New Life in the Woods

I think we all hate being put on hold (especially when we have to endure horrid muzak). That’s a bit what I feel like now.

I am probably focusing unfairly on the negative aspects of life in the Bay Area, but that’s what is at the fore-front of my mind these days. I hate driving here, especially during Rush Hour when all the crazies (otherwise “normal” people, whatever that means, risking their lives (and others) to get home 60 seconds earlier) come out in droves. I hate how hard it has become to find decent, inexpensive food (something you learn quickly when you have no fridge for a week) in my neighborhood. I hate the noise and intrusiveness of my neighbors in this apartment complex… I could go on and on. Mostly I hate having to wait to begin the next stage of my life, although the last few years have certainly given me a lot of practice. The best I can do is try to keep busy and get things done while I wait.

Yesterday I canceled my internet, phone, and long distance services at my “old” apartment. I also set up a date to get a new phone installed at the cabin. Then I completed the second (and final) credit counseling session that the law now requires bankruptcy filers to complete. I got 100% on the quizzes at the end of both sessions, so I guess the problem wasn’t that I didn’t understand sound financial management. Heh

Today I will be packing up the final boxes and seeing how well all the remaining stuff will fit into my car. Tomorrow the bed and file cabinets (the “legs” of my computer desk) will go out on the curb and the car will be packed with the final items. And then I’ll be “homeless” for a few days, although technically not. I would love to drive up to the cabin and get some things done up there: string the new phone line to the proper place inside the house and install the phone jack, move all the boxes with books upstairs (plus the shelves), unpack my cooking stuff and dishes/utensils, and so on.

But I don’t think I can justify the expense of driving all the way up, only to return again Tuesday for the Creditors’ Meeting on Wednesday, and then making the final trip up next Thursday. Better to just wait and get stuff done down here. I am still building panels for my mom to paint on, and there are a couple big ones left to do.

I don’t expect any trouble at the Creditors’ Meeting, despite the tougher new laws. One glance at my papers should tell the Trustee (and my creditors) that there is nothing left to squeeze from me.

Then, on Thursday the 6th, I will make my final trip up to the cabin and the fun begins! I can’t wait.

I will continue to have internet and email access until then, so I’ll be checking in and may do another post at some point. I should have the new phone and some sort of internet access (dial-up for the time being) after the 7th, so I won’t be offline for long. I’ll email my new phone number to everyone once it is working.

I hope everything is well with all of you. Wish me luck next week!

Unpacking

Finally, we got up and started unloading. The firewood first, which got stacked on the front porch, making a pile about 6 feet long and 4 feet high. Then we unloaded the boxes and shelf pieces, the furniture pieces, more boxes, and finally a few tables and the fridge. We tested the plug where the fridge would go in the kitchen (which I hadn’t done before) and found it had power too. Yay! We plugged that in to start getting cold and then we collapsed.

We had previously talked about going into town for dinner but we were both too tired. I had also discussed what I could make at the cabin if I found a good soup pot, but by the time we finished Michael told me it was midnight and he wasn’t hungry (we had both had sandwhiches on the drive and snacks here and there while unpacking). So we pushed chairs out of the way, laid out a futon and our sleeping bags and crashed.

The cabin is so well insulated that I couldn’t hear the rain at first, but then as things quieted down a bit I could hear the steady patter of it on the roof, deck, and the trees. I was still pretty keyed up though and it took me an hour or so before I finally fell asleep.

Time to Leave… If We Can

In the morning we ate instant oatmeal and made some strong coffee in a sort of manual expresso maker my mother had given me. The Hills Brothers coffee I used wasn’t really suited for expresso, but it served its purpose.

We had left a few big things that still needed to be moved under the house (for lack of a better spot, for now) so we did that. Then I took Michael on a walk around the property, showed him the secret passage, the contruction trailer, and the area where I hope to garden next Spring.

We were kindof heading up to see if we could find the valve to turn on the water near the water tanks up the hill, and we spent about a half-hour looking, but without any luck. Back at the cabin, I called Susan and she told me to call her back when I was up in that area again so she could walk me to it.

We decided to get ready to go. We still needed to go pickup the new wood stove and water heater in Medford with the truck (as long as we had it) and then turn it in to a Uhaul place in Grants Pass. Also, Michael wanted to take me to CostCo in Medford to stock up on supplies before we left. So we cleaned up the truck and Michael packed his car. We would stop and find the water valve on our way out. Against my better judgement, I decided to see if the truck would make it out along the other side of the driveway loop. I knew it was steeper over there, but I also knew there was a place to turn around where the short road branched off to the little quarry (right where the secret passage is). Of course the driveway was too steep and slippery after the rains and, of course, I got stuck trying to turn the truck around.

Well, the truck wasn’t stuck exactly, it just wouldn’t back up any further and it was too dangerous to try turning it or going forward any further. It was just slipping on the mud and leaves. It was Sunday and I wasn’t too optimistic about finding a tow-truck that could haul a 14′ U-Haul truck up that steep driveway. Michael is great with people though. He called the U-Haul hotline and then information to find a towing company in Grants Pass that could help. After about 40 minutes on the phone and waiting for return calls, he made the arrangements and the tow truck arrived a half-hour later.

While we waited for the tow truck I called Susan and she verbally led us to the location of the valve along the underground pipe from the water tanks to the cottage (hidden in the woods on the other side of the driveway from the water tanks). I turned it on and could hear the water flowing down. I went down to test the water flow and make sure there were no leaks anywhere in my repairs. The water was still brown and a bit smelly, but it flowed from the kitchen sink just fine. I will purify it later and let the muddy water run out. Meanwhile, Michael investigated that secret passage in the hillside up by the trailer. About the time I returned, the tow truck showed up, and Michael popped out of the ground with a big grin.

The tow truck easily pulled that U-Haul up the steep section of drive to the point where it could complete the turn safely, and Michael (after asking the driver to stick around) attempted to take it up the other side of the driveway loop. I thought it would make it up that side, but it got stuck there too. The tow-truck driver was very understanding, tried to drive it out himself, backing up a ways first, but he couldn’t get it out either. Then he hooked up a chain to his truck and dragged it out behind him, with Michael at the wheel.

Michael very generously paid the bill too! He is a saint! I felt terrible about the whole thing, saying that I should have listened to my fears and backed up to go the other way in the first place, but he pointed out that even he (and the tow truck driver) couldn’t make it up that side either, so it really wasn’t my fault. I felt better.

