ABCs Of Mountain Homesteading, Part 3: Make the Commitment

Reader Contribution by Bruce Mcelmurray
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Part three and the last of a three-part series on mountain living. Part one was about Ability, part two was about Basics, and part three is about Commitment. If there would be a part four it would be Determination but would be redundantly like Commitment so this is the final in the series. Frequently in life all the careful planning and preparation sometimes falls short of its intended goal. Things happen differently than we may have expected. It is during such unexpected events that commitment comes into play. When our best plans do not work out just the way we had intended we need commitment and determination. It is when these unexpected obstacles present themselves that determination and commitment are important to continue to fulfilling our dream of living in the mountains. When they do occur we sometimes tend to want to fold up shop and retreat to what was a more comfortable place. Establishing your home in the mountains in a fairly remote location will almost certainly guarantee that some curve balls will be thrown your way and knock you off balance.

Unplanned Occurrences

One of the first unplanned occurrences for us was an unexpected earthquake. There had not been an earthquake in the past 100 years or more but out of the blue we had a 4.7 magnitude earthquake. We were apparently very close to the origin (4-5 miles) which we discovered later. Our house started swaying and we heard this noise which sounded like a jet breaking the sound barrier. Then we heard this grinding sound which we subsequently figured out were the rocks grinding together as the earth moved. Since our area isn’t one that is known for having earthquakes it came as a total surprise to us.

Our homestead held up very well except one basement door shifted which I had to repair. We had never been in an earthquake before and having discovered what they were like we questioned if we really wanted to stay and risk experiencing another one. A firm commitment to our lifestyle convinced us that we would stick it out as there may not be another one for another 100 years or longer. Even though they are scary to go through people on the west coast have them far more frequently and don’t run from them so why should we.

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