The temperature here in Minnesota is sitting on minus 15 degrees. The wind chill is forecast to be so bad (-45 degrees anyone?) that the kids are starting school late tomorrow morning.
With a cup of warm tea, two pair of socks on my feet, and an extra sweater around my shoulders, my mind drifts to dreams of the house I will someday build.
The house that my husband and I are planning on building will be ... unconventional. We've been trying for the past 3 years to get our house ready to sell and buy some land. Thanks to Bush's Dream Squashing, Inc., the value of our home has dropped so much that we will have to sell it at a loss. That's the good news, because we can't even see our way clear to put it on the market at this point. Who would buy it?! OK... this was supposed to be about dreams, not bitching about Bush & Co.
In our dream, we will find a parcel of rural land, in Western Wisconsin. We already know of a parcel that we absolutely love. All together, it is 140 acres, but we think we could talk the seller into a 20 acre parcel out of that big chunk. Well... we can't do that right now, because no banks have any money to lend. I can just see it,
"We'd like to get a loan for some property in addition to our current mortgage. We hope to some day build and sell the original house..."
Then we'd leave the loan officer's office as he tries to get rid of his hiccups from laughing so hard.... If the repubs wouldn't have (insert rant here), we wouldn't be in this mess. We are so far away from being able to do what we want to do, that I just don't see any hope... Wait... I'm bitching again. Bad!
Back to our dream... ahem.... On our 20 acre parcel of land, we want to build a round house. I'm not talking about having someone build it for us. I'm talking about building it ourselves. We want to build a cordwood masonry home with a huge masonry wood stove to heat it. We want PV panels to power it and maybe even some micro hydro for fun. I've been studying permiculture, independent living and being an owner-builder for so many years. We are determined to build the house on a pay-as-you-go basis, so the only money we would owe would be for the land, and a temporary shelter that would turn into an outbuilding once our home is built. I have distilled all of my years of reading, my visits to energy fairs, and my internet research down to this picture I hold in my head... my dream.
I'm dreaming of building something that will last... something we can pass down to our children. I'm dreaming of being the only folks with lights on when the grid flickers and goes down under the weight of so much demand. I'm dreaming of being able to have the tools and the resources to draw upon when we need them most.
The picture in my mind, is so deliciously detailed. I can see the large stone structure in the center of our round house, with special heated shelves built in just for the pooties. I can see the massive beams in the ceiling, reclaimed from an old barn. I can see the south-facing windows and the vista of farmland beyond. I can see bits of reclaimed stained & leaded glass along the tops of the interior walls allowing rainbows of color to dance across the floor in the sunshine. I dream of spring and hearing meadow larks sing instead of the noise from the morning rush hour. I can picture a night like tonight... so freakingly bitter cold, and us in our snug, warm home with two woozles curled up by the hearth. My dream home would look a lot like the one at this website.
Things seem so bleak right now. There is a flicker of light in the distance. On Tuesday, a new day begins. Even with this tiny point of light on the horizon, this small point of hope, I don't know if I'll ever accomplish my goals. As each year passes, I feel my age creep up on me and thoughts of building my own house seem to slip a little further from my grasp. I want to cry at the thought of each year we waste on this inefficient, cheaply built, energy hog of a house that we are stuck with. I worry that our crappy house could seem like a castle if our income were to change.
It's cold... so very cold outside... and dark, and desolate... but I must keep my dream alive, for if it freezes in the cold, all is truly lost.
What are you dreaming about on this bitterly cold winter night?