get the cabin right and the pictured trees did not grow in the area, but she was his sister, so what could he do?

For a good view and discussion of Thoreau’s cabin, which visitors to Walden Pond can now see as a replica, go to youtube; click here to start the tour.

As for my early attempt at a blog, embarrassment was probably stronger than my tendency to inertia. A few comparisons and contrasts will show why:

1. Thoreau’s cabin—which he built himself from salvage—was 10’ wide by 15’ long, shingled and plastered. It had “a garret and a closet, a large window on each side, two trap-doors, one door at the end, and a brick fireplace opposite.” No mention is made in Walden of an outhouse; presumably he had one, though. His bathtub was Walden Pond—at least in the warmer months. Total cost of the cabin was $28.

My cabin, nicknamed Mudbiscuit, is a 34-foot park model RV consisting of two rooms and a bathroom, as well as a now-enclosed front porch. The living room/kitchen is 12’ wide x 15’ long—about the size of Thoreau’s entire cabin. It has built-in cabinets, counters, a double sink, and shelves (cellars having gone out of fashion), three windows and sliding glass doors. There are wood shingles on the outside and paneling inside; a high ceiling, peaking at 9 feet; all requisite wiring and plumbing, ceiling lights. Fixtures, such as fridge and stove, were added later. There is a small bedroom with large closet and a bathroom with sink, cabinet, shower and tub.  Cost was $31,281, and I believe a similar model would cost nearly double that today. Here’s how the southwest side of the cabin looked in 2007.

2. Thoreau’s furniture—which he made himself or found in the attics of others—consisted of a bed, a table, a desk and 3 chairs. A neighbor offered him a mat, which he declined, reasoning that he could just wipe his feet on the ground outside the door.  Apparently he anticipated by more than a century the late Erma Bombeck, who advised mid-20th century homemakers to avoid putting something that needs to be cleaned on top of something else that has to be cleaned.

Similarly, my living room/kitchen has a sofa bed, a table/desk, 2 chairs (plus several folding ones hidden away), and a stool. There the similarity stops. Add to that one bookcase, a shelving unit for Internet modem and router, telescope, and fan. Ignoring Ms. Bombeck’s advice, I bought 3 braided rugs. In the space facing the bathroom, a storage unit for food and clothes, and a set of plastic drawers; in the bedroom, a twin bed, a large shelving unit, 2 night tables, 2 lamps. A friend of Linda’s bought me a propane refrigerator.

This view of the interior dates back to 2010, my official move-in year,  when I was still sleeping on a borrowed bed and had not yet added many of the items in the above list.

3. Thoreau reminds his readers that he paid nothing for curtains, “for I have no gazers to shut out but the sun and moon, and I am willing that they should look in.” If the sun is “sometimes too warm a friend, I find it still better economy to retreat behind some curtain which nature has provided, than to add a single item to the details of housekeeping”.

I’m with Thoreau here on reducing housekeeping tasks and on the pleasures of letting the sun and moon gaze in—sometimes, that is. On summer mornings, I love waking up to the sun, which I can see rising from my bedroom window. The southwest-facing windows of the main room offer a beautiful view of sunsets and the nighttime sky, moon or not, providing clouds don’t mask the starlight.

However, with the high altitude sun (8700’) in the summer and my sliding doors facing southwest, thermal shades proved one of my best investments. (When I was here in colder months, they certainly helped insulate as well.) Seeking out “some curtain that nature has provided” would require a short hike to the property across the road, where there are many evergreen trees. Mudbiscuit is surrounded by open pasture land, although there’s a small cottonwood grove visible from my east window—shade for a number of birds and other small creatures. Here’s a view of Mudbiscuit as the southwest side looks today after a deck was added, solar panels doubled and thermal shades pulled.

Despite these differences—which highlight the consumerism and necessary comforts of the 21st century, I’m no longer embarrassed to write about the connections between Thoreau and me. It’s interesting to explore Thoreau’s writings and set my choices in juxtaposition to those of this most American of philosophers. Thoreau’s stay at Walden lasted 2 years and 2 months; mine has totaled just about the same amount of time over a 5-year period. He wrote an amazing book about his stay; the least I can do is jumpstart this humble blog.

*Walter Harding, editor of an annotated 1995 version of Walden, makes a case for this.

Thoreau and Me

In 1845 Henry David Thoreau, a 28-year-old Harvard graduate seeking to “live deliberately”, began living in a small cabin on the shores of Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. His 26-month experiment later resulted in Walden, a collection of essays written during and after his stay there. Never out of print during the last 160 years, it’s a classic in American literature: part memoir, nature diary, spiritual quest, and manual for living a good life.