Michael was excited about the secret passage and the room under the hill. I think all young boys want to have a hidden fort or secret underground passage (or tree fort if that’s the only possibility — although tree forts are hardly secret or hidden very well). This was a magical place, with its own “hobbit hole” and Michael was even more firmly approving of my move up to this lonely cabin in the woods.

I still haven’t been inside the hidden room. I figure there will be lots of time to explore once I am up there and I don’t want to discover everything right away. But he said it was big, about 15′ by 20′, that you could indeed stand up in there, that it was insulated, had plumbing and electrical wires running into it (although the vandals had been in there too). I speculated that it might make a great root/wine cellar and he agreed.

We Head Home?

Meanwhile, Susan had asked me to hold off on purchasing the new woodstove and water heater since we had a few weeks until I was up there full-time to look for better deals. A lot of time had passed while we got the truck out and we had the entire drive back ahead of us. We decided to just return the truck, skip CostCo, and drive back. We did stop for food for the trip and found a great Natural Food store in the mall near I-5. We had a great talk on the way back and Michael dropped me off at about 9:30 p.m. in Berkeley, with about a 1/2 hour drive to his own home in San Rafael. He called to tell me he was back safe and I think we both probably collapsed pretty quickly. I only took enough time to check my mail, email, call my mom, and post a short update to the blog, then I crashed.

We had spent 2 1/2 days almost constantly packing, driving, or unpacking, with moments of terror thrown in here and there. We got rained on unpacking, but the cabin was warm with the improvised door on the old woodstove. Michael had a nasty cough when we started the trip and it seemed to abate while we were up there, but by the time we got back to Berkeley we were both talking with hoarse voices. I seem to have picked up the cold or whatever it was, but it is not too bad.

All-in-all I think we escaped the experience with light consequences, and, most importantly, we had fun. Yes, Michael is still speaking to me, and spoke several times of coming back to visit for short vacations. I hope he does. In fact, there is room at the cottage for any of you who care to visit. And I should have the hot water working soon.

Now I am back “home” for a couple more weeks before I head up to the cabin full-time. I think I really started to think of the cabin as “home” though sometime during my first trip up there. I have just been marking time since then. I hope the time flies by.

Ok, ok… the title is a bit dramatic, I admit. In fact most of the drive was quite nice. There were only a few isolated moments of pure terror.

Here’s one last picture of packing up at the old apartment. I am shown here wrapping up pieces of shelving while Michael does all the heavy lifting (with a hand truck). Actually, Michael “staged” the move, laying out boxes while I tried to fit things into the truck. Later he took over that job while I hauled stuff for a while.

As mentioned before, we had driven up to my mom’s house, slept over there, loaded up some more stuff and were ready to go. We got underway by around noon, gassed up just before hitting the freeway, and drove North. Michael and I both had cellphones, but he stopped calling me after I almost ran someone off the road when he called the first time (I had about 10 things in the pocket where the cellphone was and couldn’t find the darn thing). The weather was great all the way up to Redding, and then things started getting a bit greyer.

We stopped at a Rest Stop somewhere above Redding in the mountains (near Shasta Lake) and it was still partly Sunny and very nice, if a bit chilly. I’m not sure what the expression on my face in this picture means (can’t remember) but maybe it should be captioned “Oh, common Michael! Not another picture!” After calling Mari to report on our progress, we agreed to press on and refuel at Weed, California, which is about half-way between Redding and the Oregon border.

Weed was cold, with stiff winds that made it seem below freezing. By this time the skies were definitely grey and mostly dark. It seemed like we were driving through clouds as we passed through the mountains in this area. But so far it had been easy sailing. The worst was yet to come.

After Weed, there is a long valley that is relatively easy driving, but as you near Yreka, you start to climb into the mountains again. From Yreka to Ashland in Oregon, it is all up and down and there are some pretty steep grades. Michael very patiently followed me as I struggled to get up the steep grades and slowed way down, mostly following big trucks on the downslopes.

Somewhere along the way, the mist turned to drizzle, the drizzle became rain, and then the fog set in. It was horrible. By this time it was completely dark and the fog made visibility terrible. It seemed at times like I couldn’t see more than 20 feet in front of me, although it was probably more like 100 feet. I slowed way down and tried to follow brake lights from the trucks in front of me to tell where the turns were. We were headed downslope on one of the worst stretches of I-5, with 6 degree slopes and lots of turns and I couldn’t see any of it. Turning on the brights just made it worse. I know I keep mentioning scary aspects of this move from time to time, and every so often a little voice in the background says something like: “It’s not very manly to admit to being scared so much,” but the truth is: I was seriously scared, almost terrified. The fog was that bad. and it seemed to go on forever. In retrospect, I bet it was just a mile or two but at the time my eyes were smarting from trying to see through that fog and my arms hurt from gripping the wheel too hard for too long. Since you are reading this, you already know we made it through.

Once out of that bad stretch, the road leveled out some and there were fewer turns. We also descended below the fog. It was at that point that I got the worst scare. I was calming down from that hell-ride and starting to speed up on a relatively straight stretch that crossed a short bridge over a ravine when a big wind gust hit the truck and I could feel it start to hydro-plane as I crossed the bridge. Somehow, either through sheer dumb luck, or past experience, I managed to correct the slide with minimal nudges to the steering wheel and then slowed down a bit. But my heart was hammering fit to burst. The next stretch is a blur, but before long signs for Ashland were appearing, and not long after that Medford. We were almost there!

The weather settled somewhere between a drizzle and light rain all the way to Grants Pass and past it to the cabin. We got to the dirt road of Dutchy Way with only one false turn, and then the next bit of fun began.

Dutchy Way is dirt and gravel and slopes gradually uphill the whole way, but there is one pretty steep stretch, and for a bit I almost thought the truck wouldn’t make it, but it did. Then we got to the driveway, and I realized what I had been supressing: driving down that dirt driveway to the cabin in the rain was not going to be fun. If anything, although I had good visibility, it was even scarier than the drive through the fog in the mountains. I went dead slow, but even so the driveway was not perfectly level, and somewhat deep ruts in the dirt made the fully-loaded truck sway ominously from side to side, although overall, it leaned alarmingly to the left. I found myself leaning far over to the right while I steered, as if that would do any good against all the weight in that truck, but I couldn’t help it!

