"You're living in a what?"

That's the response we tend to get nowadays from folks who can't believe we've made the move out to our land in Salem without having our cabin built yet...when we tell them we're living in a tent, or tents actually. Let me tell you, during the ice storm, we were actually better off in our tents than most folks (aside from the danger of being flattened by falling trees - other than that we were better off).


We've cobbled together two tents covered by a large blue tarp and consisting of a bedroom in the back and a closet/kitchen in the front. That's Cenau checking out the kitchen and Remy inspecting the comfiness of the bed.



We actually have a lovely kitchen tent that we use normally, but as cold as it's been, we got smart and moved a smaller version of it into our house tent for the time being.



To keep warm, we've added a wood stove to the back of the bedroom tent - surprisingly enough, it works great, and keeps the bedroom tent about 20 degrees warmer than outside.




Once it warms up a bit, Bren's a whiz at campsite cooking, and we'll start making good use of our campfire cooking ring.



And of course, as far as "facilities" go, we have our lovely composting toilets, which Brennan and our friends Richard and Cheri helped us build.



We have a wash station set up for doing dishes, and once it gets warmer, we'll have our solar shower for washing ourselves - right now we gratefully stop by our friend Megan's for a shower and hot meal in town. Plus we have a generator for electricity to power lights and my laptop, and a wonderful propane stove plus stone fireplace in the bedroom tent as a back-up in case the wood stove fire goes out.



All in all, it's not so bad - quite the adventure really. Now when we move the cats up here - that's going to be the real adventure - they get a tent all their own. Complete with futon for sleeping on, cat perch for bird watching and kitty dinner table for munchies and crunchies. Updates on that later. For now, it's back to building the cabin with the floor finished and the walls starting to come back together. More photos of that soon!