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[areturntoland]

Dirt, Water, and Sunshine

Another day up on the mountain. Had a day to let my bones mostly rest after two days of hauling stone and pouring concrete, though I did cut a couple of days worth of wood. Need to put in a full day of wood cutting this weekend as next week is a lot of rain.

I have been getting messages from people around the world considering the offgrid life. I have answered their questions as best I could, but feel there is something more to add that never comes across.

This adventure we have undertaken is about self sufficiency and seeking something other than the life we have been told to live by modern society.

I spent a decade pushing my art career hoping for success. And while some form of it did come the further up that ladder I climbed the more I realized that it wasn't really what I longed for in life. I am an artist until I die, but the thing called the "art world" is mostly a revolting enterprise.

Many people I know feel trapped in their 9to5 daily grind. Job, mortgage, car payments - modern life grinds us through its gears, selling our harvested data in the bargain.

I am not financially stable. Each step in the building of the cabin and now the house left my bank acct constantly near zero. I have no savings, no pension, no capitalist security blanket. But doing what I am doing is a way of providing a future for us that doesn't require the "financial security" we have been taught is all important.

Land has for thousands of years protected people who work it, respect it, and live on it. When currencies crash and pensions evaporate the land will still have rich soil, vast horizons and endless sun.

A return to land may be the only real security in the face of the inevitable collapse of the current economic systems. Dirt, sunshine and water - the land is our security, beyond that little else will matter when it comes down to it.

[areturntoland]

The Difficulties of Living the Dream

The difficulties of living the dream.

When I started on this path, long before I had found and bought our land, I was aware that the effort involved would be great and the struggle to make it happen often difficult. At times over the past 18 or so months I have wondered if it is possible for us to make this dream a reality. When the land was razed by fire last autumn, when I took out my hand in a saw accident in the spring, as I stood freezing my ass off the night before finally getting the wood stove installed I hesitated, worried that maybe this journey was quixotic. Tilting toward windmills that I only imagined were giants to be defeated.

I knew that I would never have a lump sum of money that would easily let me get to work and do everything that needed done in one go. I am not from money, do not have the ability to borrow from family, do not own an inherited property I can let out as a form of income, nor any of the other cushions that seem to support the majority of those seeking this life off grid and out of the boundaries of urban living. But also I knew that my art work and other side projects alway bring in a small amount of funds and that if we were to continue to live in London, struggling as we have for a decade to make ends meet with no hope of escape, we wouldn't survive.

So this path is our hope, even in the grimmest of times. This phase of building, with the cabin more or less habitable and the foundation story of the house slowly coming together, is so far the bleakest. It's the December chill and rain as much as anything that drags the soul over the rocks of reality. Mice that need to be killed, leaks that need to be fixed, powerful winter storms that shake you from your warm dreams and let you know you are small and tired and easily defeated.

I have relied much on the assistance of friends, both in financial and emotional support. While I toil on the mountain trying to build a home for us free of debt and negative environmental impact I have thought long about those who seem to have always been with me, in spirit and in heart. Those friends who urge me onward, happy to see my successes, empathetic to my losses. What I have long lacked in financial stability I have more than made up for in good friendships.

But there is just me in the cabin trying to figure out how to go from here to the finish line. I am alone here, with the hawks crying each morning and the crows saying goodbye to the sun each evening. I listen to the waterfall and stare into the ancient oak trees and feel my stresses leave me. What is needed here is labour as much as capital, and that I can still do with my two hands.

Why leave London? Why struggle so much to build such an abstract way of living? As I look out into the world I see the shambles of the UK and US, governments that have long forgotten the people they are intended to serve. I see the decline of the environment and the disregard that those who hold power have for their destruction of habitat and species alike - all in the name of profit and power. The world is not dying of its own accord, humanity is killing it and I want no part in the death of this earth.

I have always been an artist, always sought to make new things, see old things in new ways, and to live for experiences that teach and expand the life I live. I have long craved the process of building my own home. Nest building really, a primordial habit that lingers in the deep brain of humanity since we left the caves. The satisfaction of building one's own home is great and yet no small task.

I see myself less as owner of this plot of land and more as its steward. I find it my responsibility to reforest the land with native species, root out the invading plants and return the land to its natural self. A forest of cork oak, a valley of crows, owls, and boars. With a home built around my library in the middle.

December is bleak and January likely even more so. I will survive these cold months somehow and hope to make progress on the house. London is soon ending, the politics of fear and betrayal haunt its streets and its increasingly starving people. It is here on this mountain that I intend to find a way, a path, that leads our lives out of the concrete jungle and back to the land.