We made it of course. I got down to the cabin and parked just past it to allow room for the ramp to extend behind the truck. It was about 7:30 p.m., raining, and completely dark.

I got out, shaking, nervous energy giving me the urge to do five different things at once. I went and unlocked the cabin and tried to sit down for a while, but I was shaking so bad I couldn’t focus on anything or really sit still for long. It took me about 15 minutes to calm down. That’s how bad the truck was leaning on the way down that driveway, or so it seemed to me. I was sure the truck was gonna tip over a few times.

While Michael tried to get a fire lit, I went outside and flipped the switches on the main fuse box. Then I turned on the light I had left behind to make sure it was still working, and ran it out to the front porch to clip it up where it would provide light for us to unload. Inside, I found another lamp and plugged that in at a kitchen outlet so we had light inside too. We spent another 20 minutes getting the fire going. I made some tea and then we sat down to rest and talk for perhaps another hour. I took Michael on a tour of the cabin and he loved it!

We were there. We had made it safe and sound (so far) and all that was left was unpacking. More to come!

Between everything else I’ve talked about so far, I was also working on packing up my stuff… in a half-hearted sort of way. I’ve been living in Berkeley for 10 years and most of my stuff has just been sitting on shelves for the entire time, so everything I had was dusty. Not that I hadn’t dusted from time to time, but it is fair to say I wasn’t as diligent about it as I should have been. Every box I packed involved a lot of cleaning before-hand and I tried to sort everything into boxes of similar items. Sorting different sized books by subject made them harder to fit into the boxes and all of it was taking a long time.

Plus, I was trying to get rid of stuff… really! But it is hard to get rid of old, beloved books and that constituted probably about 1/4 of my stuff by volume. Still, I managed to get rid of about 5 small boxes worth of stuff. I gave it all to a neighbor who works at a senior home nearby. They run a small second-hand shop at the home and she would sell the items there.

The two trips up to the cottage had taken a lot out of me. Dealing with the bankruptcy papers was depressing, as was sorting through all my old stuff at times (old pictures, notes, and letters from ex-girlfriends kept popping up). I wasn’t sleeping well and often collapsed to take long naps in the afternoons. It is fair to say that I procrastinated, with a bit of dilly-dallying and some lolly-gagging thrown in for good measure.

The week before the big move was scheduled my mother came by to give me a boost by packing most of my kitchen things, which really helped. I had managed to pack up most of my books by then and dissasemble most of the bookcases. That just left the big furniture, clothes, and stereo stuff. I managed to pack most of the sterio components and the bulk of the clothes the night before Friday the 16th, when Michael was due to come over in the afternoon to help pack the truck.

Friday morning I went to get the U-Haul and, on Michael’s advice, upgraded to a 14′ truck. I got a discount that made the cost just a fraction more than what I expected to pay for the 10′ truck. I was pretty nervous about driving a larger truck that far, but it was a good thing I upgraded because we needed that space!

Michael showed up as promised and we spent the next seven hours or so dismantling the larger pieces of furniture and moving everything into the truck. He has the energy of a 20 year old and kept me moving at a fast pace all night. It was a bit chaotic, as I’d hoped to have most of that stuff done by then, but it went smoothly enough (after we went and bought some Allen wrenches to take apart the futon couch — could have sworn I had those!). After dinner at a local Thai restaurant, we drove up to Mari and Jerry’s (my parents) house to sleep there overnight before loading up some more stuff I had stored there. Mari and Jerry were in Chicago for a concert that Jerry was performing, so I had to go up and take care of the cats anyway. They would return later on Saturday, after we had left.

Saturday morning I made us pancakes with maple syrup while Michael made coffee. Then we got to work hauling old boxes of assorted books and school stuff from under the house, along with my woodworking bench and assorted tools, which had been in storage for 10 years. Somehow we made it all fit and even made room for a bunch of firewood that had been sitting almost unused in front of their house for most of 20 years. We were only able to take about a quarter of it, but it will help heat the cabin until I get established up there.

This year, for the first time in a long time, I truly have a lot to be thankful for.

Here’s hoping we all find or create many more things to be thankful for in our everyday lives going forward!

And thanks once again to all of you who have helped open up all the new potentials in my own life. I’ll try to make the most of them!

-David

I made a bunch of style updates today that I hope will make the blog easier to read. I also went back and added subtitles and some new images to some of the posts, so scroll down and you might find some new stuff.

Please let me know what you think of the new look, positive or negative. I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks!

The Repair Trip

At the start of November I had some more money (thanks Alexis!) and I had most of my bankruptcy papers done. I was just waiting on the credit counseling certificate to arrive before I could file them. I decided I could afford to take another trip up to the cabin and make some initial repairs. That way I would (hopefully) have electricity and running water when I moved my stuff in mid-November.

Most of my car was stuffed with boxes of food, so I wasn’t able to move a lot of belongings, but I brought my tools this time. The drive seemed to go even faster and I was prepared for the steep downslopes and curves in the mountains on I-5. I arrived near dusk again on Friday, November 2nd, planning to stay a similar amount of time and return Monday the 5th so I could file my papers on Tuesday.

Planning Phase

I spent most of Saturday planning and getting supplies. Susan had given me $300 cash for materials. As soon as it warmed up a bit I resurveyed the damage, pulled out wires and made sure that there were no shorts anywhere. Then I went into town and shopped for PEX plumbing supplies. Talking to a very helpful guy at Diamond Home Improvement, I realized I should probably alter my plans for the plumbing. I had planned to convert the PVC to 1/2″ pipe right above the valve (the same diameter as the copper pipe in the walls), but the guy at the store explained that it was better to convert to 3/4″ at first and then only convert to 1/2″ where the plumbing branches off to each room. That way, there would be ample supply to each appliance and turning on the water in the kitchen, for example, would not scald somebody taking a shower in the bathroom. Now I had to rethink things a bit.

Susan wanted to use PEX tubing in place of copper where the plumbing had been torn out. This is a kind of plastic tubing that can withstand high pressure and a lot of heating and contraction. It is also resistant to freezing. The other bonus was that any potential vandals would find skimpy rewards if they snooped around the cabin at some point in the future.

