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"Robinson" ou the wild life
This space is devoted to those who for economic reasons or simply by redefining their way of life have opted for alternative habitat like hut, shack, little cottage, yurt, etc. .... We welcome their testimonies of the joys and difficulties it faced in their quest. Their vision of freedom, views on the autonomy, energy and financial support.
The spirit of the return to nature is present in all of us, especially if you are on this site. Yet another life close to nature is often a rocking into the unknown, a new dimension in a larger and more solitary. A new and more intense over itself. Things to manage, not always obvious to continue to create and build their lives. Often a project is the firm recommended visa.
Lucas exodus
Recalled after a request for information on saunas, and the turbines contact on the box, Lucas has kindly issue the reality of what he calls his "rural" and we asked him to kindly bring a witness on the quest of his liberty without photos at the moment. Pros and cons.
I am writing these few sentences by one morning this winter, which has not spared. Freshness early then unabated, have successively rain, cold and snow. This morning it's very beautiful, the sun is present and the best is yet to come.
A very good weather too, I remember accompanying my first real "rendezvous" with this corner. It was a good omen, I said to myself. Not long ago in sum, as my exodus occurred in April 2001.
I was sure my revolution of the 21st century and especially in my thirties. I gave up my apartment, my 3 "credit cards" loyalty, my season ticket parking downtown,wind up my receipts varied. The social security would be transferred later.
The day I was handed some effect on my business and my official car had been made a week earlier. It would seem that the functions do not justify a presence during the month of notice. I had the opportunity therefore to find a quick and cost break and make a grand tour in deposits sales. I no longer had much time for small ads and I also enjoy the friends of various gadgets and a wide variety…
The friends were not too far: 100 Miles maximum, it is not the end of the world. And with a hilarious smile that I took the road due north and an hour and a half later I was in my woods near these walls to retype. I had good ideas for the renovation, and the urge came to me as helping my uncle a few times in Montana. This time it would be of the party from time to time, its tools and its generator continuously, and we had programmed the end of work for the month of September.
The program on this hut 22m2 ground: the roof: a beam to change and a dozen m2 old tiles to restore full. Then 20m2 floor curled from the floor, removing and replacing achieve insulation of the roof, roughness" plastered walls on the first floor and renovate the coated with lime to the ground floor. Finally, install the conduit for the stove and then renovate the tread, fix floor wood, isolate and put a floor again. It sounds very simple once finished.
Time passed quickly to the rhythms of days filled, weekends Paellas, Chile and barbecues for friends came to the rescue share my dream with the sleeves up and planting igloos on the yellowing grass. The contruction of the hut progressed. Moments very nice, but who would inevitably s'espacer with the end of the season.
In late September, I was installed and leave the caravan which I served as a home for four months. We even had new windows installed and implemented an opening and a corner shower with a large part carried out in double-glazed panels, and close ups and pan: My TV to me. The toilets have been installed the shed in the yard.
I had water supplies natural recovery and need 6 to 20-liters remaining post in the break. Two batteries of heavy trucks and the group were housed in a niche (Solar arrived in 2004). A Coleman lamp, a car radio tapes player, 4 lamps 12 V and a gas cooker was my only comfort. Without forgetting the stove that I chose glass by the presence and need additional light.
It was time to dig into my new life. I knew that I had to make concessions to be free. I chose independence in the absence of anarchy. I did not forget that I used the system as roads, post, FM reception, relief if need be, and a lot of things for which it was, I knew in advance the maximum preserve the integrity of my choice. My first rule was not to return to a large area. Gambling light with the markets, traders, flea markets, classified ads, and I confess: a list every two months handed to my friend restaurateur when its supplies. I have not boosted the Asian market during these few years except for the purchase of a mobile phone and currently have a portable computer also allows me today on my terrace typing this message and purchase the occasion. My second rule was to remain independent vis a vis the services of the state and gossip of villagers working as a first step in the renovation and then as a deliveryman. The trades of rough times, but rewarding.
The winters were long, beginning with contacts rare moments of solitude steady but I kept permanently the impression of my adventure. Friendships have been created, often caused by a similar path.
But the merger with nature is there, in my home, on hiking tours, visits to farms, small palaces of former seventies-men or parts of the fly fishing and crayfish. Things are simple and the beauty of the place make me also say that when the envelope is taken, there is a lot in the woods. And that thought always comes back to me when I returned from travel and pass the turn which will release my little valley.
Jack, a traveller at the countryside
Jack rose from the big city to the countryside in the late 70's, his license geo in the reserve, the idea of trying his entry into national education in the event of war, in case of crisis .. ., but there have been or at least this is not done.
Riding a goped he visited his future hectare of wood and its small sheep pen totalling 60 M2 on two levels, one evening after his roofing job he had started 4 months earlier. He tells us about his way of life without infusion but without pay in the rejection of civilization.
"I said yes on the ground and took 2 months of wages to settle the seller and my boss made me notary fees, in any event he advised me to buy a ground without delay. Gradually, I renovated this small cottage. (Initially, it was thought that was the Bilbo the hobbit hut)
The South West was not my final destination, then I did in fact do not. 30 later, but I am still half time. The choice was not in vain because I bump into renovation and carpentry from mid March to mid November, and I am the rest of the time abroad. The job of roofer me an absence made it difficult winter. This job allows me to mixed spend the cold season in places more attractive and I take advantage of valleys and plateaus by the bloom at the end of ceps and chestnuts.