[areturntoland]

The Season’s End

Autumn came and we managed to get the concrete under the placa poured and ready. It was a hard few weeks of work as we hauled stone and sand, mixed and poured the slabs in sections. We did the main kitchen floor with help, two sections with just the two of us operating and pouring concrete and I poured the final upper section solo on a rainy day and was beat down by all of the work.

The cabin has been winterized against the wind if not properly insulated. After our run in with a hurricane and losing some plastic exterior tarp in early October I decided to cap the building in a temporary shell of corrugated galvanized steel. Its an inexpensive material and reusable on other projects in the future.

Despite our best efforts we ran out of summer and autumn before we could get past the stone and concrete portions of the house. There are still things to do to the lower kitchen, including excavating the land more and adding the slab and walls for the bathroom addition that sits next to the foundation.

All in all it was a great year and we accomplished a lot. The cabin is slowly becoming a more comfortable place to stay while working on the house. On rainy days we tend to stick around the cabin and work on little things, slowly improving it as we go. Its temporary metal siding does give it a rather apocalyptic look but inside it's cosy as can be.

Beyond the continued work on the lower portion of the house I hope to begin a solid round of fruit tree planting on my next, year end, trip down. We lost all of our fruit and olive trees in last year's fire and we have been so busy over the year building we haven't gotten to replanting. But December is a perfect time as its mild and rainy and will let them root in by spring with plenty to drink. There is a legend of a fantastic place to get inexpensive mature (2-3 year old) full trees. Hoping to explore that possibility upon my return.

[areturntoland]

Late Summer on the Land

I have been here one month since my late summer return. M has joined me for a month more and we have made considerable progress in digging out the kitchen of the house and clearing the land. Bush cutting is physically exhausting but kind of addictive at the same time. You just keep going that little bit further and eventually the tank runs out of petrol.

Using a pickaxe on stone is not as satisfying as bush cutting, in my opinion. Hard work and progress only where the stone is soft, though eventually it all gives. The next phase is building the forms for the concrete slabs of the flooring and ordering the concrete. Unlike my desire for concrete experimentation on a smaller scale the work involved in pouring the floor ourselves is daunting. Doable, but still only something I want to get done so we can move on to the next phase, building the wood house frame.

For whatever reason this publishing platform, Tumblr, is hard to deal with from my phone, and charging the laptop requires the generator, which I try to avoid. I do find myself posting much more often on instagram.com/areturntoland, and hope to sort out a way to auto post to tumblr from there as the insta app seems more receptive to the spotty internet I have had up here.

The summer heat continues here where it fades across the north, both east and west. While autumn is coming to my friends across the globe we still have 90˚ days for the next week or so. It tends to stay warm through October here, something that will help my time schedule in building as I am over a month behind schedule to to my hand accident earlier this year.

The world someplace far from this mountain seems to be going mad again, madmen running the world to ruin, idiots and sycophants abetting crimes against humanity on scales micro and macro. Warned by those who know of our impending defenestration on this planet we wring our hands and hope someone will come to save us from the bad men we have ourselves given power.

But here on the mountain, in the villages and terraces, the world exists much as it had in previous decades, only petrol vehicles and mobile phones have changed this place, but without them the people here would survive as easily as they always have. Growing what they eat, working for and with each other to accomplish the very act of existing.

In the cafe the owner gives us eggs from her "biological" (organic) chickens. She just has them, and wants others to have them as well. The neighbor gives us cabbage, and with it we make a meal. Life here isn't lacking in the moderninities of society, nor is it a utopia, it is simply the rural part of a socialist European nation that knows the dangers of political conservatism and has no taste for it.

As we bare down into the hard work of housebuilding I am already beginning to plan and plot our garden and growing spaces. There are two upper terraces that face well into the sun and have open area with the few small trees having died in the fires. I am planning a tarp greenhouse along one area and a set of garden beds outdoors nearby. At some point I will need to deal with the water situation on the upper portion of the land, for both irrigation and water for the Crow's Nest.

The church bells in the town below chimes that I should start making dinner. The day, though hot, is cooling now and ideal for making a meal. The Portuguese generally eat late in the day for a reason - It's too hot to do so otherwise.

[areturntoland]

Some days words can not describe the beauty and stillness of this place. An unimaginable azure haze of sky over the valley after a hot day of work. Adam and I built the staircase to the loft and over the weekend I will cap it in board. The interior of the cabin is coming together but I am itchy to get started on the house's kitchen floor. In the meantime there is still the straw-clay and render exterior of the cabin to start. There is a persistent sound here in the distance of a sports announcer on an a.m. radio that is blurred enough by the landscape that for all the world it reminds me of my grandmother sitting listening to the Detroit Tigers on the radio. An ancestors whisper that haunts this valley pleasantly.

