Autumnal Unfolding
The temperatures have dropped enough that we felt prompted to light our first fire of autumn in the wood stove of our small cabin on September 7. According to the notes I keep, our last fire previous to that was on June 29, which means we had exactly 10 weeks without need of a fire for heat. Did I mention summers are short here in the North country?
We’ve been getting a fair amount of rain lately too and overcast days, which means we’ve been relying on our generator more to charge up the batteries we run on for electricity.
Rain gauge collection totals:
June - 1.87 inches
July - 0.00 inches
August - .43 inches
September (as of today, Sept 14) - 1.36 inches
Something I am starting to see and experience more clearly is that in living as we do, off-grid, without running water, surrounded by nature, and spending more time outside simply by design, is how much more acutely I feel the seasonal shiftings inside my own body and mind than I did when we lived in town. When the environment around you is chock full of paved surfaces, artificial lighting, glass and steel buildings, perpetual people-propelled sounds and movement, commerce and the twirlings of industry, I reckon it makes a good deal of sense that one’s awareness of their biological rhythms might fall out of sync with nature’s shiftings and seasons, or be overridden by the constant motion and highly active collective doing mode energy of town or city living. We are all made, in part, by what surrounds us. Our nervous system is either supported or made to work harder depending on what we daily encounter in our exterior environment.
Summer ended abruptly at the end of August here and fall moved on in fairly swiftly, which isn’t out of character for western Montana, but it did feel as though it took place a little quicker than usual. In came the lower temperatures and along with it my body started craving carbs. Since we lit our first fire in the wood stove on Sep 7, we’ve been having fires regularly. Not every day, but most days this past week. We’ve also wonderfully taken to using our wood fire sauna more.
It’s the time of year now when I’m getting out dinner recipes I’ve not cooked much or at all through the summer months and unearthing my sweaters. If we get full sun with no clouds all day long, provided I move our solar panels around multiple times a day, we’re still able to get a full charge on our house batteries, but that will change here very soon as the sun continues to rise later over the mountain and set earlier through the trees. Mostly it’s been gray overcast and cloudy since the start of September.
Summer did feel shorter than usual here this year. But that’s how it goes sometimes. Everything, everything, is of the nature to change.