I don’t remember when I first read Walden; it seems like I’ve known it forever, embedded as it is in so many aspects of American culture. I thought of it again in 2009, as I neared retirement after 20 years of teaching in Japan. While browsing in a Tokyo bookshop, I found a beautiful hardcover, annotated copy of Walden*. Like Thoreau, I felt I was starting an experiment as I left Tokyo, one of the largest cities in the world. My initial plan was to move to rural Colorado to a small off-grid cabin that I had bought 7 years earlier.

Thoreau’s cabin was only a couple of miles from his family home in Concord. Mine was thousands of miles away from Japan, but I already knew this part of the country, starting in the 90s, when my long-time friend Linda bought 50 acres of land between the small towns of Guffey and Florissant, about 50 miles west of Colorado Springs.  She soon bought a log cabin to live in and made the place her home. She named her homestead Little Horse.

I would visit during my summer vacations from teaching. One summer (2002), feeling I had no real home anymore, apart from my rented apartment in Tokyo, I asked Linda if she would mind my putting an RV on her land. She readily agreed, and we drove to Fairplay, the Park County seat, where we ordered a Cavco park model RV. Made of well-insulated wood and equipped with all necessary wiring, ducts and pipes, it arrived the following August. I was delighted to have the first home I had ever owned.

Like Thoreau, I did not own the land. Thoreau built his cabin on land owned by his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was granted use of the land in return for helping clean up brush and deadwood. Unlike me, Thoreau was an accomplished builder, able to make a solid structure, mostly from salvage, and erecting it with a little help from his friends. For me, there was no question of building one myself due. Lacking any real building skills, I was still working most of the year in Japan.

August, 2003: I named my cabin Mudbiscuit—can’t remember who thought of it first. This unusual moniker is a hybrid of Seabiscuit (a popular movie that first year about an unlikely winning horse) and mud—for the mud that ensnared the delivery truck after an intense afternoon rain, forcing the driver to camp on the land until morning. In the morning, he carefully positioned it, one long side facing southwest for light and heat, about 100 yards from Linda’s cabin. Mudbiscuit's arrival, coming down the Little Horse driveway:

During the following years, I had more than a little help from friends and skilled workers. Key people—both friends and skilled mountain builders—were Linda’s sister, Barbara Lane and her husband Reed Arnold. Much of the work they did themselves or contracted out to someone else who would do a job cheaply and well. Each subsequent summer, I made short, 7–10 day visits, and decided on an addition that would be ordered and done during the year: skirting, solar panels and batteries, a septic system, propane heaters (as the existing ductwork, designed for electric connections in trailer parks, seemed noisy and unsuitable for my situation), a deck adjoining the sliding doors, and a cistern. At first, there was little furniture: a table and chairs, a lamp and a borrowed bed; next came a fridge and stove. One year I invested in thermal shades and braided rugs.

While Linda was the only other human on Little Horse, I enjoyed having guests. In this photo, Linda (left) joined me and my good friend Bobbe for a breakfast smoothie one morning. I believe I had 3 chairs, like Thoreau, who said one was for solitude, two for visiting, and three for society.

I had non-human neighbors as well. Jill and Jim Durham, who live across the road, brought 6 elderly llamas over to graze for the summer. Mostly they stayed a distance away from the cabin, but sometimes let me get close, which pleased me a lot. I loved watching them watch me.

My initial plan was to live simply and economically for half of the year, (summer) while traveling and continuing to teach abroad as a volunteer during the colder seasons. Even before I returned, however, I had abandoned that plan, realizing that it was time for me to re-acculturate to the US and begin a new life post-retirement. Between the summer of 2010, when I officially changed my address, to the present day, I have spent summers and early fall here, leaving for winter travel or sojourns in Denver.**

By the time I was ready to officially move back to the US in the summer of 2010, Mudbiscuit was quite livable, though improvements have continued over the past 5 years: An enclosed front porch, a small front deck and stairway, a continually revised water system, and most recently, an upgraded solar system (2 new panels and new batteries). Indoors, there are more appliances and furniture. Linda and I have also shared an Internet account for the past several years as well.

Thoreau would no doubt laugh at what would certainly seem like pretensions to a simple life. More on that in the next installment.

*Houghton Mifflin (1995), Ed. by Walter Harding
**As of fall, 2014, I now live most of the year in a studio apartment in Denver’s Capitol Hill. I now own one tiny house and rent another.