[areturntoland]

This old bag and I will be venturing back onto the mountain next week. More building adventures offgrid in Portugal to commence shortly.

[areturntoland]

Suffering for Change

There is a part of life that demands suffering in order to create substantial change. This is true both on a personal and a societal level.

I have always contended that a "midlife crisis" was merely the acting out of desires that one regretted not having pursued in their youth. That since all of the madness one can fit into a life has been my experience so far, I would not have a midlife crisis of my own.

Yet there is something happening in my life that is certainly the result of prior desire. Although far from being a spontaneous action my moving to Portugal has been something I have been planning for decades.

Why Portugal? Because it has, over years of investigation, held up to scrutiny. Portugal is a modern socialist country with a very low crime rate, moderate standard of living, world class hospitals and universal healthcare. Voters are liberal by a wide margin, having no taste for conservatism after decades of fascism that only ended in the 70s. It has a rich and historic cultural heritage and a people that are honest, laid back, yet hard working and self sufficient.

I began looking at Portugal after some research in my late 20s, and for years would tell anyone who would listen how I wanted to build a studio and house in the mountains of Portugal. Now that has begun happening.

The cabin is coming along, the roof is done with walls being completed and interior work about to begin. I will leave the exterior, a straw clay and stucco insulation and finish, for when I return.

As well work has finally broken ground with the foundation. The crew is now swiftly building the concrete forms and laying the footers of the house's foundation. The plot moves closer to reality, one day at a time.

Yet through all of this I have been staying in a camping tent on the terrace above the cabin. It is cold at night, and impossible to stay clean for more than a few hours. I cook, write and live in a sitting position inside the tent. The ground is hard and ungiving, and the birds begin singing above the tent at sunrise.

The life I am attempting to leave behind seems like a vacation from where I am at the moment. A coffee sitting in my chair in London surrounded by books seems like heaven after close to two months in a tent.

But this stage was anticipated, and it serves to build a space in which the building of the house won't be so uncomfortable. The cabin will hopefully provide some of the amenities of life during what will otherwise be a hot summer of intensive work on a scale 3 or 4 times that of the cabin building. How I will pay for it all remains a mystery.

In the end it requires the sacrifice of one's comfort in order to affect change in our lives. Asceticism aside the enduring of our boundaries being violated as part of personal growth and understanding of life is key to our development as humans.

"Do not speak of revolution until you are willing to eat rats to survive." - Last Poets

[areturntoland]

The difficulties of mountain living.

After what must be counted as a miracle the delivery of the "chapa sandwich" roofing was a success. The driver, who just last year was hesitant to deliver the concrete for the cabin piers, offered to take everything directly down to the parking area on my land. Saves a ton of work in the next step, though still the OSB panels sit under wraps at the side of the ridge road.

My hand continues to heal, albeit slowly. The biggest slice through my finger still isn't healing, and I suspect a low protein intake is the culprit so plan on a lot more of that in the next week.

My diet isn't that bad though, single pot campstove dishes include; Jamaican style rice and beans, cheese & rice with sausage, potato & onion with cheese, plus sandwiches, pizza and pastries from the local spot and endless amounts of fruit. Not much in the way of greens and that too needs to be rectified.

Work has begun in earnest on the house foundation. The land mover scooping out the side of the mountain to make a rather unfortunate access road for the contractors. It may be practical but it's not very sightly. I am hoping to get them to do a bit more terrascaping at the end, but we will see how that develops.

The foundation is the one portion of the house I felt was beyond my abilities in terms of construction. The house will be built over the top of an existing ruin, a 6x5 meter large schist stone agricultural building, which will be the future lower kitchen. The foundation covers the top and goes onto an upper terrace on the edge of a particularly steep portion of my land among a stand of cork oaks. Tricky business for sure that I have no experience with and the local company from the village does. Plus giving some money back to the local community is the least I can do as we settle into a future home.

Yet sleeping in a tent has gotten a bit past its sell by date. My body is stiff from the ground, and the ability to have more sonic isolation in the mornings would be much appreciated. Still the cabin continues, the search for a door and a window have started, with a visit to some localish recycle/salvage shops without much luck. Next is to bug the contractor, who said they may have something stashed away.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we begin the installation of the roofing material. After a ton of consideration of potential materials for the roof I was convinced by several people to use a local material, locally called "chapa sandwich," which consists of two layers of aluminum with an inch or so of foam insulation in between. Mounts directly to the roofing beams without the need for a layer of wood. Best part is if I don't like it I can just take it off and replace it later. In the meantime it seems the ideal solution for the time vs money.

