Journal: June 17th, 2010

I feel great. I just took a nice HOT shower, and let myself use a few extra gallons of water to even shampoo my hair! The temperature is a perfect 70 degrees, and after I finished my shower, the cool breeze felt so great on my skin that I just stood there for a while letting the air dry me off. I stood there, in the clear air, under blue skies, watching the sun mingle with the tops of ponderosa pines off to the North-West-West. Showering is one of the many perks of summer… When I was up here last Fall, I couldn’t really shower because the sun didn’t shine long enough to heat up my solar shower, and even if it did, it was too damn cold to stand outside naked and actually get wet. Now, it’s just perfect.

Now I’m sitting here, with a cold bottle of raspberry cider. I don’t drink alcohol very often, and never bother to bring booze with me to the woods, but I had this bottle of cider in my fridge, and I figured this seemed like a good time to break it out. I’m in a celebratory mood, not just because the shower felt so damn good, but because my garden is done! Well, I still need to figure out where to put those stupid tomato plants, and I have a couple more plants to put in, but most of my plants are in the ground, corn and bean seeds have been sown, and every square foot of my garden bed has been claimed. All that remains to do is to water them, and see what happens over the coming weeks and months. If all goes well, I’ll have some homegrown organic corn, zucchini, yellow squash, red bell peppers, egg plants, strawberries, tomatoes, and beans! Though, really, I’d be happy if the transplants survive the next week, and the seeds actually germinate at all. It got pretty cold last night, so I brought the yet-to-be-transplanted seedlings inside to keep them warm. But now that they’re in the ground, they’re on their own.

Planting a garden is an act of commitment, but I feel good about it. If I want to see my plants survive and grow, they’ll need to be taken care of. I won’t be able to abandon them for a long period of time, which means I’m committed to spending most of my summer up here. And I feel good about that. The last few days have been great, and I’m happy that this warm season will continue for another few months. There’s no shortage of things to do, and I doubt I’ll ever get bored of being in the woods. There’s constantly something new to see, even just outside my hut. The forest is ever changing, and always full of surprises.

Anyway, the sun’s starting to set beyond the hills, which probably means it’s about time to get ready for dinner. Once the camp fire dies down, I’ll be ready to start cooking. I’ve got some chicken marinating in lemon and thyme, and I’ll have some rice and steamed veggies to go with that. It’ll be good. It always is.