A New Life

Well, we have made a life altering decision. We are "coming out and being separate". We have given up all ties to the farm, the world and are moving into our camper to tour across the country full time, permanently (or so we think at this time). We are free to live a transient off-grid lifestyle, or search for a more permanent location in our own time. It is just the two of us now, our kids having grown and gone, living lives of their own.

It will be just the two of us again, a time for us to draw close to one another. We were married for seven years before we had kids and we traveled quite a lot during that time. Memories of those years on the road have helped us to make this decision. We are looking forward to that closeness again!

The decision has been a long time in coming and we have thought about several other possibilities, but this one stood out and seems to be the path for us. We gave it a lot of prayer, of course, and we have seen amazing things since we just bowed to The Lord's will for us, stepped out on faith and give up our material possessions.

We sure have accumulated an incredible amount of "stuff"! Letting go of it all is very liberating! The camper is on the small side (but still has all the amenities) and we have a full size pick up with a cap. The truck will hold a lot of stuff for our new life like the generator, heavy plastic storage tubs of winter outer wear, clothing and dried food in sealed food grade buckets, screen tent, lawn chairs, BBQ, etc. but what doesn't fit is . not . going. Period!

Everything else finds a new home - no future projects, no items held onto for sentimental value, very few duplicate or "back up" items. If we won't use it in our new life, it does not go with us. This clearing out of things has to be done in steps. I understand this, having started over once before, many decades ago. The things with sentimental value are the hardest and usually the last to go, but in the end, it all has to go. (I find clothes and comfortable shoes the hardest to get rid of. You can never have too many shoes...)

We have been amazed at how fast and easy this is going. It is flowing along like a strong river current, things just literally flying out of the house! It's truly incredible to watch! This path we have chosen and given to Him is being directed by His hand. We are just holding on and riding the wave! It is such a blessing to watch Him at work - and we are so incredibly relieved and happy - both of us waiting impatiently for the day when we can just drive away in late July! We are looking forward to meeting other Christians on the road who have separated themselves from this world and "have come out to be separate". I am painting a smallish simple black fish in the upper right corner of the camper, front and back, so we can be identified as Christians. 

We would love to find a true Christian camping club or community where we can stay and worship with like minded folks, where we can perhaps work and join but we are just going to trust Him for our direction. We do have plans and specific places to go, don't misunderstand me. We don't plan to just wander aimlessly until our reserves are gone. We do have a "plan" but it's adaptable. That is one good thing about this, none of it is permanent. Our needs will be so simple that we can stop, work and put down roots anywhere, both of us being very handy and employable. With our now low maintenance lifestyle, we don't need much income. 

We may spend the spring, summer and fall doing volunteer work in a national park in exchange for a camper berth with full amenities. These programs do exist and I have applied to a big one that we like for the 2013 season but it's all in His hands. We will winter on the BC sunshine coast (Cdn. hardiness zone 8) or on Vancouver Island's east or south coast near Victoria (Cdn. hardiness zone 7). With global warming as severe as it is, we think zone 7 will probably be warmer and shorter than it is zoned. We are leaning towards Vancouver Island, as we prefer to keep our distance from Vancouver. The last 2-3 years have had considerably earlier springs. If we are wrong and it gets cold enough to freeze pipes in zone 7 on the island, we can always just take the ferry back across. Nothing is permanent.

The places we want to spend the summer are at cooler and dryer locations. No more hot and humid for us! The Yukon has what sounds like a very good place to spend the warmer months. We will be staying mostly in free sites (and there are quite a lot of them). If we find a place that we like for the spring, summer and fall, we will stay there and plant a small garden, just a little one and come back to it the following spring. All my seeds go with me, for now and for later years if we settle in a house again, but it's just a small box of only the special seeds. I am taking two small pots of purslane with me in the back of the truck for mosquito bites and a pot of feverfew for migraines. I will set them out in the sun when we stop, although the purslane probably grows wild everywhere. That is the only plant I plan to travel with for now. If the back of the truck were open and not capped, I could have a small garden in there but I prefer the cap to protect the stored items from the weather, and opportunity thieves.

We are beginning to realize that this is actually happening. We are really leaving Ontario and turning to a transient lifestyle on the road where we only answer to Him, the government and ourselves. We owe nothing to anyone, no debt, no bills, no stress - just what we need to live in our new lifestyle - gas, propane and food of course, not much else. We will work along the way when we need to and pursue our self sufficient businesses on the road. I will be painting a lot more and making jewelry and hair forks, among other things. 