Yesterday as I stood in the future kitchen ruin I realized that the pile of animal shit high up on the outer wall (that I noticed last summer) is the roost of a goshawk, an açor, for which these mountains derive their name. The party in question swooped in to get a closer look at the alterations being made to the landscape of its favored roost. It was displeased to find me staring at it as it came down, and flew off in a huff.

The nights here are still cold, though the day is hot. The sun is intense here, where the difference in direct sun versus the shade can be as much as 5-10 degrees. Each night the sunset is a amazing violet fire the stretches over the mountain range in the distance to the west.

I fear that in order to raise the funds to continue I will soon have to return to London. I have some business there that needs attending as well within the next month. In the meantime I will fall asleep to the sounds of toads, owls, and night dwelling creatures of these hills.

[areturntoland]

"There is always a bowl of cabbage soup." - Portuguese saying

[areturntoland]

The days are complicated and make writing about what is happening difficult in any chronological order.  Progress on the cabin continues in starts and fits but as we approach  the final stages funding has been depleted by the hiring of assistance due to my knackered hand. Having limited use of my left hand is frustrating, and makes staying in a tent that much more complicated. As well, writing must be done with one hand, no easy thing as I type this on my phone with my right thumb. The sound of the mountain birds wakes me each morning and the cold of the night is melted away by the rising sun. Trips to the doctor to have my hand rewrapped ever two or three days vary, as the nurses each have their own style of wrapping, some better than others. But each visit is only 20 minutes long and when the receptionist sees me she just says take a seat and in a couple of minutes I am called. The abundance of moto scooters locally is tempting me to go back to some mountain variation of mod life. A wide variety of unknown brands of bike is on offer and most riders seem to be smartly dressed old men. Longterm goals at the very least. This adventure continues to be challenging. I dreamt last night of my complacent life drinking coffee in my armchair back in London. A longing like looking down the wrong end of a telescope for a life that drove me to seek these mountains in the first place. Easy, but easy makes you lazy and fat. I feel my body changing to this environment. Becoming strong again, harder. My skin is darkening from the constant sun. A mountain life made from scratch was never going to be a simple thing. But a decade of planning has given me a buffer and improvisation has always been my forte.

[areturntoland]

Single pot spicy cheese and rice casserole. Made in a tent on a campstove. Simple and delicious, chopped apples mixed in when served optional.

[areturntoland]

River Alva afternoon

Sitting by the river Alva to a soundtrack of cawing crows and bleating sheep. Portugal is challenging and inspirational in turns. Life here an adventure with much to learn and do.

[areturntoland]

Cabin Work Continues Despite

With the support of friends and patrons we were able to raise the funds to hire an extra pair of hands to continue work on the cabin after my accident.

We have managed to get about half of the wall frames in place with more work scheduled for later in the week. It is exciting to see the shape of the cabin taking form, and my ideas becoming reality after spending many months as a pdf.

The timber we are using is green fresh cut pine, 50x100mm in thickness. A genuine "2x4" like one sees in older homes. Structurally much more solid than the commercial dimensional timber available at bigbox retailers.

The weather has been kind to us, not too hot nor wet. I am hoping our luck holds out. It looks increasingly that I will be doing the interior walls out of osb panels, not my first choice but locally an affordable alternative to plywood, which runs €40 a sheet here.

My hand is healing well, after a lecture on taking care of myself by the local doctor his gruff attitude melted away when he discovered I am a painter. Soon enough he was showing me his paintings, proud of the figurative (and not too bad really) images on his phone.

With a bit of luck and care my finger will be on its way to full health in a matter of a couple of weeks. In the meantime we are still raising the funding to continue with our hired hands, hoping to bring back Adam later this week.

Please consider supporting our efforts in light of my damaged hand by contributing to us directly at a paypal.me/rsharmon

[areturntoland]

Accidents Happen

I grew up in a family of contractors. Men and women who built houses and did carpentry were at every generation on both sides of my family. Still are to this day.

I used my first power tools as a teen. My maternal grandfather gifted me a near antique, even then, chrome bodied power drill when I was about 14. That was thirty years ago this summer.

In that time I have never once had an accident that resulted in a visit to the hospital. A few near misses and a rough patch with a beltsander aside I never needed stitches or shots, certainly not xrays.

I grew up understanding that construction sites are dangerous places where everyone needs to be paying attention. Though even the most careful can still come into harm's way through the negligence of others, as I have lost family on construction sites as well.

