One thing that has struck me in the recent months is just how loud ‘modern living’ is. When our fridge went out, we were shocked by the silence, and decided not to replace it! (Hence the new walk-in/ root cellar in another part of the house, and transitioning our diet/lifestyle to be seasonal in a way that makes refrigeration unnecessary). The power was out more times this winter than I can remember (7-8 times, many inexplicable… 👀) and I was not upset in the least. Mostly awed by and content with a deep, electrical-free silence, a focus on the right now, the sky and weather. One of my goals is to figure out how to best make that a permanent reality. How does one become a modern Amish of sorts? Something I’m musing upon lots.
We’ve started being outside all the time (as long as a 3 and 5 year old can, which gets longer and longer each season!). We’ve fallen into our own seasonal living outside, our own re-wilding, and it just makes us want more. Would love to try winter camping some day! A canvas tent is absolutely on our purchase-list. I had the honor of spending time in one this late winter, and you’d never know the snow is falling outside until you stepped out the door!
Oh, this resonates with me so strongly. It's amazing to me how noisy the "quiet" is now. Like you said, these electrical machines seem to always be giving off a hum or drone. I think it's part of what tires us. We were thinking of getting an outdoor wood furnace to heat the house, but I was in a friend's house that had one and I couldn't believe how, even out in the country, I could hear the fan/blower going while we sat in her quiet home.
I like your idea of just figuring out other ways. When my fridge dies, I won't replace it either. In the winter, there's nothing really in it and with the root cellar, I just don't see the point. At least, at night, when we shut the power down, there is nothing but the outside noises coming in through the windows. But I'm with you - a modern day Amish type way of being seems most prudent and delightful.
Holyyyyyy hot sauce. That sounds absolutely DIVINE. For the most part, I truly love winter in Ontario but you have reminded me there is so much more depth and beauty to experience beyond my usual activities of nordic skiing and snowshoeing. I also REEEALLLYY resonated with what you said about feeling kinda cooped up by the end of winter. My husband and I own a small, mostly seasonal resort called Anupaya Cabin Co, it’s a wild and busy ride from April - November and the off season is SUCH a welcomed break. We need it, our family needs it. But maaaaannnn, does it ever feel too long. I start to feel a little restless and depressed come February. We went to Mexico for 3 weeks this winter, but to be honest…I didn’t love it. It just doesn’t feel like ‘us’. I missed home and this landscape and our food and our animals and…the cold. Tara, you very well may have solved my riddle! I think I may just need a winter adventure!! To YouTube I go!!!! 💕
Shannon, I looked at your company's website - just gorgeous! What a beautiful job you've done in both the decorating and with the website which feels warm and human.
I feel the same way around the warmer, resort-y type vacations. If you try the winter tenting, do report back. I'd love to hear about how it goes. It feels like discovering a whole new world to me. Being a fellow-Ontarian, you understand the bug and dense bush situation in this province. The winter feels like nature has thrown off her clothes and opened her arms to allow us into places we can barely see through in the summer, let alone experience. It's exciting for us to think of all the places we plan on going. :)
COME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Would LOVE to have you!! I know it’s tough to get away, but if you and Troy ever wanted to quiet lil beach vacation - to rest and wander and paddle and play - we’d be so, so stoked to have you. Seriously, tell me when! Come for free! Would be a dream to host you both 😍
And I will most definitely let you know next winter! Across the river from us is Quebec crownland. Hundreds and hundreds of acres of untouched wilderness. We’ve explored the shores by canoe but my sweetheart is itching to cut trails to the top of the ridge. I think that might just be our winter spot ❄️
Shannon I am so glad you shared the name of your resort. My fiancé and I love to take road trips to Ontario and cannot wait to book our next stay here.
mmmm, mmmm, mmmm all I can start by saying is mmmm.
Thank you Tara for transporting me across the planet.
As a Brit living in tropical Australia this post has transported me. Winter for me is something like 10 degrees celsius, I have acclimatised now and that feels cold. We are currently going from wet season into dry season, by June it will be winter.
Sometimes I long to go back to my ancestral lands, to the fantasy that never was due to much adolecent trauma....but really my life quality here living in the great outdoors, bringing up my wildling daughter in the Australian bush far surpasses that past experience of trauma and claustrophobia.
