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.