The Kids are Alright

Writing this installment from a church parking lot in Farmington, NM. Almost exactly one year ago we quickly sidestepped through this town to avoid sub zero freezing temps in Colorado and started our journey west and south for the winter. This time will be vastly different, no journey further south or west until we have a bus to live out of. We’re still looking, but honing in on some leads for a place near here to winter over. We were sad to leave Roger’s farm near Chimney Rock, but it was necessary so we wouldn’t get snowed in there (his fear not ours, we know we could handle a few snowstorms but didn’t want to argue with our 75yo host).

Practically speaking, this does make the most sense though. In order to do this build we need to be fairly close to a larger town where we can get lumber and building supplies weekly if not more frequently. The path of least resistance brought us to here, an easy drive from Pagosa, milder temps, longer fall season, has all the stores we’ll need, and still a day’s drive to Denver should we need to make any quick returns for dad or other family reasons. Though we still don’t know where we’re going longer term, we’re trusting that it will all line up as it should. This church has been super helpful and accommodating to let us pitch it here for a few days. The grass is still green and there are roses still in bloom, the overnight temps are much more mild than what we’ve recently been experiencing (even compared to Denver).

With another move came much teenage angst. Natalie had the opportunity presented to her to stay with our sweet friend in Denver for a few weeks to a month when we were staying with her last week. But her wishy-washiness and putting off of an actual decision meant that we had to choose for her, she’d come with us because after all, we are all in this together. She is the most uncomfortable with the uncertainty at which our life is unfolding and we as parents DO want to be sensitive to that and provide as many assurances as we can, but at the same time, nobody really gets certainty with the life we’re handed and rarely do we actually have any control (perceived control, yes, actual control, no, lucky her to learn such a valuable lesson so young). Figuring it out as a unit and together seems the better course. The swings from complete despair over intermittent WiFi followed quickly by a a non-sarcastic “this is fine, I like it here” response less than a day later is emotionally exhausting. Gosh, parenting teens sure is fun! I have to remember my Alanon program in these moments, where I am not in control (hey there’s that word again) of another person’s emotions. Hard to do when those emotions easily overfill a 20’ trailer.

In jokingly summing this up, I keep remembering Natalie’s friend who moved and traveled abroad with her family at 13. To that 13yo at the time, the news of moving was devastating, a, “you’re ruining my life” level of bad parenting. We’re very much blazing our own trail in those terrible parenting footsteps 😉😏. Well ruin their lives whether we’re nomads or stationary, rural or city, rich or poor, traumatized or just living a regular life, I’ll pay for the therapy for them when they ask for it.

On a final positive note, Zach was finally able to procure the spray foam insulation we wanted for the skoolie build, as we wait here he’s already getting started on some smaller lumber projects. We need two really good, consistent 70° weather days to do the insulating (which may happen by the weekend!). Now to just makeshift a way to empty the bus of all our belongings…again. 📦📦📦

Family Caregiving

I have developed a longing to do some deeper work with regard to care for my father since dementia has so quickly sapped away his memory. He probably won’t always remember us, yet we are away. I’m jealous that his memory care facility is getting the best parts of him right now as he is generally quite jolly, helpful, easily makes friends, and is very affectionate. This is not the same dad I had, especially the last decade or so since mom died. I knew his love was there, have always known that, but it was marred by addiction and the narcissistic personality that centers their own doom on all the things that happened to them and doesn’t take responsibility for any part they may have had to play in that. I stayed away for most of the last decade out of a means of self preservation and while seeking recovery. That means my kids never really got to know their papa, aside from stories, and now he doesn’t know who they are. (We did have a big family lunch last time we were all together and my kids remarked, “Wow, Papa is funny, he was never like that before.”)

I miss my dad and will ferociously fight for his needs now until he dies, but I wish there was a way to do what we’re doing closer to him or with his participation, I know he would love the hands on work and outside nature of our living situation, but I also know the burden this would create wherever we went because he would require near constant supervision and, admittedly it’s not exactly the most stable environment.