We are giving up some comforts, like regular internet, for now. We could buy internet that goes with us but we are not sure we want to spend the money on it. We can pick it up, if we want it, anywhere along the way. We might find that once a week or so at an internet cafe in a passing town is enough. We don't need internet to work on the computer. Lloyd can write his code and programs without it, I can paint without it. There's always pen and paper for writing and we will have the time to do it all by hand. It can be transcribed later. (I type 70-80 wpm). We also don't plan to use a lot of electricity operating a computer for hours at a time.

We will have a small gas generator but it is only a back up. We have a bank of batteries planned that are wind powered with a small windmill at the front and back of the camper that will recharge the batteries as we drive. If we can pick up solar panels very cheaply, we will install those too. The winters on the BC coast are warm but very, very rainy so we will probably use the wind power rather than solar for the main source of energy during the winter, or a combination. We plan to park under trees for the cool breezes so solar panels will only be of use on the road but will be good to have as backup, if cheap enough to acquire.

The fridge, stove, hot water tank and furnace are powered by propane, one consumable resource that we will need to buy but they use so very little, it's not going to be a worry. We can keep the propane use down by cooking over a campfire when possible, using cold water for a lot of things and using the furnace as little as possible. I intend to bathe, wash my hair and clothing in the lake/river a lot of the time, heating water over a campfire in cooler weather. I have big pots and big tubs for this purpose. I know it's time consuming (I will have a "wash day" for laundry) but in our new lifestyle, time is one thing I will have a lot of. Really, what else am I going to do? I can't paint all day every day. There are only the two of us and we don't generate a lot of laundry. Full service campsites provide hot water showers too, so we won't use a lot of hot water if we are volunteering at a good campsite. We can cook over a fire, too.

Firewood might be hard to acquire however. There are a few campsites that supply it for free but most don't. National parks don't allow you to scrounge for it either, although provincial parks and crown lands do and some of our camping might be in the wilderness. So many details to consider! 

One thing I am going to do is take up the guitar and sing again. I grew up playing the piano but that's just not practical, so the guitar will do. I used to play the guitar and sing as a teen and loved it. (Hmmm....I could even busk at busy campgrounds...)

Reading will become a major pastime so we are beefing up our collection of books. There's a used bookstore two blocks from us now. I think our books are going to be well worth the stowage space required. Hubby will be writing a journal daily, by hand. He's a great writer and has taken courses in writing before. He has some books that he wants to write, as well.

What foods to take with us has taken a great deal of planning. We will take a lot of dry goods, oats, beans and so forth, sealing in food grade buckets in the truck and canned goods. I am going to learn to fish! BC and western Canada has some of the best fishing in the world! Many of those wildlife scenes with the salmon running thick in the rivers and bears catching them take place in BC, so fish will become part of our diet, as well as mussels and crayfish in the warmer waters of BC. If we are near the coastline there will be clams too.

We are considering acquiring about 4-5 hens for our own fresh eggs and eating more eggs. We even have a small durable, light weight hen house for them that we will pack full of toilet paper in the mean time. We won't be getting the hens until we get to BC, as we don't want to drag them through this heat and humidity in the back of the truck all the way across the country. We are hightailing it as fast as we can to a colder and dryer climate for the summer! Some of Canada, like the Yukon, have near desert dryness. This is what we want. My asthma will be much better living there and we will both be much more comfortable! We just don't do well in this heat and humidity. It's been around 95F almost every day since the beginning of May here! For those of you from the southern US, I know this is not that hot and it's not really all that humid here. I grew up in Tennessee so I know what REAL heat and humidity is, but even this is more than we want to live in!

One of the reasons we can do this so easily is because we don't have children at home. Children really do make a transient lifestyle difficult and it's not necessarily good for them either. Children sometimes thrive better with stability, although that's not always the case and there are exceptions. Children would make it a lot more expensive. 

Most of the details we will learn to deal with as we go along. Our plans will be adaptable and we will have access to anything we decide to acquire at most cities. Also, as I said earlier, we can always put down roots and stay somewhere if we decide we want to do so. 

All things considered, I think this new lifestyle will be the best thing for us! I am sure we will be much happier, relaxed, less stressed and more able to focus on The Lord without all those material possessions and the need to make enough money to keep them! Truly taking your eyes off the world around you and keeping them on Him is the way to a happier life!

One post from another blog that has meant a lot to me is this one, "With Blood on My Hands". It's about material possessions. I also liked "Possum Living" by Dolly Freed, although it's not a Christian book, it's still an inspiration to rid oneself of the material world and societies standards of what things are really necessary.

I will continue this blog, but only occasionally, possibly once a month or a fortnight (every two weeks). It will be more of a full time RVer's blog than a farm blog. I don't think I will change the name. "Providence Acres Farm" is just going mobile!

We don't leave until the end of July, so if you have comments, please post them and pray for us as we travel!