Remembering the Quiet Years

I think that most people have a point in time in their lives that they wish they could turn back the clock to and relive...even if only a single day.  For me, that time period would be the year that our little family spent living in an old cabin by the side of the West Branch of the Oswegatchie River nestled in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains.  

This place will forever represent freedom, peace, and retreat for me.  Don't get me wrong, spending a year living with no running water or electricity  with a three year old,a two year old and a third child on the way had its rough spots, for sure...but the sanctity of this place and the connection I felt with my soul, my creator and my family during this year was worth every moment of discomfort and sacrifice.  




​We were blessed in beginning of our marriage to find ourselves with great jobs,  (as a IT Operations Manager for a profitable company and a Grant Director at the University at Buffalo) a beautiful home, and 2 beautiful little girls born 17 months apart.  We knew that we could live this suburban life, and we could imagine pretty well how things might progress.  Maybe the predictableness of it all got to us, or maybe we, like most people, just wanted an escape from the 9-5 drudgery and the trap that left us paying someone else to spend their days with our children during their formative years.  The motivations were so plentiful, that I can't even remember now which one was the primary driving force behind our lifestyle change, but one thing is for sure, change it did.  

In 2007 we  decided almost on a whim to sell our 4,000 Sq Ft Victorian brick home, cash out our retirement plans and use the money from both to build an off-grid cabin in the woods that would have no mortgage and no utility bills. We were young, energetic and stupid...mostly stupid, but we will get to that later. 

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For instance, here is Craig, building our latrine at a location up a little path near the cabin...this seemed like a great idea in July. Six month pregnant in the dead of winter the trail was covered in ice, leaving me stuck using an antique chamber pot we found in the old shed for more than planting flowers...

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Our first concrete pour...Craig told me that it wouldn't damage the tin bucket he borrowed to use as a form for the hole. I miss that bucket.

I don't have a ton a pictures from the year in the cabin...at the time, most of our experiences during this lonely year bordered between unglamorous and down-right embarrassing.  But in hindsight, I remember the quiet afternoons with the girls napping in the cabin...the sparkles dancing on the river water every afternoon like a private firework show that nature was displaying for me personally.  I remember learning how to bake my own bread because having quit my job, we just couldn't afford to pay $5 for a loaf of bread at a convenience store.  I remember long mornings nestled up by the wood stove reading Little House on the Prairie to the girls for hours because it was too cold to go outside, too dangerous to take the kids out on the unplowed 4 mile dirt road we lived on, and no television or radio in the house.  Even if we had had one, there was no power to run them.  We read by kerosene lantern and propane lights, cooked on propane, and did without modern necessities like hair dryers, toasters, blenders and microwaves...and we loved it.  

Have you ever slept in a house with no water pump, no refrigerator,  no clocks, no outside mechanical noises?  There is a deep sleep that comes with this type of quiet...we call it woodsy sleep.  This time living in the hunting cabin...these were the quiet years...these are the years that taught my girls to love nature, to sing at the top of their lungs because there is no one in the woods to judge them, and to be flexible and tolerant when things are a little uncomfortable.  These are the lessons the woods has to teach, for those that take the time to learn.