Errol Morris’ First Person: the complete series. He uses this thing called an “Interrotron” – an innovative camera device Morris invented to maintain merciless eye contact with his subjects”. All they see is him on a little screen– no camera person apparently . It’s just the subject and the camera staring them in the eyes and they tell their stories. Haunting and disturbing stories like a woman who fell in love with a serial murderer.
Day: March 26, 2007
Living without running water.
Yesterday I took the first shower I have had in over 4 months. That’s the longest I have ever gone without a proper bath. For some reason, I think this is a note worthy accomplishment but when I announced it to the woman that works at Subway she just looked a little embarrassed for me.
My cabin doesn’t have running water–I carry my water from a spring about 1/4 of a mile away. It’s really easy to live with out running water. I just put 4 one gallon jugs in my backpack, when I head out for my walk, and pick up some water on the return trip. (Now that I’m in trail training mode, I put the water in at the begining of my walk.)
When I first moved here I would drive into town a couple times a week for a coin operated shower at the laundry mat. But now, I’m proficient at staying relatively clean with less then 1/2 a gallon a day of water. I bathe in a little enamel basin most days but some days, about once a week or once every two weeks, I scoop 4 gallons of hot water out of the big pot on my wood stove into an 11 gallon galvanized wash tub and have a sit down bath. After I bathe in the water I throw my clothes in it. After my clothes are done soaking, I ring them out and hang them out to dry. After that, I mop the floor with the same water, then I use the water to wash out my composting toilet.
For hand washing during the day I keep the enamel basin full of water and just keep using the same water over and over. When I get so I don’t want to reuse the water anymore, I dump it and start over.
Another note worthy accomplishment: I bought my cabin furnished. It came with a small bar of soap. Two years later I’m still using that same bar of soap. I wash mostly with baking soda, as I learned to do in this Mother Earth News article “Keep clean without running water”
Stove Thermometer
With the warming weather, a fire is not such a pressing need anymore. In fact, the only wood I have been burning is the sticks I pick up on my way back to my cabin at the end of my daily walk.
The problem is that those dry pine sticks make a powerfully and possibly dangerously hot fire. I have this magnetic stovepipe thermometer to help me gauge when the fire is getting out of control. When it gets too hot, I just close the damper. It also tells me when I’m burning my fire too cold–possibly creating too much creosote build up in my stovepipe.
Light weight insulating jacket.
This is my new gear purchase: the Mont- Bell U.L. Thermawrap Jacket. It cost 111.20, including shipping, from Campsavers.com It will replace my Marmot dri-climb shirt and my Feathered Friends down vest. It’s suppose to weigh less then 8 oz (226 grams), in my size, and will save me 13 oz. (368 grams). It’s coming in the mail. I have high hopes for this jacket.
Update: It runs small and it wasn’t as warm as I had hoped. I missed my down vest.
It brings the base weight of my pack down to under 10lbs (4.5 Kilograms). Of course, if a person were to add an ice ax, a bear canister, and a pair of running shoes– so they wouldn’t have to hike in the snow in sandals– it would increase another 4.5 lbs(2 kilograms).
Soothing the reptilian brain.
I met a guy who told me his theory that people have a part of their brain that is only interested in survival and until this part is appeased it’s just not going to let you have any fun or let you think clearly about anything else. So, when you stop for the night it’s important to set up your tent and say, “Look, here is your home for the night�; take out something to eat and give yourself some water.
It’s why when you have company over you can make them happier if you show them where they will be sleeping that night and where everything is. Show them that there is food, water and a place to sleep.
My personal observations are that this is true. People start getting weird when they don’t know where they will be sleeping or if they are going to be fed.
I also remember Jardine saying something like this in his book. He said that if you don’t feed yourself well on the trail, if you don’t keep yourself hydrated, that the part of you that is only interested in survival will find a way to get you off the trail and back to town where food and water is more reliable.