Learning how to live in Maine - the lesson of the well

When we bought our house in Maine, we had not discussed having chidren. I had been told I could not become pregnant and had never given any thought as to whether I wanted chidren if I married. We were both working, even so, we based our mortgage on one salary to be safe and consequenty bought a modest home in a rural area. It was a classic old New England central chimney cape built around 1800 with a large two story barn. The towns surrounding Ellsworth do not have city water or sewer. Each house has its own well and septic system. Our water supply was not a well but a spring fed cistern located in the woods behind the house. I guess the water tested as potable but it was dark and sometimes had sediment if the water level in the cistern was low or if the water was stirred up by a heavy rain. It was not appealing to drink but we used it for washing dishes and clothes. We did not have the cash to have a well drilled so for our drinking water we had a dozen gallon glass jugs that we filled once a week at a nearby spring. We did that year round for five years until we had saved the $5,000 required to drill a well.

We did not go out to dinner. I rarely took the children to fast food places. We had a big garden. We coudn't afford to buy a rototiller so I weeded by hand. Hayley remembers wandering through the rows picking and eating raw beans and peas. When Danny was about 15 months old he figured out how to open the back door. Occasionally, if I left him alone in that room briefly when I returned he woud be gone. I woud rush out the door and run to the street out front. He was never there. Then I woud run to the side woods and look but he was never there. Last, I would go to the backyard and look him behind the raspberry bushes where I always found him chowing down.

We did not go on vacation except to see grandma and grandpa or camping. We lived within our means and did not incur debt. It was often difficult but we did it. One fall we did not have enough money to buy four cord of wood for the woodstove so we bought two and in January when we had enough for two more cord, I was out in the bitter cold and snow bringing in the wood to stack in the shed. I did not buy disposable diapers. They were expensive. I used cloth diapers and hung them on the clothesline to dry to save electricity. We did not pay for cabe tv and without the cable connection, the reception for the three network stations and PBS was fuzzy and poor. I read to the children every evening before bed....Dr. Suess, Little Bear, Little House on the Prairie...later Robinson Crusoe and Animal Farm, among countless others.

More and more frequently over the years I have heard people say, well we have to have this or we have to have that. No, you don't. Some in town wanted to borrow money to enlarge and update the school. They said, well the school is twenty years old it has to be remodeled. No, it doesn't, not until you can pay for it without borrowing. Living beyond one's means has become a sickness in this country. Our government is massively infected with this vice. Young and old see our leader's bad example and emulate their greed. Everybody wants everything now. They don't want to wait a moment and they don't want to work for it. That has brought us to where we are today. This sickness may be fatal.

YouTube - Al Sharpton Claims American Public Voted for Socialism When Electing Obama

YouTube - Al Sharpton Claims American Public Voted for Socialism When Electing Obama

OBAMA EXEMPT FROM OBAMACARE

If the new health care bill is so great, why are Obama, Congress and staffers who wrote the bill EXEMPT from its provisions? That's one of those surprises (on page 158of the legislation) Nancy Pelosi told us we would have to pass the bill to find outSenator Grassley said, "It’s pretty unbelievable that the President and his closest advisors remain untouched by the reforms they pushed for the rest of the country. In other words, President Obama’s health care reform won’t apply to President Obama,” Grassley said. “Last December, the effort to apply any new law to ad...ministration political leaders was rejected by the Senate Majority Leader."See More

OBAMANATION

March 21, 2010 is a day that will live in infamy.
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Monday, March 21, 2010

A glooming peace this morning with it brings.
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence to have more talk of these sad things.
Some shall be pardoned, and some shall be punished.
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of victory by a freedom foe.

Maine - December, 1982

We had a chimney sweep clean the chimney. The woman from whom we are renting said she would have it done but we had it cleaned just to be safe. He only charged $35 and told us the chimney was safe and tile-lined so even if we ever have a chimney fire it probably wouldn't do any damage. He said we should run the fire hot with the flu and vents wide open 1-2 hours per day to burn off the creosote deposit. We keep the fire going 24 hours per day damped down so there's considerable deposit... Monday morning it was about zero after going down to 5 below the previous night. My car wouldn't start so Dan had to jump start it. Dan installed a new five year battery. Monday night it went down to 10 below and was still 5 below at 7 am and even with the new battery and getting squirted with ether, my car still wouldn't start so Dan drove me to work. When we came home at lunch the temperature was up to 30 and my car started fine. Dan bought block heaters for the cars but hasn't installed them yet. Russ told us that once it starts going below zero, then when it's 20-30 degrees out, it seems real nice and almost warm. He was right! Anything above 20 we consider delightful weather now... My Christmas goose was delicious!

Maine - October, 1982

2nd in a series of posts of excerpts from letters chronicling my move to rural Maine.

"I've almost got all the wood in the basement, should finish today or tomorrow. I did it all myself and really take pride in my stacks. I'm enjoying the project and have even sort of made friends with the spiders, slugs and other assorted bugs that inhabit wood piles."

Maine-September, 1982

This is the first in a series of posts about moving to Maine in August, 1982. These are excerpts from letters I wrote to my parents. I discovered a box full of them after my mother died.
"Hi, Mom and Dad,
Got your letter from WV.
They delivered five cords of wood yesterday. There's about a 1/2 cord in the basement that was left from last winter, but the woman who owns the house had already sold it to someone. I've moved most of that wood out so that I can start stacking our wood inside....I made haddock chowder. One of the trucks from Maine Shellfish passes by a farm on its route and picks up fresh natural milk so we're ordering a gallon per week. I pour off the cream for coffee."