Diamond had two different types of PEX fittings, but one of them required an expensive crimping tool so I avoided that brand. Restricting myself to the other brand of fittings meant that they didn’t have all the fittings I would need, so I got directions to another store named Grover Electric & Plumbing Supply on the other side of town and bought another load of parts. They had still another type of PEX fitting there, but they had some of the sizes and types of fittings I was lacking. Another helpful man there demonstrated a fourth type of fitting that just slipped onto the end of the plastic PEX pipe, very easy to install but a bit more expensive. I now had 3 different brands of fittings, but altogether I thought I had what I needed.

Back at the cabin that afternoon I sat down to redraw my plans for the plumbing. It is important to think these things through carefully before-hand. Drawing pictures often helps. Several versions of the plan went into the fire before I had one I liked. It included 3/4″ pipes running up to just below the kitchen, over to the water heater (and back carrying hot water to the kitchen), over to the copper pipes hanging from the ceiling that led to the bathroom, and a couple of capped-off pipes hanging down from there for a utility sink that I would install outside at some later date. The pipes leading up to the kitchen, to the bathroom, and to the utility sink would all be 1/2″ from the point where they branched off.

It was a relatively small job, but I am relaying all of this in the hope that I am giving some sense of the complexity that can be involved even so. This was my first time attempting anything like this, with plumbing anyway.

As I was doing this, night had fallen and it was getting cold. In fact, it was supposed to get down near freezing and the prior night I had worn a ski cap all night and kept a blanket over my sleeping bag, even sleeping right next to the woodstove on a small futon I had found upstairs. I made a quick meal on my camp stove and decided to call it a night. I had realized I would have to make another trip back to the store anyway. It seems the small PVC conversion piece I had bought was the wrong size on the outside. With PVC you measure pipe from the inside diameter and I knew this, but I still got the wrong size the first time. I would have to start the repairs Sunday.

Starting Repairs

Sunday started out slow again. It was just too cold to think about working with metal tools for a bit. I walked around some more and went up to the construction trailer again to see what other supplies I might find up there… not much as it turns out. Along the way back I did find a piece of sheet steel that I thought I might be able to use to jerry-rig a door for the wood stove.

I went over all my plans to make sure I had thought of everything and then headed into town to exchange a few parts and buy some other things that my new plans called for. I also picked up a smoke alarm and a small fire extinguisher, because that wood stove without a door had scared me the night before when I burned a piece of resinous pine and it spat sparks for most of an hour.

Finally, back from the store at about noon, I glued the new (correctly sized) PVC conversion piece in place and left it so the glue would have a chance to “set” for a while before I worked with it more. Upstairs I cut out some sheetrock under the bathroom sink and began to “sweat” off the short damaged sections of copper pipe that had extended out of the wall. It was a lot harder than I thought. I had to pull on the pipes with pliers and twist them while heating with the torch to get the damaged sections out. I learned a good lesson too. Melted solder can sometimes run out of the end of the pipe you are working on. In fact, it ran right over the wrench I was pulling on the pipes with and into the cuff of my long-sleeved t-shirt. I was so intent on what I was doing that I hardly felt it, but I got a few nasty burns getting those pipes out. Under the house, in the utility closet, I stood on an over-turned bucket to do the same with the copper pipes sticking out of the ceiling.

I decided that was about all I could do with the existing pipes for now. Until we decided whether we were using the existing water heater or a new one, it didn’t make sense to run all the pipes just yet. Besides that, the bathroom faucet was a lost cause, which I hadn’t realized before. Susan and I were still going back and forth on whether to replace the old propane water heater with a modern, energy-efficient, electric one. She was nervous about using gas up at that remote cabin anyway. Meanwhile, the PVC fitting would only get stronger the longer I let the glue set, so I turned to the electrical system.

Let There Be Light!

I cut out a section of sheetrock from the corner of the kitchen to pull up the cut wires, installed 3 junction boxes in the wall, and ran a single length of new Romex wire down through one of the holes. Underneath the house, I pulled enough length through to run it over to the fuse box, with enough slack to make the connections there easily. Back in the kitchen, I pulled that wire all the way back inside and used it to measure out four more lengths so I could connect all 5 wires that had been cut in that corner of the kitchen. I fed the five wires through the holes and went under the house to connect them to the fuse box.

It took me a while thinking out how and where to string the wires. They had previously been run at the top of the wall, but I initially started stapling them to the underside of the floor, thinking they would be more isolated from the plumbing there. Then I realized that this was the only section of the floor without insulation and plywood on the underside and that we might want to put some up later, at which point the wires would be in the way. So, I took them all down and re-stapled them where they had been run before, at the top of the wall.

I connected two of those circuits, leaving the other three wires loose since there were no clamps to hold them at the top of the fuse box. I then went outside to the front of the house and repaired the wires that were cut at the main service panel (just the ground wire and some wires leading to a Spring Pump up the hill a ways – I’ll get that working later). I didn’t want evidence of the vandalism to show at the meter if someone from the power company came by when I switched the electricity over to my own account. Those wires were thick, heavy-gage wires though, and this took me almost two hours to do (plus digging to find the old ground wire and reconnect that).

Daylight Savings Time

Having finished with the main circuit box, I looked up to find that it was getting dark again and colder. It was daylight savings time, and, since I had already reset my watch that morning, darkness came an hour earlier that day. Tired and dirty, I went inside and made some dinner. Now it was really dark and I hadn’t managed to do much plumbing or even connect a single circuit all the way, although the wires were all in place and stapled up.

I went back to the corner of the kitchen and, with a small flashlight held between my teeth, fed the wires into the junction boxes, stripped them, and spliced them together using wirenuts. Along the way, I also got a good slice in my left index finger and spent a few minutes bandaging that up. Once the wires were connected I collapsed by the fire. It was a good hour before I thought to check if there was still power running to the cabin. I went outside and flipped the circuit breakers at both the main fuse box by the meter and at the subsidiary fuse box under the house. Upstairs I plugged in a small night light I had brought to test plugs and it worked. I had power!

I still didn’t hook up a lamp, since I was enjoying the fire, oil lamps, and candles I had been using so far. The steel door I had bent into shape to cover the opening of the wood stove was sort of working. The cabin was a lot warmer, even if I couldn’t see the fire anymore. I put some water on top of the wood stove to heat up for a sponge bath before bed. I had bought toothpaste, a new toothbrush, soap, disposable razors, and shaving cream along with my food supplies. So I brought a big wide bowl in from the kitchen and got as clean as I could in the circumstances. It was still chilly washing up that way, but kinda fun!

