Simple Living in the Southwest
(Page 3 of 4)
June/July 2007
By Susan Lahey
I thought the outhouse was going to be my biggest obstacle. I met a woman who, every time she had to go to the outhouse in the winter, picked up her two cats and took them along as insulation. I had also heard of people who found all kinds of lovely things to say about outhouses. I thought those people were deluded, but now I understand them better. When I step outside first thing in the morning, even on a rainy or snowy day, I am always struck by beauty. The smell of the sagebrush and the pine trees mingles with the sound of birds, and I have new joy to be here.
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In fact, my biggest trial has been the lack of a refrigerator. We eat a lot of canned vegetables and beans, and canned tuna and chicken, as well as pasta and rice, but fresh food has been more of a challenge. I’ve learned that buying ice every day costs a fortune and that one good thing about high-fat foods, such as butter and whole milk, is that they actually keep better. We also realized that to eat more fresh vegetables, we needed to plant a garden.
DESERT LIVING
Because we lack a reliable water supply, we didn’t try to plant our own garden the first spring we lived here. But a friend shared her garden with us, so the kids learned about tilling, planting and the irrigation canals called acequias, whose water is as precious as gold in this arid climate. The local official in charge of when the acequias run is called the mayordomo, and he decides how much water each person gets. We had to water on his schedule and do flood irrigation — like the ancient Egyptians. While inundating the fields with water is not my favorite irrigation method, it does figure heavily into ancient history, and I thought it was cool for the kids to learn about it firsthand.
In fact, when I think about it, the kids have learned a lot of what I hoped they would learn by moving here. We’ve been so busy, I hardly noticed. They’ve learned from daily life that rain and snow mean water for us, not just the plants. We buy our drinking water, but our bathing water falls from the sky, onto our roof, down a drain pipe and into the cistern. When there’s a dearth of moisture, the cistern goes dry. That connects our lives with nature in a practical way, which I love.
It’s the same with sunshine. When the sun shines, the house is warm and there’s enough power to run the water pump and sometimes even a light or two. When the sky is overcast or the days are short, we know we have to plan ahead. We must collect water during the middle of the day when the sunlight is powering the water pump. If we don’t, then when we turn the water on in the evening or early morning, the thing might not work at all. The kids know they have to gather wood for the fire. And last fall, they gathered pine nuts for food from our hundreds of piñon trees as well as pine cones and sage brush for kindling.