All praises to you and Troy, I haven't 'met' any other humans that appreciate the wild, as you do. The simplicity of natural materials, the steady slow pace and not knowing the time or what is happening outside this is how I live much of my life, and what joy!
I feel such grief alot of the time that I am doing this alone, as a single mama. It would be wonderful to share these experiences with others, but it is just as comforting to know you Tara are doing it.
It's nice to hear that thinking of us out here in the winter because it warms me equally to think of you in Australia doing your thing. I figure we of the outcast clan are a sort of wayfinder of our own choosing. Looking for different ways of living and connecting. Trying to excavate the lessons of our ancestors. Looking for answers outside of what the machine offers. I agree, it can feel lonely. It's encouraging when we come together like this. The gift of this blasted internet is that nobody can shun us into believing we're the kooks - the only ones. You reinforce me as much as I may for you. We may be scattered to the winds, but nobody can stop a resilient seed. ❤️
So glad to have you back Tara, it brings me so much joy, solace and hope to read your words. I would love to hear about your process of waxing the organic cotton this summer. Be well, good luck with editing your book! :)
Thank you so much, Lindsay! I will definitely share the waxing of the canvas! I have been doing some research around how they used to do it so I will work out some test strips and then test for durability. I will definitely share.
Maybe because I was on my way home from a short overnight trip to a cabin in the deep woods where my husbabd and i spent a night, sans kiddos, to celebrate our anniversary.
It was quiet and still and the rain pattered on the roof and there was a pond for cold plunges and we cooked our breakfast over a wood cookstove and drank coffee together. It was a beautiful beautiful time of connection with my man and lover and already I'm longing for more. I love our children dearly and they take so much time and energy! Why if I know this do I still want more children 😄🤭
I think we need more times like this in nature. I feel a stirring in my soul for more. I've always been that way and for now, we try to balance life and work as we can to get our souls rest too.
What a beautiful way to spend time with your husband. I think the great mistake we've made is to believe that we are a separate thing, able to live and thrive outside of nature. But God designed us intricately woven into each. Nature is our home and our place of belonging here on earth. However we may find that relationship and deepen it is paramount to the the peace and joy in our lives.
What a treat that was! Thank you so much for the audio version. It was a fun little adventure this morning as I muck around doing chores. What resonates with me so much is the shared adventure of these type of things with you and Troy.
I share so so much with my wife of 25 years, But one adventure I have yet been able to encourage her on is the cold exposure adventure. There is something about choosing to be cold and uncomfortable that just goes against the grain for her. Maybe that will change someday, I hope so. She certainly does not lack for toughness.
I think she would witness in herself a transformation like the one you described, from being cold all the time to running hot.
I’ve always run a little hot and so for me it’s always been natural and pretty easy to embrace the discomfort and challenge of cold exposure. I also think that as a young man I came to understand the benefits to my mental and physical health as I chased waves and mountains surfing and snowboarding in winter months. My challenge now is to get better at incorporating this more regularly into my day to day… and to, someday, help my wife find her way to a plunge or some naked winter walks!
I fully and completely resonate with her sentiment. It seems counterintuitive to run into the cold to stop being cold. But, it is so amazing to see how the body transforms by it! Now I honestly feel a little bad for how hot I kept our house and our room at night while poor Troy poured buckets of sweat around me. I feel like he and I are closer to the same body temperature now. This year my bedroom window stayed open all night, even when we were hitting the -25c temps. Didn't phase me. I felt like Super Woman!
I will hope that might give your fine lass a little encouragement if only so you get those naked walks in the snow :) You're welcome!
I also relate to your wife, as I sit here beside our wood stove reading.
Right now, the thought of cold immersion feels like an assault on my nervous system.
I have been researching the benefits for sometime now so am prepping my mind and heart, so ass will follow!
I think it’s hard to do when our actions are contrived, rather than a necessity.
I also think so much of it is tied up emotionally in our bodies.
Up to age 6, I lived in a big, old, cold house. I never remember being cold.
We had to suddenly leave our house with stressed parents and move into a small space with caravans and no money. My resounding memory is of feeling cold. It’s a bit of a lightbulb moment for me in my resistance to feeling cold. I think it connects.
I share this with you as maybe that’s something to explore with your wife, in her body resistance to the cold. What perhaps, is she protecting herself from?