The Final Push

I had to leave by noon. Time to wrap things up! Monday morning I fairly quickly got a 3/4″ line of PEX tubing attached to the new PVC fitting. I attached a right-angle 3/4″ to 1/2″ adapter to that and ran a 1/2″ tub up to the kitchen sink. At that end, I put on a threaded fitting and attached a short, flexible tube between the sink and that pipe. I turned on the faucet and water came out! It was brown and smelly, but it was flowing! I let it run for a while and started cleaning up in preparation for leaving that afternoon. It turned out that the water was also turned off somewhere up near the water tanks, and it trickled out after a while. I wasn’t able to find that valve before I left, however, so that would have to wait for the next trip.

What Next?

Once we get the new water heater, I think it will take me 1-2 days worth of work to get hot and cold water to the bathroom and the kitchen. Some of the circuits throughout the house may take longer to repair, as I may have to take down some sheetrock to do the job properly, but I won’t need lights everywhere at first. I’ll have heat, power where I need it, and running water. Well, I will have running water once I figure out where the other valve is….

I am back “home” now in my old apartment, sitting amidst the mess left behind from my move (I’ll get to it, eventually). I have more bankruptcy paperwork to complete (new letters arrived in the mail during the big move), the apartment to clean and finish packing, Thanksgiving coming up, panels to build for my mom (for painting), and of course many blog entries to write. I will have to stay down here until December 5th to attend the Creditors’ Meeting, but that should wrap up my responsibilities down here and then I can move up to the cabin full-time. I’ll have to bunk somewhere the first few days of December, but I am not too worried about that.

I wish I was back up there now though, getting burns and cuts and skinned knuckles while fixing up the place, and having fun. I just lit a candle and I think I’ll turn out all the lights for a while and dream about the cabin in the woods.

As I mentioned in my first post, it was just a few days after I first spoke to Susan, the owner of the cabin in Oregon, that I drove up to take a look at it. I had a little money for gas and food, but not enough to make a dent in November’s bills (not to mention October’s), so it seemed like a good idea to use what I had in order to see what I might be getting into.

Also, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to afford November’s rent in Berkeley unless I gave notice and let the prepaid last month’s rent take care of it. According to my lease agreement I had to give 45 days notice. It was Friday, October 12th, when I drove up and I would be coming back on Monday, the 15th, the day I would have to give notice if I was going to do it. But what choice did I have anyway?

The Drive Up

It is just over 400 miles drive to the cabin from my place in Berkeley, perhaps 405 miles, but both times I went up there I was too excited once I got there to check the odometer and then I forgot about it later. It takes about 6 1/2 hours in my little car, which gets about 40 m.p.h. on the highway, so in theory one tank of gas (10 gallons) would just about get me there. In practice, with driving around some while I was up there, it took 3 partial fill-ups to get me there and back. maybe 23 gallons total. The drive is peaceful, mostly through farmland, semi-wild areas, national forests and/or mountains. It is easy too, taking a short stretch of I-80 to another fairly short stretch on 505 and then to I-5, which takes you all the way up to Grants Pass in Oregon (or all the way up to British Columbia if you keep going).

The first part is through California’s farm and orchard country. Like most of California, it looks pretty brown, with hills off in the distance to the East and West. Redding is at about the half-way mark and once you get past that things get a bit more interesting as you see snow-capped Mount Shasta off in the distance to the North. An hour or so later you are within spitting distance (or so it seems) but in that mountainous area you have to keep your eyes on the road. You cross a couple bridges over extensions of Shasta Lake (or some other lake) and you can see how bad the water situation is at this time of year. These resevoirs seem to be about 80% empty. A couple hours after that and you are past Ashland and Medford and entering Grants Pass. Then everything changes.

Remember I mentioned the dry California terrain? Even in the mountains above Redding that terrain pretty much continues all the way up I-5 and into Oregon, until you get to Grants Pass. Then everything turns green.

On that first trip up there, as I entered that area, I felt a strange sensation in my chest. A tightening feeling, spreading out and rising up my throat. It was such a strong sensation that I couldn’t ignore it but it took me a minute to identify it. Adrenaline – I was excited. Then a big, stupid grin broke out on my face and I think I grinned like a fool the rest of the way.

In Grants Pass you take highway 199 West, past a big ugly shopping area that is kind of a shame with the beautiful mountains surrounding it. You go a little over 7 miles to Riverbanks road which follows the Applegate river (that feeds into the more famous Rogue River, which runs through town). A few miles up this road you come to Marcy Loop and a short way along this brings you to Dutcher Creek Road. By this time you are solidly in the woods, well outside town, and have been since Riverbanks road. These roads climb just a bit into the low mountains around Grants Pass to the West. There are small houses here and there along the road, but the properties are mostly big and they don’t crowd each other. About a mile back on Dutcher Creek, you cross a very small bridge and turn right onto Dutchy Way, a dirt and gravel road. About a half-mile up on the left you take the second driveway and then you see the main house in a small clearing in the woods. Several dirt roads go in different directions from there.

The driveway curves around to the left and right of the house to form a loop behind it, through the woods, and there the cabin sits on the back side of the little ridge, away from town. While the main house looks fairly big, perhaps as big as Mari & Jerry’s house, and is brightly painted, the cabin looks small (on the outside at least), with wood siding, well weathered. It sits on a fairly gentle slope that runs down to a seasonal stream about 100 feet to the South. The back of the cabin, the side with most of the windows, faces South. It is in a small clearing, but surrounded by woods.

Come on Inside!

I got there just as it was getting dark on Friday evening so there wasn’t much time to look around. And it was cold. Time to get my stuff inside and start a fire! Inside the cabin looks bigger. The front door is double-paned glass surrounded by wood. As you enter you face the back side of the stairs that lead up to the second floor, but the lower portion of the stairs is just a waste-high wall, so you can see over it. To the left is a good-sized, very modern bathroom with a big whirlpool bathtub. To the right is the living room with a fold-away couch-bed and two mismatched stuffed reclining chairs. The floors are all oak. The wood stove is in the back-right corner and the stove pipe runs straight up to the sloped ceiling in back. Next to the woodstove there are sliding glass doors on the back wall leading to a small deck. The back-left section of the cabin is the kitchen/dining area, curving around the stairs with another door to the bathroom on that side.

