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. 📦📦📦
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.
Fueled by a pot of coffee every daySome of the men at Applewood Arvada
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.
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.
Hoping to call this place home and to plant some roots!
We’ve returned to big open spaces and the lands of no internet so I’m left with fewer distractions and more time to get my thoughts out into words.
We had planned on leaving shortly after 4th of July weekend, but a sudden death in the family (Zach’s cousin) redirected us to Minneapolis for a weekend with extended family. Rest In Peace Nick, your wise soul left us too soon. You remind us to live life fully right here and right now because none of us knows how long we’ll get.
After about three months longer than anticipated (5 months total!) in the Denver-metro area we finally made it back to the road and our nomadic life. We have huge thanks to give to Zach’s parents for letting us crash at their place with all of our crazy vehicles, big kid personalities and all of our stuff. The city of Thornton felt differently than our parents and we got an eviction notice from them the day before we had planned on leaving.
My dad has settled into life and good routines at his memory care facility and we got all of his affairs in order before our departure. Leaving it all in the hands of Applewood and my siblings was harder than I thought it would be. I know he has everything that he needs, I’ll just miss our regular visits. His dementia means that I don’t know what kind of condition he’ll be in next time we see him (which will probably be monthly now rather than weekly).
Fully packed, we rolled out on Friday, July 23. Bus, trailer, all of our possessions, into the great unknown. Our first stop was San Luis. My friend from high school (and great realtor who just sold my parent’s house) offered up a parking spot on her beautiful land just north of the New Mexico border. We have a few places we want to scope out just into N.M. before deciding where we could see ourselves homestead for this next chapter.
Upon getting Flossie set up and organized, we immediately fell into our slower pace and greater appreciation for the beauty that surrounds us. Even if that beauty was pulling in while white knuckling during a huge rainstorm. I’ve driven the trailer a handful of times, usually for shorter distances over the last nine months. This trek into Aimee’s land put us all to the test. The dirt roads were soupy and slow going. But we arrived in one piece. Our timing was perfect, the weekend was full of festivities celebrating the 170th year of the small town San Luis, Colorado’s oldest town. We took in the sights and enjoyed the music, car show, and vendors that were strewn out all over town.
The following two weeks we logged plenty of dirt road miles and have seen lots of different properties, we also figured out where it’s best to get supplies, where to get daily WiFi for Camden’s online summer camp, how to handle mishaps (like a flat tire) when we’re so remote, where to do laundry, get drinking and cleaning water, and where the cheapest gas is since it’s by far one of our biggest current expenses. Originally we were going to use this area as a base point for going into northern New Mexico, but after looking and comparing land prices it seems we can get more bang for our buck in this part of Colorado. Plus we’d love to stay Co. residents for ease of things with the courts and guardianship over my dad.
So we are here for the long haul looking for our little landing place that we can call our own and share with friends and family. PVC land markers are becoming our new normal sighting, rarely does an online listing match it’s actual location or coordinates in the field, and hardly anybody gets in touch with you after reaching out, so that’s fun. The good news is we know what we don’t want (middle of nowhere, zero land features or trees) so by process of elimination we are honing in on what we DO want (to be in an established community, some trees even if they’re not huge, a view, mixed land features flat and hilly). We also did our due parental process and found out about the local K-12 public school registration here for the kids. When they saw the 8-4 schedule and learned that they’d be riding a school bus two hours each day the decision to homeschool another year was easily confirmed.
Something that keeps popping into my mind as we do these daily things (and amongst the things we walked away from this past year) is that we have definitely chosen a harder way. Some of it out of necessity -we want to build a bus as a tiny home because we have been priced out of a bonkers real estate situation in any city. Some of it out of a deep desire for a simpler and slower pace. Sure, there are parts that are carefree like the hikes, sunsets, rainbows, and wildlife viewing. But some are really hard, like reading county codes about land use, and building rules and regulations, crossing your eyes over how many plots look the same and are the markers even in the right place.
Some days I long for easy, but I know our old lives are no longer for us. I miss community and having people alongside us to share the load. I miss sharing meals with our parents. And I’m almost always contemplating that these communal things happened differently not long ago and came together for our ancestors, we were never meant to go it alone, it’s just been ingrained in us for the last 100 years or so. I hope wherever we end up that we can cultivate some semblance of the community we crave.
I leave you with this from a timely email from preacher that I follow:
O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.
Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Good Courage Prayer – extended dance mix
by Nadia Bolz-Weber
O God, you have called your servants-
And you have such questionable taste in servants.
Your servant selection process needs some work
Because O God you have again called your
Foreign women and weary retirees
You have called your pole dancers and police sergeants.
O God you have again called thirsty women and broken men and we who foolishly think we volunteered, as if we raised our eager hand and you called on us when really we were conscripted.
Oh God you have called your servants
to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,
I don’t know how this story ends, Lord.
Could we maybe just skip to the end so I could read the last few verses?
I won’t tell anyone, I promise.
Because, If I can’t see the ending then how do I know if I am getting close?
So God if you could please just give this servant that blue pin at the end of my Google Map directions so that even if the route keeps changing I at least know where I am eventually getting to. Then I’d know which route takes 4 minutes longer, one graduate degree longer, a few emotional breakdowns longer than the one I’m on. Should I face what I already know or what I will surely learn?
Oh God you have called your servants
to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,
by paths as yet untrodden
We’ve not been where we are going yet.
Make a way on these paths we’ve not yet taken – through parks where junkies fix and children play, through starter mansions and public housing and suburban strip malls and dry land wheat farms and cheap motel that charge by the hour if you know how to ask for it.
Oh God you have called your servants
to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,
by paths as yet untrodden,
through perils unknown.
Wait. Perils? Well, ok so maybe I take back the thing about knowing the end because I don’t think Gandolf meant for us to go this way Mr. Frodo. I want to know the end and also know the way to the end but not to know the perils that get me to the end because if I knew the perils I would never start the journey because I’m certain I am just not peril-ready. I am never peril-ready.
So, Lord of the questionable servants we’re gonna need some help.
So….
Give us faith
Hand it over. Seriously. Cough it up. We don’t generate enough of our own so if you call us, equip us, Lord. Give us faith to go out with good courage,
Or at least good enough courage.
Give us faith to go out with good courage, knowing only that your hand is leading us
Your strong hand. Your soft hand. The one that molded us out of dirt.
If your hand can lead Jesus out of his own grave, then it is indeed strong enough to lead us out of ours too.
Give us faith to go out with good courage, knowing only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us eternally; through Jesus Christ
…who breaks open prisons, frees slaves and captives, feasts with the outcast and celebrates strangers.
Jesus who was so bad at choosing his friends and just as bad at choosing his servants.
Jesus who even now stands among his faltering friends and shows us his hand and his side and gives us his peace. Gives us his faith, gives us his good courage, gives us his leading hand, gives us his love gives us his support.
And it is enough for the ventures of which we cannot see the end. Amen.
The Writings of Breanne Mashek 