Incredible! Thank you for sharing your experience with us Tara, so much hard work went into your winter camping and sounds like so much incredible solitude and peace came with it all❤️
Tara and others who have done this, anyone have a tried and true method to tanning rabbit pelts? I would like to try that this year and am looking at a "recipe" with salt and alum, a bucket of water and time. Does that sound right?
That sounds right to me. I have only done this with a friend that does traditional hide tanning, but to be honest, I wasn't too happy with how they came out. I am going to go again this year and see if I can adjust things to get a better result. If it's a success I will share for sure. If you find a good way, with a good result, would love to hear it.
Are you kidding!? That giant oaf Louis in a little tent? Ha! That almost feels like a setup to a joke, "So a Great Dane and a Border Collie go into this tent with a fire burning wood stove and two people...." Let the inferno ensue. 😁
They slept at home and got to come play in the morning when we came back for morning chores. I think those old farts preferred that anyway. Not exactly great adventurers in their old age.
Hi Tara! Loved listening to your audio this morning. You have such a beautiful, evocative way with words. I would love to hear more sometime if you were so inclined in a future post on how you were able to become cold-adapted. I struggle with the same extreme sensitivity to cold that you described -- though it's getting better! And, being honest, an aversion to hard things in general at least some of the time. Your wisdom is always appreciated!
Thanks so much, Amy. Honestly, it was just what I wrote - being in the cold via plunging/showers/naked winter walks etc.. making it a practice. I will, of course, go into more details if you need them on a Q&A, but you there's no timings or anything that detailed really. You can even just fill your tub and get in there. I think it's more important to make it a regular thing than anything else (not every day, but a few times a week).
One thing that has struck me in the recent months is just how loud ‘modern living’ is. When our fridge went out, we were shocked by the silence, and decided not to replace it! (Hence the new walk-in/ root cellar in another part of the house, and transitioning our diet/lifestyle to be seasonal in a way that makes refrigeration unnecessary). The power was out more times this winter than I can remember (7-8 times, many inexplicable… 👀) and I was not upset in the least. Mostly awed by and content with a deep, electrical-free silence, a focus on the right now, the sky and weather. One of my goals is to figure out how to best make that a permanent reality. How does one become a modern Amish of sorts? Something I’m musing upon lots.
We’ve started being outside all the time (as long as a 3 and 5 year old can, which gets longer and longer each season!). We’ve fallen into our own seasonal living outside, our own re-wilding, and it just makes us want more. Would love to try winter camping some day! A canvas tent is absolutely on our purchase-list. I had the honor of spending time in one this late winter, and you’d never know the snow is falling outside until you stepped out the door!
Oh, this resonates with me so strongly. It's amazing to me how noisy the "quiet" is now. Like you said, these electrical machines seem to always be giving off a hum or drone. I think it's part of what tires us. We were thinking of getting an outdoor wood furnace to heat the house, but I was in a friend's house that had one and I couldn't believe how, even out in the country, I could hear the fan/blower going while we sat in her quiet home.
I like your idea of just figuring out other ways. When my fridge dies, I won't replace it either. In the winter, there's nothing really in it and with the root cellar, I just don't see the point. At least, at night, when we shut the power down, there is nothing but the outside noises coming in through the windows. But I'm with you - a modern day Amish type way of being seems most prudent and delightful.
Holyyyyyy hot sauce. That sounds absolutely DIVINE. For the most part, I truly love winter in Ontario but you have reminded me there is so much more depth and beauty to experience beyond my usual activities of nordic skiing and snowshoeing. I also REEEALLLYY resonated with what you said about feeling kinda cooped up by the end of winter. My husband and I own a small, mostly seasonal resort called Anupaya Cabin Co, it’s a wild and busy ride from April - November and the off season is SUCH a welcomed break. We need it, our family needs it. But maaaaannnn, does it ever feel too long. I start to feel a little restless and depressed come February. We went to Mexico for 3 weeks this winter, but to be honest…I didn’t love it. It just doesn’t feel like ‘us’. I missed home and this landscape and our food and our animals and…the cold. Tara, you very well may have solved my riddle! I think I may just need a winter adventure!! To YouTube I go!!!! 💕
Shannon, I looked at your company's website - just gorgeous! What a beautiful job you've done in both the decorating and with the website which feels warm and human.