Upstairs there is a small dormer next to the stairs filled with extra matresses and a large closet on the other side of the hallway that stretches back to the bedroom on the West side (same side as the woodstove on the lower floor). There are windows at the East and West ends of the house on the upper floor and a large opening along the hallway through which you can see downstairs to the woodstove area and the edge of the kitchen to the left. This lets the hot air from the woodstove rise and air circulate back down the stairs, so the whole cabin gets heated well when the stove is working properly.

It is only when you enter the bedroom that you start to see some obvious damage from the vandalism. In a couple places there are long gashes in the drywall where the wires have been ripped out. That was the other thing I came to see. The deal was that I could stay there for free if I made repairs. But how extensive was the damage? Was I capable of making fairly major repairs? The most I have ever done with wiring was to move or replace a light switch. I have hardly touched plumbing in my life. But that would have to wait for morning. It was getting dark so I dug out a flashlight and went downstairs to start a fire. Luckily some wood was left by the woodstove and I soon got it going.

The First Night

The pictures I have included so far were all take by Susan some time ago and this one does not show the stove. I will have more pictures once I move up there. The woodstove was in sorry shape. The door was stolen, so it was more of a fireplace than a woodstove. The idea of a woodstove is to regulate how much oxygen the fire gets, so it burns slow and radiates heat from all sides. With the front completely open, it sucked in air to feed the fire and brought in cold air through any crack in the house. Most of the heat went straight up the chimney, so it didn’t do a lot of good, especially at first, but gradually it warmed things up a bit and it was a great comfort. I got out my camping stove, heated water for hot cocoa, lit a few candles, and settled down by the fire. Now what?

I fiddled around with my portable radio and found a country station that mostly seemed to play Bluegrass, although over the course of the evening I heard everything from Bing Crosby to Pete Seeger and James Taylor. Much later there was a call-in talk show where they discussed UFO abductions and conspiracy theories. The music was great, perfect for a cabin in the woods, and the talk made me laugh.

I got out the book on do-it-yourself electrical wiring that I had brought with me and read by a combination of candle and flashlight. I had been so busy leading up to the trip that this was my first chance to read much of it. I needed to find out how tough these repairs would be. But my head was spinning. I kept thinking of all the things I could do up there. And it was a little bit scary too.

It’s cold and quiet up there. I turned off the radio for a bit and went out on the deck in back to look around, although it was entirely dark at that point. I used my flashlight to check out the woods immediately around the cabin and then I sat down (there were a few lawn chairs on the deck) and looked up. It was a clear night and I could see what seemed like thousands of stars through the gap in the trees. I couldn’t stop looking. The city lights from Grants Pass don’t reach that far and there are no other lights in sight. None. At the front of the cabin, you can sometimes see the lights from the main house through the trees, but out back it is completely dark. I haven’t seen stars like that since the last time I went camping (in Eastern Oregon). I hardly slept that night. With the thoughts racing around my head I kept going back out to stare at the stars. There were strange but very interesting animal noises all night long. I think I slept a few hours near dawn.

The First Day

The next morning, after instant oatmeal and instant coffee (only hot water needed), I had a look around. There was surprisingly little damage inside the house. Where wires had been exposed, they were clipped right at the tops of the walls in the kitchen (there was no sheetrock on the kitchen ceiling yet) but the bedroom seemed to be the only place where they were ripped out of the walls. Poking my head under the kitchen and bathroom sinks revealed that the copper pipes had been clipped off at the wall, but were still intact where they ran through the wall or under the floor. I went outside to look under the cabin.

As mentioned, the cabin sits on a slope, so it is on stilts and you can walk underneath it at the bottom end standing upright. The entire first floor was covered in plywood underneath and I could see no one had torn any of it down, so the pipes would still be intact. At the back (SE corner) there was a utility closet about 10 feet long and 4 feet deep, built between two stilts. That’s where the fuse box and water heater were. It was not locked, having simply a latch at the top and bottom of the plywood doors. Almost all the wiring was gone from this room and all the plumbing. But the main wiring leading from the meter at the front of the cabin back to the fuse box was still there and connected. The vandals had simply disconnected the house wiring and snipped them at the ceiling of the closet where they entered the cabin (at the back corner of the kitchen. That wasn’t so bad. All I had to do was run new wires and connect them to the old wires in the kitchen and I’d have power.

It took me a bit longer to figure out that the big thick white PVC valve at the floor in back was the incoming water supply. When I turned the valve on cold water under high pressure shot out and partially drenched me. It smelled bad and I shut it off right away. Concerned that I might have opened the sewer line I went upstairs and cleaned up right away. But that didn’t make sense. You don’t put a valve on the sewer line, although you do put a removable cap on it so you can run a snake through if it gets clogged. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that it had to be the incoming water supply and it was just stagnant from sitting in the pipes unused for so long. Ok, so now I needed to learn how to work with PVC. At the back-left side of the utility closet the copper pipes had been snipped off near the ceiling, but a good 6 or so inches remained, enough for me to reconnect new pipes easily, once I cut off the damaged ends.

I Can Do This!

The whole idea of moving up to an isolated cabin in the woods in Winter with no money and lots of repairs needed before I would have electricity or water was still scary, but it was starting to seem a bit more manageable. I could do this! After all, I’d be getting some or all of my deposit back from my old apartment. I wouldn’t need much for food or to pay utilities. I’ve been living on a very small food budget off and on for years now. Water is trucked in and stored in holding tanks up the hill. It costs about $65 bucks per load and I later learned that Mark, the tenant in the main house, had only had it refilled once so far and he’s been there since August. With two of us, that would increase, but maybe not by much at first. Mark also told me that he has just gotten his first electricity bill recently and it was only about $30 some dollars. He also has a dishwasher, which uses both water and electricity, although I think his water heater and stove are propane. Heating was no problem (or not much): I could cut and split my own wood for heat….

Well, anyway, things were looking better in the daylight. It was warming up a bit so I decided to take a walk and look around. Up the driveway to the West about 100 yards there is an old construction trailer, left from when the house and cabin were being built. It is run down and ugly, but inside I found a bunch of old construction materials (mostly junk, but some good stuff) were still there along with some old furniture and the big prize – a table saw! Ok, maybe only I would be so excited about that, but I had been thinking that I could get back to woodworking up there, maybe even make furniture for some extra money, advertise on Craig’s List, etc., and here was just what I needed to start outfitting a woodworking shop! More ideas started buzzing around my head — I could put down a floor under the cabin in that big space where it is relatively easy to walk around, move the table saw there, gradually get a few more tools, and have a real shop! Now I was getting excited again.