I was recently accepted into a fellowship around caring that meets weekly for the next six months, we talk about all of these issues and more from the perspectives of caregivers, people receiving care, activists, and more. Caringacross.org

It’s giving me greater insight into this journey as well as much needed camaraderie. There are so many people involved in care everywhere in our country, but we do caregiving in a bubble, often feeling isolated and devoid of resources. A perfectly good example where I saw this play out was in selecting my dad’s future home. (as referenced here) https://breannemashek.com/2021/05/11/well-i-hit-the-wall/

Never did the option of care at home or care given by a family member come up, definitely not by the VA who wanted dad in a more institutional environment, so we sold dad’s house and moved on. How else would we pay the thousands a month required for his care? But what if he could indeed receive care from one of his family members? What if that caregiving paid a living wage and the role was truly valued by society as a whole? I saw this in the courts too, where it was assumed a family member would sign up to voluntarily become a conservator and guardian with very little knowledge of the time and expenditure of resources to muddle through the whole process. Yet, if a family member wasn’t willing, they’d gladly appoint someone to you that you would then pay. So many of our systems are so broken, and this is addressing just a small cross section of America highlighting those deficits.

I feel like we’re in a phase of this journey where yes, we are all fed and are functioning well, but it’s still not ideal and nobody is getting what is the best for themselves. The caregiving role is a full time endeavor, where emergencies pop up all of the time and dad’s care takes precedence. Just this week we had to go to the VA for a tooth infection followed by having four teeth extracted. This is all out of pocket and out of our convenience until he qualifies for Medicaid. What if we hadn’t had a return to Denver trip already planned? His neglect for his care over much of his life is suddenly my emergency and there’s no passing the dime on to someone else to handle it. I could just talk circles around it all day. The intersections of care, poverty, lack of organized support, dysfunctional systems, how this disproportionately affects women and people of color, all of it. I’ll probably need some therapy once we’re out of the weeds and more stable, but for now I’ll keep writing to chronicle the journey and shed more light on our reality.

Day-to-day life on the farm.

Fall rhythms, the leaves know what to do…

By now we’ve settled into somewhat of a rhythm on the farm. Ranchito Alegre practices Regenerative Agriculture and the soil is of upmost importance here. Our host Roger has been doing this work for the past several years, but also has a lifetime of experience in other farm work in terms of raising livestock and homesteading. His current offering is broiler chickens (they are delicious – easily the best chicken we’ve ever eaten!), you can order at www.RanchitoAlegre.eatfromfarms.com

We’ll be making a return trip to Denver the week of October 15th and will be doing some family things and other business while there for two weeks. Let me deliver a chicken to you! I so want his business to succeed.

The kids are both officially in online school full time. While not their favorite choice, it’s what we can do in this season of unsettledness, and it’s not forever. The best part is that (ideally) they can be done with computer work in less than half the day and have the remainder of their time ready to help on the farm, to do some cooking or baking, to learn about music or other interesting subjects from Roger, or riding the four wheeler to collect wood for the never ending pile.

While nothing is perfect anywhere and we’ve yet to find utopia, things work relatively well here with our shared responsibilities and we all learn from one another a little more everyday. As we gain more knowledge regarding the business end of a homestead, it’s actually quite discouraging and feels very out of reach for our near future. We simply are not willing to go into significant amounts of debt to bring this dream into reality. It doesn’t mean we won’t keep trying or that the experiment is over and we’re coming back to city life, it just means that a creative solution is in order and we don’t quite know what that looks like just yet…unless of course this IS the creative solution for the time being. Juggling with the uncertainty of it all is my greatest mental challenge for sure. When ever I find my mind wandering into the future I remind myself to stop, look around, and appreciate all that surrounds me. This present moment is all we have every single day.

