The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

Thoreau wrote that.

My world is too caught up in the idea of currency being the indicator of a person's standard of living.  The number of digits in an annual income being a bar which clearly determines who is and who isn't wealthy or impoverished.   As though being wealthy and being financially secure are interchangeable descriptions for the same state of being.  The Standard of Living.  The term itself is borderline appalling.

My most finite resource is time.  Life.  It's being spent constantly, regardless of results or progress.  With poor planning, much of life ebbs away without any meaningful progress toward happiness.  Toward wealth.

Happiness is wealth.  The price of happiness is the amount of life you exchange for it.  Every heartbeat spent comparing opportunity costs against theoretical future return on investment inflates the final cost of happiness and reduces the likelihood of successful acquisition.  Everything else is getting more costly by the second. By the heartbeat.

Shake it off.  Start doing.

The Next Step

Once upon a time I had a four year plan which came to fruition with 8 spectacular months in the north woods building a cabin.  One of the most memorable moments came along when I literally couldn't remember what day of the week it was.  Time passed differently for my dog and I, marked primarily by the arrival and departure of friends and family and the changes in the mountain ash.

For a host of reasons, not too long after, I found myself in central Minnesota working for a small company doing everything from circuit board maintenance to database administration.  In a company like ours, with a head count of 6 at the time, there were a lot of daily functions which needed to get done by whoever could make it happen.  On the job training.  Having a hat rack in each office, as our owner might say.  Oddly, I'm now the most senior employee under the owners themselves and all that on the job training has really paid off.

A couple years ago the situation got particularly difficult for my son and I.  With the both of us working harder than ever, our bank account kept going further into the red despite what I would consider a favorable foundation.  It became obvious we had to change things up.  And out of that change came a lot of very good things.  Living the dream is what I've called it.  And the next step in that dream is a new plan.  It started this past spring with the bees.  It continues this June with a consolidation of households.  And beyond that a search and what I hope might be a final relocation to the ever-more-difficult-to-find land of the free.  The exact form of which to be determined.

Much of this process will be a continuing change in mindset and reevaluation of priorities.  A real decision to make the most of the less than perfect.  To live a true and moral and good life now and into the future.  Being wealthy outside the scope of what the rest of the world tells us that scope should be.  And, to a certain extent, finding happiness beyond the safety nets instead of being trapped by them.

Slowing Down

8 years ago this summer, I sold out of the system.  Sold the house.  Quit the job.  Cashed in the pension.  Found and bought 80 acres of isolation in northern Minnesota.  Swamp county is what it is.  The kind of land that isn't going to be encroached on any time in the near future.  Or ever.  Hopefully.  The kind of land where you don't get weekend visitors unless they mistake your woods road for a 4 wheeler trail.  The "Dead End" at the minimum maintenance road between the driveway and the real hiway pretty much resolved the latter problem.  There are times when I debate taking down that blasted sign when I'm about 2 miles in on snow shoes and wishing the crotch deep snow was at least somewhat settled.  Snowmobiles are good for that, at least.  But once the gear is unpacked, the silence makes it all worth while.

The intent was to make a living out there in the sticks, as well.  Training for wildland firefighting completed, however, I wasn't able to pin down an organization to work for.  Even with money pouring out of the federal and state governments like it was, and is, being paid to work hard out in the wild places isn't a simple proposition.  Funds for work like that are the first to dry up, it would seem.  I keep hoping something will work out there, but it's been a long time.  Life has a way of moving on with or without you.  Lately, keeping up just hasn't made it onto the bucket list.

I haven't been out of the system completely between then and now, but I made that decision 8 years ago, I believe it was the right one, and I'm working back toward the ideal.  Luckily, falling behind can often be just as good as arriving.  You get to see things.

 

 

 

Real World Resupply



The disrespected dandelion.

Most years I don't get too worked up about the dandelion.  I'm not really a lawn person, beyond keeping the visible green spaces short enough to ward off the neighbors and law, and the chickens like the leaves and flowers in spring.  Probably because they haven't had any gourmet greens with a kick since the snow flew back in late October.  Surviving instead on boring pellet feed and whatever comes out of the kitchen while wishing they had something other than two feet of snow to scratch around in.  At any rate, that changed this year with the arrival of these little ladies.




 

 

We've been filling the hive top feeders with a simple syrup mixture and Honey B Healthy for the past month.  Having just installed the bees this spring, they didn't have any stores to see them through the season change.  It's been a long winter in Minnesota and many of those mornings I was pleased just to hear the hum of living groups of bees inside our pair of warre hives when making the rounds.  As soon as the poplar trees started realizing it might actually stay warm long enough to bud, the bees were out and coming back loaded with so much pollen flight seemed surprising.  While out tinkering on the vehicles a worker landed next to me, panted for a minute or two of recovery, and then continued on her way back.  I still can't recognize the Italian vs. Carniolan, but she was one of ours.  And that feels good.

 

Two days ago my boy came in with two dandelions for Grandma.  The ONLY two dandelions that had bloomed thus far (we went out and looked for more).  Today they are all over the yard and I'm glad to see them.  I'm sure the local bee population is even more enthused.  It's finally spring and things are coming around just fine.

The key is at 5:50.  Redefine wealth.

"When it comes time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home." —Chief Aupumut

 

"Dayton thanks leaders for 'political courage' before signing gay marriage bill."  -- St. Cloud Times

To me it feels like the equivalent of a golf clap when your brain damaged cat finally figures out that there is a whole REAL world outside the window.  While you know deep down that it's a passing awareness, and soon you'll be working even harder to convince him all over again.

Happiness mixed with aching fatigue and the expectation of more of the same to come.

Leaders.  Words don't mean what they are supposed to mean, any longer.