Secrets… Shhhhh!

Outside the trailer to the left there is a short stretch of road that leads up to a small rock quarry where shale was dug out to pave part of the driveway. Along that short stretch the road cuts into the hillside a bit and there lies a strange thing. There are several cylinders made of wire fence filled with rocks along the hill at the side of the road, presumably to hold the hillside and keep it from eroding.

Later Mark showed me that two center sections of these cylinders swing inward exposing a passageway into the hill. It seems some prior tenants used to grow, um, “medicinal herbs” in a big chamber back there that was big enough to walk around in, standing upright! A lot of work went into that! I didn’t go in, but I still have my caving gear and I’ll explore it another time. On the other side of the trailer there is a concrete cubbyhole in the hillside that he told me was the generator room. Above ground there is a lot of junk lying around, like huge PVC pipes (used as planters) and old 55 gallon drums that held fuel for the generator, etc., all of which is pretty ugly but it is not in sight from the cabin or the house.

What Next?

On Sunday, I went into town and drove around a bit. I got several newspapers to see the local news and check out the “Help Wanted” sections. Back at the cabin I walked around the woods in back a bit. The trees are a mix of hard and soft wood: Fir, Oak, Madrone, Maple and others I can’t identify yet. There are ferns everywhere. Mornings are misty and drizzly. There are blackberry or raspberry vines by the roads (I’ll figure out which later). Back up by the main house there are a couple clearings, one of which was used as a garden before. Susan said she has no problem with me gardening there again, although half of that space is covered by more of the blackberry vines now. Looks like I’ll be making jam and jelly next year!

Back at the cabin I walked all through and around the house, taking notes on everything that needed to be fixed or finished (many details like trim, both inside and outside, had simply never been finished). That evening, I listened to the radio, watched the fire, and tried to make myself read the wiring book or the newspapers, but my mind kept getting distracted by other ideas for all the things I could do here: woodworking, wood carving, stone carving, pottery (I could build my own kiln from that shale up the road), organic gardening, chickens! I could grow much of my own food and make a root cellar to store some of it, can fruit or make jam and jelly, have chickens/eggs for protein. If I grew enough, or had enough eggs, I could sell veggies and eggs for extra money. Fishing! I haven’t fished since I was a boy, but I always loved it. I might have to learn fly fishing, but I have wanted to do that ever since I saw the movie: “A river runs through it” and it wouldn’t cost much to get started. Beekeeping for wax (to make/sell candles) and honey… the list goes on and on.

Around this time I went back out on the deck and noticed that a small flock of 4 or 5 wild turkeys had come to roost in the trees right around the cabin. Hard to miss since they blunder through the trees like tanks and they were making “gobble-gobble” sounds. Hunting! I have never hunted for food, and I wouldn’t want to own a gun, but archery is another matter. I always loved archery and I have been wanting to make my own bow for a long time. All the things I have wanted to do for years, that I have dreamed of doing, or somehow getting back to… I could do them all in this place. And about 10 minutes away, right on 199 at the edge of town, lies the Rogue Community College. Once I found some sort of job I could take classes and eventually change careers. How could I not move up here?!?

Still, at night, it got cold and quiet again. I could tell that this could be a very lonely place too. And I would need money to make some of these dreams happen. I would have to get out and find a job, if only so I could meet people. Plus, you can’t grow things like toothpaste and toilet paper… well, you can make them from natural items that are grown or gathered, but trying to flush leaves might clog the drain.

Decision Time

I drove back on Monday the 15th and called my landlord from Redding on my cell phone to give notice. As scary as parts of this whole thing might be, I knew I could do it, that I had to do it in many senses, not just because I was about to become homeless anyway, but for the sake of my mind, body, and soul. I would be gardening up there, eating better food that I grew or gathered myself, getting lots of exercise (hiking, hauling and splitting wood, riding my bike to the mailbox that’s about a mile away), and I would be getting back to realizing many of my dreams, finally! I would figure out how to make the repairs, I would find some sort of work, and I would meet people. I would buy another guitar and start singing again! (or maybe even build one myself… eventually).

A few days later I sent around the email that most of you got, announcing my plans. Many of you have helped out with money, advice, or offers to help me move. I really appreciate it. That has taken a lot of the fear out of making this huge leap. I already bought a bunch of canned and dry goods (veggies, fruit, rice, flour, etc.) and they are up at the cabin now. Look for gifts from the woods to start arriving in your mailboxes sometime next year as I begin canning fruit or crafting interesting stuff!

Well, Michael and I just got back from moving the bulk of my stuff up to the cottage and it was quite a “road trip” as he called it. For those of you who don’t know, Michael is a college buddy who has kept in touch with me all these years and has helped me through a lot of rough patches. I couldn’t have done this move without him and he has, without a doubt, paid back (with interest) all the moves I ever helped him with! We are both worn out and may be a little sick (it was raining up there and a bit chilly but not too cold). Most important, we had fun and survived a few insane days. More on all that later.

Thanks also to those who have donated or lent me money for gas/food or the moving expenses (Alexis and Robin). It was, of course, a bit more expensive than I expected (but just a bit) and there may be other expenses coming up related to switching utilities over, etc., but everything so far has been covered and it has been a big relief. Thanks a ton!

With every day I feel like I am getting further and further behind on relaying these adventures and all the thoughts and feelings that go along with them. All of which is to say: expect a couple more long posts before I get caught up and I apologize for this in advance. I know it is easier to read a few small, quick posts as things are happening, but I got started on the blog kinda late in this whole process. This is just a quick post to let everyone know the move is done and we are back in relatively good health. So bear with me. There are some amazing stories coming up!

I have one post already written on the first two trips up there (which I might break up into a couple shorter posts) and then I will get to the “big move” mid-week or so. But the main news is: it is done. This is really happening! Right now I am sitting in the mess we left behind: piles of dust where furniture was removed, newspapers and trash bags strewn about, styrofoam peanuts scattered across the kitchen floor. All that remains is my computer, one table, one chair, some artwork, the bed and a microwave (plus a few clothes and toothbrush, towels, etc.). The fridge is up at the cabin and running fine from one of the two working outlets that I managed to repair the last trip. Whatever won’t fit in my car on the next trip will go out on the sidewalk (including the bed and computer table).

The next few weeks should be interesting as I wrap up my business down here and finish up (hopefully) the bankruptcy stuff and then I will be off “to the woods!”