We have yet to move forward with any bus work – The Home Depot in Durango didn’t have the spray insulation we needed so we are delayed a bit due to the same thing everyone doing any remodeling faces – supply chain shortages. We do have a small diesel heater and piles of blankets, the kids enjoy their solo space in Flossie which also sports three different heaters. It still gets gloriously warm by mid-day and we are loving the changing leaves and crisp, cool mornings. I’m sure there is more I’m forgetting to share but we’re heading back into no cell service zone for a bit while the ranch gets a WiFi provider update.

You Gotta Work

We’re into our third week as woofers and have found our place!

I’ll go back to mentioning our first stay that I briefly skimmed over in my last post, it’s quite a contrast to where we’ve landed and is in perspective worth telling.

We left off in Blanca, Co, where after an hour long conversation with this family (while we were still in Denver) led us to believe we had similar values and goals with regard to homesteading. We were eager to begin our work there, but knew after about a day that it was definitely not the right fit. Word to the wise, we should have done some heavier vetting of our host including asking questions like, how close are you to a major highway? What is your water situation? How will the food duties be shared or divided? What do you do with your trash? Are you growing most of your food? Because while yes, this family had the GOAL of growing their own food and water storage, etc. they were far from any of that and we were parked in essentially the desert in the middle of nowhere with very very few amenities. Add to that some brief mentions of government paranoia and digging of countless holes, or some may say “bunkers” with a mini tractor, we knew we had to get out of there ASAP. This put the nail in the coffin for our Costilla County homestead aspirations, so aside from the inconvenience and discomfort it was good input and confirmation for many of the things we don’t want for our future.

Houseless like us, but with more stuff and burning garbage in the high desert, NOPE

We didn’t have another woofing opportunity lined up that quickly so we retreated back to San Luis and our friend’s land where the bus remained parked. We had another hiccup and confirmation here where a nosy neighbor on the Mesa had been hounding us about our overstay camping a few weeks prior. Of course he was one of the first people we ran into on our way back up there 🙄. We assured him we were planning to be out in the coming couple of days. The big reveal here that we had a good chuckle over was that he might go to the county to tattle on us, but we had just come from a homestead that was essentially camping on their land in the same county, they definitely don’t have the resources to go to every person breaking the land use laws in the area. Neighbor annoyance aside, we would have likely been fine, it just doesn’t feel too good to be parked where you are not wanted.

This week of chaos at both places was profound, out of our whole year plus of being nomads – I truly felt homeless. Very much a, “you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here” type situation.

Makes me wonder where the houseless or unconventionally housed will end up in the long term. Cities don’t want us, rural areas don’t want us. That doesn’t leave many options for a vast majority of the unhoused. In the height of my anxiety while waiting here, I wrote a poem that I’m going to share as my next post. It’s going to make you squirm and that’s good.

Hasta luego San Luis, moving our whole dang circus to another part of the state

We bid adieu from those parts two days later for literal greener pastures further west outside of Pagosa Springs. We found a much better situation at Ranchito Alegre, a 120 acre homestead that has been in our host’s family for over a hundred years. Roger is the kind hearted abuelo we didn’t know we needed. He is a wise teacher and has been pouring into the kids in ways I couldn’t have ever imagined with humor, intelligence, grace, and boundless energy for a 75yo. I think the kids fill a hole for him too as it sounds like his own grandkids are often too busy to learn about homesteading the way we are able to in this setting.

So much possibility here, everything is lush and GREEN!

I have become the resident sourdough bread baker after a first batch whet the farmer’s whistle for more, he pulled out his five gallon bucket of flour and I’ve baked four loaves in a week (so far). I’m also painting signs and helping sell his pasture raised whole chickens (which are delicious btw) at the Pagosa farmer’s market. Zach has been learning about the irrigation systems here, cutting wood that the kids gather on the four wheeler, and we’re all getting well versed in the general day to day chores required for such a large operation. We’re sharing most meals together and practicing Spanish everyday, especially the first few days when Roger had family visiting here from Columbia. In our off time, we can tinker away on small bus projects and eventually need to make a run over to Durango for supplies to finish insulating and lumber to actually start building now that we’re safely in one place for awhile.

