The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads!

[HairOfTheDog]

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

Journey to the Cross-roads
The Two Towers Edition

Come on! Come in! -if you would like to have some seedcakes and a pint and relax a while. (If it is a special occasion, we still have a few bottles of the old wineyards left!)

Our first thread ( New Zealander builds Hobbit hole ) reached 4,100 posts, and we thought that was big. Our second thread (The New Hobbit Hole ) held us for over 48,000 posts, and we loved it dearly. We talked about moving to a new thread for the last 38,000 posts, but we are really slow to muster! Finally, the time has come. Tomorrow (at 12:01 am, to be precise!) The Two Towers comes out, and we start a new chapter.

[Overtaxed]

"I lived without power for over 30 years in Minnesota!" And proceeded to make coffee and eggs on the woodstove and get along just fine!

Oh sure! She had a woodstove. All I've got are blankets and a cat.

[HairOfTheDog]

Me too currently.... it's a drag to not have a fire!

[Wneighbor]

Honestly I took a lot of those stories from my Grama, her mom and my grandfather's mom to heart. I grew up spending so much time with them and hearing of the hardships they've gone through that I've lived in a manner most people our age haven't considered for a lot of my life. My place by W does not have A/C or heating. I put in a space heater in the bathroom and one 2 of the bedrooms but it didn't keep the house warm. I baked bread every really cold day because the oven warmed up the house nicely as the bread warmed our insides. The reason I went for so long without a washer was because the washer and dryer were in an outbuilding that wasn't heated and almost every winter some part of it was freeze damaged. There was an old man who would always fix it for me for $10 or $15 but he died in 1997 so after that I didn't keep one because other repair people are just too expensive to call to come 40 miles or so to work. We never had phone service when it rained. The power was unreliable. Myranda learned to live in conditions that a lot of these kids in this city can't fathom. They think she's joking when she tells about it. There were a lot of "country people" at the old place who lived like us so it was not unusual there. But, I think Myranda has a lot of advantages because of growing up that way. (Not the least of which is knowing the value of having no debt - she has traveled more than most kids her age due to this.)

[Overtaxed]

Jen is shaking her head NO - NO this can't be happening. They're being like my grandmother!

[HairOfTheDog]

It is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life!

[Wneighbor]

Oh sure! She had a woodstove. All I've got are blankets and a cat.

Fortunately in all the years at the country house I was never without propane and electricity at the same time. Here, it bothers me that I don't have any back up gas heat. I do have gas in the house... hot water heater... but this too much reliance on electric heat bugs me.

However, given the information I just posted it will probably not surprise anyone to know that I have bought sterno by the case for years. That way when there was no propane at least I could cook. And when there was no electricity a can of sterno still gives off a bit of light. LOL

[HairOfTheDog]

LOL! - Gosh I miss my Grandma!

[Wneighbor]

Ye HAW. Granny Clampett has been my hero for decades.

[Wneighbor]

I'd share mine. But you'll have to come here quickly.

[Overtaxed]

I've got a gas (propane) furnace, but it doesn't run without electricity. At times when the old furnace didn't work, I used electric space heaters but I was always afraid to leave them running at night.

[300winmag]

So, what's everybody else's favorite tech advancement?

NVGs (night vision gear) are my favorite tech. I hope thermal imaging gets cheap enough to afford some day. Nothing like ruling the night.

Now the most pervasive tech is probably the integrated circuit. If it runs on electricity, there is probably some microcircuitry somewhere. There was no real prediction in science fiction of the impact of near-atom-sized electronic components on so many things.

Somebody earlier talked about burning trash. Trash burning was outlawed in the Detroit area over 30 years ago. Burning trash was nasty, but burning leaves in the fall was a great treat.

I didn't realize how much I missed leaf-burning until a few year ago, when I visited relatives in a small town in central Michigan. Leaf-burning is still there, but I usually was never there when it was done.

This one time, however, I was driving through town, and someone was burning leaves. I got a whiff, and was instantly clobbered with the sensation of how wonderful it was. It brought back years of images from the old home in Detroit in just a split second. Amazing what some smells do to you.

[Wneighbor]

I've got a gas (propane) furnace, but it doesn't run without electricity.

That bugs me. That's what I've got here too. Well, not propane. But, it looks like to me folks ought to be bright enough to see the problem with this scenario. Sometimes, electricity just goes out!!! Like trees falling on the lines!!!!

[HairOfTheDog]

It's very sad, isn't it. I do think that they were a great generation, our grandparents, they saw the dawn of air-travel that started from scratch and went all the way to the moon. And they lost everything in the depression, and built it up again, never forgetting what it was to do without. My Grandmother on my dad's side wrote the price and the date on the bottom of everything she owned.... I think the depression did that to her, but it made even an old serving spoon purchased in 1942 interesting, when without it it wouldn't have been.

[Wneighbor]

Yeah! We've got another contributor.

And I'm with you on the burning. We used to burn leaves and sticks down at a nearby creek when I was a kid. It would be the whole Saturday's adventure for several Saturdays in the fall. I loved that.

course that's also where I smoked my first cedar and grapevine. bad kid. bad.

[HairOfTheDog]

I burn all my paper garbage... a weeks worth is 'poof' in 2 minutes. And I go to the dump only every six months or so, being just one person and needing to dump only that which I can't or shouldn't burn, like plastic.

[Overtaxed]

Actually, it's a gas-pak - combination gas furnace, electric AC.

I think we can burn leaves as long as we're not in a dry spell....they usually announce it first. But I have so many leaves and composting them is a free soil amendment. I catch whiffs of burning leaves driving around here.

[Wneighbor]

My Grandmother on my dad's side wrote the price and the date on the bottom of everything she owned.... I think the depression did that to her, but it made even an old serving spoon purchased in 1942 interesting, when without it it wouldn't have been.

You know, there's a lot of kids, and heck even people our age who could learn a lot from that. I have friends who don't think anything at all of changing dishes every 2 or 3 years. I am almost embarrased to say it but I have 5 sets of dishes. Of them only 1 was purchased in my lifetime. 2 belonged to great-grandparents. 1 is the first set my grand-parents bought after they married and 1 was given to me by an older childless couple who lived in our neighborhood growing up with whom I shared a lot of time.

I think I have way too many dishes. But, of those, how do you choose what to put in a garage sale? I can't. Therefore, each of my kids will get 2 of the old sets. The others are Corelle, my mother purchased them for me for the unbreakable property after the oldest child was born.

[Wneighbor]

Now, see, I would compost my leaves at the old house but burn the paper. Junk mail and such.

[Wneighbor]

My windows are open. Smells like my neighbors have red meat on their grille. I need to plan a robbery.

[HairOfTheDog]

My dad found a good and very old pair of wingtips in my grandpa's closet. He remembered the shoes from growing up... and the shoe-shine kit. (Now shoe-shine kits are probably a novelty!)

He looked closely at the shoes, and the shoelace on one of them had been sewn back together. My Grandpa was a wealthy man.

My dad framed the shoelace.