Expect the next installment very soon.

P.S. – Expect more images soon too!

As most of you have heard, I’m moving to Oregon at the end of November. I’ll be moving to a good sized cottage near Grants Pass in SW Oregon. It’s a big move, away from all family and friends and probably away from my old career.

This blog is a way to let everyone know what led up to this, what my hopes and fears are, and what progress I make as I begin the move and start a new life in the woods of SW Oregon. I hope to have lots of photos to share eventually too, which should be fun and interesting. Many of you have already heard me relate much of what I will put in this first posting, but I feel the need to get the basics down first, and expand from that.

Why?

So, let’s get right to it: why the move? Basically, I can’t find work or pay my rent or bills at my present location anymore. I will talk about this at more length another time, but, in brief, I had lost hope of being “responsible”, paying off my debts, and perhaps eventually buying a piece of land somewhere where I could do all of the things I really wanted to do “someday” down the road.

At the time I finally realized this, about five weeks ago, I talked to my mother about it a little bit. She reminded me that her neighbor was still looking for tenants for her property in Oregon, was in fact offering free rent in exchange for repairs and/or caretaking. She promptly gave her neighbor a call and I spoke to her briefly and arranged a time to talk more. One thing led to another and I drove up a few days later (mid-October) to visit the cabin. The property is quite large (I forget how many acres, but it’s big), in the low mountains around Grants Pass, covered in woods, and it has a mid-sized house and a cabin a little further back. There is a tenant staying in the house, also making repairs in exchange for rent, but the cabin has been empty for months.

The Cottage

The place is beautiful! I hardly slept the first night I was up there. I kept going outside on the small deck in back to look up at the stars. The cabin sits on the other side of a ridge from Grants Pass (which is about 10-15 miles away as the crow flies) so there are no city lights to ruin the night sky. You can see thousands of stars on a clear night through the gap in the trees around the cabin. The cabin sits on a slope and there is a seasonal stream in the small gully/ravine below. It is “dry” at this time of year but still a bit marshy. I expect it will start running when the rains really get going this Winter. There is a spring just a little ways up the ravine with a Spring Box, tank, and pump that I hope to get working at some point. You can’t see lights anywhere at night. After about 10 p.m. or so, you can’t even hear cars or any other man-made sound.

Wildlife is all around. There’s a deer trail up the hill right by the cabin. There are lots of strange sounds at night and wild turkeys sometimes roost in the trees right around the cabin (hunting and fishing require permits). The trees I can identify so far are a mix of Fir, Oak, Madrone, and Maples (all great for woodworking or heating). Up by the main house, there’s a clearing where I can probably garden come Spring and I plan to have chickens in “free range” run in the small clearing right next to the cabin.

Since the cabin is on a hillside, on stilts, there is space under the house to setup a woodworking shop, or other craft tools. There’s a small shale rock quarry just up the driveway about 100 yards and I think I can use that stone to landscape the area around the cabin (make steps and terraces, etc.). The entire time I was up there my mind was boiling over with ideas for things I could do there, ways I could make a living off the land or supplement it through “arts and crafts” activities. I can’t wait to get back and get started!

Practical Matters

But all that will have to wait for a while. It won’t be easy to leave my old life behind and once I move there will be lots of work to do. The cabin was vandalized some months ago and it needs some new wiring and plumbing for a start, plus new appliances and a new wood stove – which is the primary source of heat. I’ll be moving up there in early December and it is already getting down close to freezing at night.

In fact, there are enough repairs to be done to probably guarantee me free rent for a year or more. In addition to getting water, electricity, and heat going, the place needs some gutters repaired, exterior trim, the exterior wood siding needs to be stained, interior sheetrock here and there where it was never finished or later damaged (and then it will need paint), interior trim, the floors need to be puttied and refinished, kitchen countertops (they are just plywood now), kitchen cabinets, tile under and around the woodstove, and many other little things.

My only expenses will be utilities, food, clothes, and sundries. I may buy some Wood for heating at the start, but it can be had for free from the land itself with a little hard work and sweat (this is very hilly country, with lots of up and down trudging to carry the wood home from where the dead trees are). I came back from my last trip up there aching and with trouble walking for a few days just from carrying the equivalent of five 16″ logs up to the cabin from the ravine in back (ok, they were BIG logs, but I will definitely be getting into much better shape up there, just to keep warm).

How will I afford even those few expenses when I don’t yet have work up there? I estimate that, living very simply, all of the above expenses will cost me about $300/month. Many of you have chipped in to cover my moving expenses and give me some money for food and utilities for the first few months. I also serendipitously received some back-pay from a contract I did in 2006. The check was a long time in coming, but it arrived at just the right time! Beyond that, I expect to get my deposit back on my current apartment in December sometime and probably a tax refund early next year, so my expenses are probably covered for quite a while, if I live simply. You might think this will be a huge change for me, but, in fact, I have been living with a very small food budget off and on for years now. I have made an art of “kitchen sink” soup, and I enjoy baking my own bread.

But to make this work, I have to get rid of all of my other debts. I’ve simply been out of work too long. There are a lot of reasons for this, and I will talk about some of them later, but for now let’s just take it as given that I have to cut expenses to make this new start work. Rent will be taken care of, but I am behind on payments to my credit cards and I don’t know when I will have the kind of income required to make regular payments again (much less the missed payments). So, I decided that I have to declare bankruptcy. Even if I weren’t moving to this great place with free rent, I can’t afford to pay my bills here and now, much less pay the rent where I have been living.

After several weeks working on it, I finally filed the papers Wednesday, November 7th. I may have to stay in Berkeley as much as a week later than I’d planned in order to attend the “Creditors Meeting”, but that will probably be the only meeting I have to attend and a few months later (in all likelihood) all my debts will be permanently discharged. That will be a huge load off my back and it will be a big part of making a new start up North.

Don’t get the wrong impression: while my expenses are covered for a while, I do plan to look for work once I move. From what I’ve seen so far there aren’t a lot of positions for writers of any sort being advertised in that area but there are plenty of other jobs I might qualify for and I won’t need a big income (for a while at least). Beyond that, as I mentioned earlier, the cabin itself and the land around it are giving me all sorts of fantastical ideas about alternative ways to make a living.

In my next post I will be talking about the first couple trips I have made up to the cabin and some of my hopes and fears relating to my new future there. But feel free to post comments or questions and I will try to respond to those too.