Living The Good Life With Helen And Scott Nearing

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When you get all through with the old building you still have an old framework, which means old and often rotten sills, studs, plates, floor joists, and rafters. Corners or lines may never be square or true. and the style and planning are not really custom-fitted to the modern occupant.

9. We will pick out the sites for a permanent house and other necessary buildings, and for gardens which can be terraced for drainage during wet seasons and can be irrigated in dry spells.

10. We will build of natural stone and rock. This can be done most efficiently by gathering the materials long beforehand. We will sort all stone that we have to move, establish piles for wall stones, corner stones, chimney stones, floor stones, terrace stones, and fireplace stones to prepare for the years when we can build.

We set aside a convenient locality, out of the way of building or hauling, but handy to our site. We put up rough signboards labeled "Corner", for stones having one 90° angle, "Blue Ribbon", for those having a good flat face; "Floor", for thin, large rocks having a smooth flat surface; "Chimney", for regular blocks, with well-set corners if possible; and "Uglies", for just plain stone, of odd sizes and shapes, which could be used for foundations or for fillers. Stone gathering became a real preoccupation on our walks or drives, and it was a rare day when we did not come back "with stone in hand".

11. First among the new buildings to be erected in our construction program will be a lumber shed where our green lum her can be stored and dried under the best conditions. This will give us air-dried lumber when we come to build.

As it turned out, our supply of lumber put in the shed in 1933—36, provided us during the years from 1938—43 (when we did most of our building), with $25 lumber at a time when the same lumber, green at the mill, was hard to get at $125 per thousand feet.

12, Since building with concrete requires sand and gravel, we will need a dependable source of good gravel and sand.

These twelve points were the essentials of our ten-year plan ... the items in our card catalog. They made up the Constitution of our household organization. We also drew up bylaws of household procedure, the first of which called for order.

We were planning a functioning homestead, not a business; nevertheless we tried to be as systematic as though we were handling a large-scale economic project. Our card index of activities had a place for "jobs to be done" (divided into "clear weather jobs" and "rainy day jobs"), for "construction planned", and for "finished projects". Each project had its cost cards with records of materials used and money outlay for specific purposes. Separate loose-leaf books for gardening and sugaring contained the plans, current activity reports, and records from previous years.

Some of our readers will feel that such a life pattern is over organized. They would not wish to plan their activities so completely. After having tried it out, day after day, and year after year, we know it is the way to get things done. Two people can accomplish much in a day or a month or a year if they have defined objectives, agreed plans, and if they work on the program systematically and conscientiously, giving as much attention to details as to the over-all plan.

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