I feel the same way around the warmer, resort-y type vacations. If you try the winter tenting, do report back. I'd love to hear about how it goes. It feels like discovering a whole new world to me. Being a fellow-Ontarian, you understand the bug and dense bush situation in this province. The winter feels like nature has thrown off her clothes and opened her arms to allow us into places we can barely see through in the summer, let alone experience. It's exciting for us to think of all the places we plan on going. :)
COME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Would LOVE to have you!! I know it’s tough to get away, but if you and Troy ever wanted to quiet lil beach vacation - to rest and wander and paddle and play - we’d be so, so stoked to have you. Seriously, tell me when! Come for free! Would be a dream to host you both 😍
Oh, gosh! I may just take you up on that! That's one hot offer! Troy's pumped!
Duuuuuude. Git yer buns here!!!! For real, for real. Just let me know when. 🙌🏽
And I will most definitely let you know next winter! Across the river from us is Quebec crownland. Hundreds and hundreds of acres of untouched wilderness. We’ve explored the shores by canoe but my sweetheart is itching to cut trails to the top of the ridge. I think that might just be our winter spot ❄️
We spent our early years in Petawawa, roaming the waters and forests with our little ones. I know the area well. It's gorgeous.
Shannon I am so glad you shared the name of your resort. My fiancé and I love to take road trips to Ontario and cannot wait to book our next stay here.
mmmm, mmmm, mmmm all I can start by saying is mmmm.
Thank you Tara for transporting me across the planet.
As a Brit living in tropical Australia this post has transported me. Winter for me is something like 10 degrees celsius, I have acclimatised now and that feels cold. We are currently going from wet season into dry season, by June it will be winter.
Sometimes I long to go back to my ancestral lands, to the fantasy that never was due to much adolecent trauma....but really my life quality here living in the great outdoors, bringing up my wildling daughter in the Australian bush far surpasses that past experience of trauma and claustrophobia.
All praises to you and Troy, I haven't 'met' any other humans that appreciate the wild, as you do. The simplicity of natural materials, the steady slow pace and not knowing the time or what is happening outside this is how I live much of my life, and what joy!
I feel such grief alot of the time that I am doing this alone, as a single mama. It would be wonderful to share these experiences with others, but it is just as comforting to know you Tara are doing it.
Thanks for taking me on your wild winter ride.
It's nice to hear that thinking of us out here in the winter because it warms me equally to think of you in Australia doing your thing. I figure we of the outcast clan are a sort of wayfinder of our own choosing. Looking for different ways of living and connecting. Trying to excavate the lessons of our ancestors. Looking for answers outside of what the machine offers. I agree, it can feel lonely. It's encouraging when we come together like this. The gift of this blasted internet is that nobody can shun us into believing we're the kooks - the only ones. You reinforce me as much as I may for you. We may be scattered to the winds, but nobody can stop a resilient seed. ❤️
So glad to have you back Tara, it brings me so much joy, solace and hope to read your words. I would love to hear about your process of waxing the organic cotton this summer. Be well, good luck with editing your book! :)
Thank you so much, Lindsay! I will definitely share the waxing of the canvas! I have been doing some research around how they used to do it so I will work out some test strips and then test for durability. I will definitely share.
This is so beautiful it made me cry this morning.
Maybe because I was on my way home from a short overnight trip to a cabin in the deep woods where my husbabd and i spent a night, sans kiddos, to celebrate our anniversary.
It was quiet and still and the rain pattered on the roof and there was a pond for cold plunges and we cooked our breakfast over a wood cookstove and drank coffee together. It was a beautiful beautiful time of connection with my man and lover and already I'm longing for more. I love our children dearly and they take so much time and energy! Why if I know this do I still want more children 😄🤭
I think we need more times like this in nature. I feel a stirring in my soul for more. I've always been that way and for now, we try to balance life and work as we can to get our souls rest too.
What a beautiful way to spend time with your husband. I think the great mistake we've made is to believe that we are a separate thing, able to live and thrive outside of nature. But God designed us intricately woven into each. Nature is our home and our place of belonging here on earth. However we may find that relationship and deepen it is paramount to the the peace and joy in our lives.
