Zen and the art of dying on a tractor...

  You can never know the day the time or the cause of your own death, but if you own a tractor you can add at least 100 more ways your death might go down.  While those are mostly obvious- the tractor rolls over and squashes you. You get in the way of said tractor and it runs you down...The nature of the tractor and the environment you use it in can make the least obvious dangers the most dangerous.  This you must remember as this blog goes on. Its the things you dont think of as dangerous that coddle you onto that shaky rope bridge to hell. As  my husband and I embark on the building of our own house it seems as though the myriad of dangers involved  increases every hour, at times exponentially.  On the other hand the opportunities we have been given and the tools and the ideas for living the way we were meant to live seem to have increased in more ways than I can yet count.
 When I was younger I read a lot about the idea of homesteading, buying a piece of ground and utilizing what was there to build what you needed. Growing the food you ate and making a modicum of money to pay your share of taxes and buy essentials you couldn't provide for yourself.  Helen and Scott Nearing lived a portion of their lives on the coast of Maine doing just that. Since theirs was one of the first books I read on the subject, it was the life they led that captivated me then and inspires me the most today.  Ann laBastille was another in the adirondaks of New York state.  She lived a solitary life as a writer building her own log cabin post divorce, and living alone with her dog for most of her life. Both faced dangers untold and unforeseen, but persevered all the same.  Both had varying reasons to live in this sort of fashion, one common denominator being a yearning to live in some kind of harmony with the environment they inhabited, and live happy productive lives.   They believed we all must be compelled on our own to do things for the greater good.  
   Working on making the most out of what I have so that I can lead a life that fulfills me and leave some kind of inspiration for others to do the same.  I don't want to leave my home to make money so I can come home and sit around pissed cause I have to do it again tomorrow. That idea has always seemed so redundant.  Buying crap food that I could make better if I had the time, buying fancy clothes that I wouldn't need if I didn't have to go to work in the first place.  Paying someone else to watch the child that I can't take to work with me.  Why do we think this is the good life?  These are the dangers we face today, dangers of being swallowed up by what our culture deems important.  Least obvious and most dangerous.