Zach and I have been sleeping in the bus most of the summer since our big cozy bed is in there, but it’s starting to get colder overnight and snow will be flying before we know it, time to get to work and get some projects knocked out in the coming months ahead. Luckily, there is no shortage of potential work here, and we’ve hopefully convinced Roger to let us stay through the winter as the homestead’s caretakers while he and his soon to be retired wife can do some traveling. I’ll definitely have more to share from this location as we get further immersed in our wwoofing adventure. Just know we are a million times better off in these parts and that we are grateful for every moment we are here.

Cycles of life on this river, the Piedra. Regenerative farming practices. Learning is what wwoofing is all about. Grateful to have found a place to pause and respect the land around us with a wise elder/host/guide.

Nothing is Straightforward

Our two week stint in Denver has come to a close. We had a great time with family and a few friend visits which was very uplifting to the soul. But now we’re back at that nomad life because this land ownership prospect is…quite complicated.

My last post was filled with hope and enthusiasm about the prospects of finding a plot of land we loved and the dream of homesteading. But once we got back to sort out how to do all of it, we quickly poked numerous holes in the plan.

First, the county rules which are vehemently against tiny home building (so no bus work until you first build a septic system and a 600sf main home structure). That’s at least a $60k unanticipated burden from the get-go.

Second, the county rules that you cannot “camp” on your own privately owned land for more than 14 days out of three months (unless you install a septic system of course). So even on the cheaper end of land plus septic we’re not within county guidelines if we never decide to build anything more than our bus.

Third: water. We were more than okay with paying $.08/gallon while camping on our friend’s land, but once you start to factor in full time living, watering your future greenhouse plants or crops, watering future animals (which in terms of type are severely limited up here), it would add up real quick. It’s not a viable option

Fourth, the homestead-as-business idea we are cooking up is also not viable in the area we were interested in since what we are wanting is something accessible to all. Driving 15 miles on dirt roads out of San Luis which already has very limited amenities is the opposite of accessible.

Fifth, there are very few lending options for doing something this unconventional. Back to the drawing board.

So, we are back to square one in our land search, and that part is really okay. But I’m not going to sugarcoat this situation, we are houseless and it is really hard to start a new chapter of life from scratch, add doing so from a trailer and hopping from place to place, it’s exponentially more difficult. Yes, we have supports in Denver that will gladly take us in, but that feels inauthentic to our trajectory and all that we are aiming for in living a rural and sustainable off-grid life. I still have hope that we can find what we’re searching for and in a creative way, we’ve certainly become extremely resourceful in a year+ of nomad living.

With that spirit, we started looking for remote work and are doing some volunteer work through the Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. http://www.Wwoofusa.org

We paired with our first hosts near Blanca, Co. but it will be a short stay and now we know more questions to ask of future hosts…this is worthy of more words, but I’m still too much ‘in it to’ have much perspective to offer here.

Taos, NM will be our next spot if things line up right between us and the potential host there. While we do these volunteer stints, we are building up our arsenal of skills and honing in on what we want (and definitely don’t want) on our future homestead. This is good practice for the reality we face in becoming homestead farmers, we know that we are in for some hard but worthy work.

I guess I’ll end on this note, I’m discouraged (but not really surprised) that there are very little supports for this kind of endeavor. We both come from long lines of “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” stock, yet we have learned that we were not designed to figure it all out by ourselves. Generations ago, our ancestors did these kinds of things for their livelihood and survival, but not in a bubble and certainly not on their own. It’s something we as a society have long lost sight of. How do we get back to the earth and doing good for the common good? This is our current question and one that we will base our next chapter upon.

The Writings of Breanne Mashek

Homesteading, Caregiving, Ramblings, and Travel

life on the road