❤️
Oh I have missed you x
I second this! I couldn’t wait to relax and read this 🫶🏻😍
It's good to be missed. So nice to see you here. xoxo
It is such a treat to read this post. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Louisa! 😌
What a treat that was! Thank you so much for the audio version. It was a fun little adventure this morning as I muck around doing chores. What resonates with me so much is the shared adventure of these type of things with you and Troy.
I share so so much with my wife of 25 years, But one adventure I have yet been able to encourage her on is the cold exposure adventure. There is something about choosing to be cold and uncomfortable that just goes against the grain for her. Maybe that will change someday, I hope so. She certainly does not lack for toughness.
I think she would witness in herself a transformation like the one you described, from being cold all the time to running hot.
I’ve always run a little hot and so for me it’s always been natural and pretty easy to embrace the discomfort and challenge of cold exposure. I also think that as a young man I came to understand the benefits to my mental and physical health as I chased waves and mountains surfing and snowboarding in winter months. My challenge now is to get better at incorporating this more regularly into my day to day… and to, someday, help my wife find her way to a plunge or some naked winter walks!
I fully and completely resonate with her sentiment. It seems counterintuitive to run into the cold to stop being cold. But, it is so amazing to see how the body transforms by it! Now I honestly feel a little bad for how hot I kept our house and our room at night while poor Troy poured buckets of sweat around me. I feel like he and I are closer to the same body temperature now. This year my bedroom window stayed open all night, even when we were hitting the -25c temps. Didn't phase me. I felt like Super Woman!
I will hope that might give your fine lass a little encouragement if only so you get those naked walks in the snow :) You're welcome!
I also relate to your wife, as I sit here beside our wood stove reading.
Right now, the thought of cold immersion feels like an assault on my nervous system.
I have been researching the benefits for sometime now so am prepping my mind and heart, so ass will follow!
I think it’s hard to do when our actions are contrived, rather than a necessity.
I also think so much of it is tied up emotionally in our bodies.
Up to age 6, I lived in a big, old, cold house. I never remember being cold.
We had to suddenly leave our house with stressed parents and move into a small space with caravans and no money. My resounding memory is of feeling cold. It’s a bit of a lightbulb moment for me in my resistance to feeling cold. I think it connects.
I share this with you as maybe that’s something to explore with your wife, in her body resistance to the cold. What perhaps, is she protecting herself from?
Thank you! Will do
Incredible! Thank you for sharing your experience with us Tara, so much hard work went into your winter camping and sounds like so much incredible solitude and peace came with it all❤️
I can’t wait to do more camping!
Thank you, Grace. Me, too! The more time I'm outside the more I want to be there. :)
Tara and others who have done this, anyone have a tried and true method to tanning rabbit pelts? I would like to try that this year and am looking at a "recipe" with salt and alum, a bucket of water and time. Does that sound right?
That sounds right to me. I have only done this with a friend that does traditional hide tanning, but to be honest, I wasn't too happy with how they came out. I am going to go again this year and see if I can adjust things to get a better result. If it's a success I will share for sure. If you find a good way, with a good result, would love to hear it.
That sounds simply amazing! Did your doggos stay in the tent with you?
Are you kidding!? That giant oaf Louis in a little tent? Ha! That almost feels like a setup to a joke, "So a Great Dane and a Border Collie go into this tent with a fire burning wood stove and two people...." Let the inferno ensue. 😁
They slept at home and got to come play in the morning when we came back for morning chores. I think those old farts preferred that anyway. Not exactly great adventurers in their old age.
Like others have said, I so enjoyed your post. It’s made me ponder a lot in it ,and it is so good to have you back Tara.
Thank you so much, Julieanne 💕
Hi Tara! Loved listening to your audio this morning. You have such a beautiful, evocative way with words. I would love to hear more sometime if you were so inclined in a future post on how you were able to become cold-adapted. I struggle with the same extreme sensitivity to cold that you described -- though it's getting better! And, being honest, an aversion to hard things in general at least some of the time. Your wisdom is always appreciated!
Thanks so much, Amy. Honestly, it was just what I wrote - being in the cold via plunging/showers/naked winter walks etc.. making it a practice. I will, of course, go into more details if you need them on a Q&A, but you there's no timings or anything that detailed really. You can even just fill your tub and get in there. I think it's more important to make it a regular thing than anything else (not every day, but a few times a week).
So glad to have you back, Tara!! ❤️❤️
Thank you, Jenifer. I'm happy to be back :)