Yesterday for the first time in my 44 years on this earth I hurt myself doing a construction job. The short of it is that a left side blade circular saw hit a knot in a board I was cutting and jumped up and my left middle finger and the tip of my left ring finger got in the way.

The bone is fractured but they seem to think it will heal after my trip to the hospital that involved an ambulance, the bomberios (firefighters), and the excellent Coimbra hospital that put my finger back together with 30 stitches. I certainly don't recommend getting into an argument with a circular saw for even just a second, as you are bound to lose.

There are a lot of off grid community members who will pick up a saw or other tool for the first time and use it to do real work, work that can be dangerous even to the seasoned professional. Those who are trying out something new and experiencing construction and carpentry first hand.

We must always strive to keep a level head and pay close attention to our work environment, no matter how wild and over grown it may be.

[For those that have asked where they can donate to fund the hire of additional help due to my accident you can paypal us directly at paypal.me/rsharmon]

[areturntoland]

A Day of Rain

I am sitting in my tent this afternoon listening to the sky pour its contents over the mountain as it shifts its way up the Alva river valley. Despite much earlier rain predictions, like most things it took its own time to arrive and we managed to get a bit of work in on the base of the cabin. The difficult portions of the cabin are mostly past, with the work from here a mix of basic carpentery and improvisation. The rain never seems to dull the spirit of the birds, and a bird thats song is like the English blackbird flits about the trees excitedly. It seems to be a robin sized bird with brown and white patterned feathers. Although nothing like its vocal twin in appearance, like the blackbird it sings in the shower. I hear the crow returning to the valley once so overrun with their enemy the bramble.  They are up early these days and linger longer, I would guess a couple might take roost in one of the remaining large trees in the valley. Preferably the oaks, though I have no idea of the preference for resident host species among the local corvus. The boar tracks in the mud of the road are signs their clan has returned, likely looking to see how their (and my) favourite apple tree fared after the fire. The answer is grim, and I need to find a supplier of three year old apple trees that can deliver to the land in the next month or so. Still waiting to hear when the local crew will begin the foundation work. I imagine it will have to wait until the sky has bled out for the season. The sun will have returned and with it the heat. The land should take as much water as it can hold as the summer will be long and thirsty. The pace of life will continue abreast, slow and sure.

[areturntoland]

An Arrival on Cue

After days of waiting for the illusive "end of day" in which the tractor trailer guy was due to come and haul my timber down to the land itself the day finally came.

I had hired a local guy to help me gather some bits including a generator and the plywood for the subfloor of the cabin base. Mostly a day of driving, we went from town to town all the way to Coimbra and back, talking about rocket stoves, which was his main project.

We stopped for coffee at the legendary Bar 21, who serve a sandwich made of roast suckling pig. Not averse to local delicacies I intended to get one to go but by the time we'd finished our coffee the mostly empty cinder-block roadside shack had grown a line well out the door. A future visit is in order.

Just as we arrived back to the spot outside the village where on the ridge road the timber had sat for two days we considered unloading when Angelo the tractor guy rolled up as if on cue. We managed to get the lot of our plywood and equipment on top of the timber into his trailer and down in one trip. Had he gotten to the job a day earlier we would have had to cart 8 sheets of plywood down by hand. A thankless task best avoided at all times.

The day was good and not too warm, though loading and unloading 150 green timber 2x4s is a tiring task that called for much wine and pesto afterward.

[areturntoland]

The Pace of Things

Even when the sun shines the pace of life in Portugal is slow as chilled honey. People sort of drift in and out of whatever is happening, and though very slow, things do eventually get done.

I have managed to get a pile of wood delivered as far as the highroad of my mountainside ridge. There is still another 200 meters to go of hauling to the site. I hear the guy with the tractor will be here "end of the day" but have no idea when that will be.

Its an incredibly beautiful day today, the sun is only too hot if you are directly under it and not moving. The air is chilly, the shade perfect. But I am antsy to get moving on the cabin. The weather will be sunny and hot for a few days but rain could return anytime and working with green lumber is conducive to rainy and wet.

M is on the train having flown in this morning. With some luck we may be able to get to work in the next day. It will be interesting to see how she handles construction.

The land is already starting to look overgrown again despite the charred hills of ash just a few months ago. Nature thrives in destruction, and its ability to rethink and regroup the environment is astounding.

For now the hillside is covered in beautiful tiny flowers of yellow, cream and violet. The fern is already returning though and the first shoots of bramble can be seen here and there, an enemy I will be doing much battle with over the coming years.

For now I sit in a tent at the top of the land, overlooking the town of Coja in the distance, its like living in a dream really. The lay of the landscape makes the world seem unreal compared to flat and geometric London. I have come to live in the land of unrealism.