In fact, I have been subscribed to electricity, telephone, and even canal until 1997 and since then I have stopped at odds with the current trend or homes totaled 150 euros per month or once they catch mobile connections, satellite TV, Internet and phone not counting drinks. Personally this budget represents two flights secs back and far enough for my wife and me.
My connection to the world is via the airport, which does not prevent me to drag from time to time in a cyber and have a map mobi 6 months of the year already for the job.
Otherwise the summer, ç'est a little back and forth, friends, musicians, friends travel, and I circulate outfitted two wooden boxes (huts Ed) including one that serves me, after the summer, sauna. I use a generator and solar panels for hot water and recharging batteries park.
The reception TV is not really good but it is long enough for a few broadcasts, if ç'est movie because and I get the traditional VHS recorder often for the symbolic "box" at flea markets.
Otherwise distractions here through music and artists from all buddies hair, enduro, hiking, a little caving and climbing. The inescapable garden: it is not my thing, but ç'est welcome for compost and vegetables this summer.
Ode to the wind sell
Emma makes us the pleasure of telling us four years of his life in his cabin, I would say no more: Clap!
When I saw the photo of that cabin on the small computer screen Merchant well, I knew from the outset that it was carved for me. Or me for it. It did, however, a piece of brown roof produced at large penalty of a tangle of pins, and a wealth of grass around it.
The road winds from the village until the early hills in the woods nearby. Hidden by a beech hedge the little house is invisible. It monitors the top of its hill woods and surrounding fields. We need to climb up a steep path well, between a row of trees and wild pine planted manmade and ravaged by the recent storm. The hut is perched there, in a clearing, in total silence. Just calm the circle with a nozzle above it. Since the covered gallery, I extend the landscape. Silence. An apple enlace a young oak tree right in front of me, extends its branches in bloom in the middle of acorns. More below, a sort of lodgepole pine seems to come from Japanese prints. There. I said "I take" and the nozzle has punctuated a long high-pitched scream. Smile.
I lived there four years. The cabin is small, just a piece indeed, and a gallery in the south. There is no electricity and no water. I go out just a big traditional farmhouse de l'Aube, and must therefore separate me from my furniture, my electric unnecessary utensils (refrigerator, coffee maker, vacuum) with unconcealed delight. I am settling as a hermit in the subsistence minimum I am looking for for so long. What was there really need to say? All this is the delight of friends and… gives me my freedom and my simplicity. I keep my books. I am still librarian… it does not deceive. I love to be able to open haphazard, here on the porch in the sun. And read passages aloud to chickadees. I climbed a wall full of shelves reserved for books. For the rest, a series of cushions at an angle, a stove, a coffee table, a gas stove and pans for washing, a mattress in the corner room. That's it. I have just returned from a march in Compostela, and I kept the pleasure of what I call the strictly necessary. I am happy not only sufficient, but I would say that for certain things, it is akin to the already redundant.
Every night, I look forward with pleasure the perfect time which falls on the day to give way to the stars. I do not candles before that time. I remain seated for hours outside, watching night fall. It is a luxury I have time. I have the time to pass the time. It happen often been sleeping outside on the porch. Even a luxury. The light candles is warm, almost Solar. And I am always surprised at my friends when they light their lamps, if aggressive. I lost the habit. At such a point that four years later, in my house acquired in the winter, every night for a good couple of weeks, I will seek to touch matches without thinking one second that I just have to put his finger on a button …
At the hut, I have a large water reservoir sandstone, which keeps me cool water even at the height of summer. I take my showers between three tall pines odorous, a canvas stretched between them, with an effective system of camping black plastic. There is nothing more wonderful than to take a shower outside in the sun among the pines. Another luxury…
I rediscovered the passing of the seasons, with such gentleness, such perfection. They spend with their smells, their colors, their lights particular… I re-learn to read the arrival of thunderstorms at what instant winter is more than a puppet of snow that still struggles with the … presence spring I discovered the taste fabulous huge apples in October that gives me an apple tree lying by the storm of 1999.
Every moment is a haiku offered to the present. Some nights, the flowers of the cherry are more bright as the stars.
I have some regular guests, who have come to accept my silent presence: a fox, which comes every evening at the same times. A hare running through the high ground. A large black woodpecker whose plaintive cry so surprised me the first day. And of course buses. In season, from the dark, I am at the centre of the slab deer. The deer are grazing in the meadow and issue short barking dogs if I make a gesture. The wild boar, which farfouillent noisily under oaks. The chickadees are music lovers, at the cabin. They remain perched near the gallery, on the young apple, ceasing all activity as soon as I put "Salve Regina" by Vivaldi (Yes, I kept the radio.… With batteries)
From my room, I see three pine branches. It is planted there, only to have weathered the storm on this side of the field, as the undisputed master of the premises. From inside the cabin, I live nature: wood leak clearly sounds from outside. Birds, rain, hail, wind in the leaves, apples falling pine on the roof… everything is music. I am in and out in a single motion. My nights are bercées nature. This silence rustling of life I miss home so much!
Over time I organize myself: small garden well straw to prevent water shortages, and simple planting of wildflowers, a rose bush with tiny white flowers, a Virginia ivy leaf color in fall flames After… work, I quietly cutting wood on the ground to clear gradually space of grass. I see that the forest resumed its rights, and hundreds of young shoots of beeches, oaks, alisiers, pins emerge from the soil, through the chaos of trees uprooted in 1999. In a few years, who will remember this yet? The forest? Certainly not…
I remain serene to the disbelief of colleagues and people who do not know me well. What say? This lifestyle is not evidence in itself, I have nothing to prove to them. I chose here which is deep inside me. It is necessary to say "What do you think I am afraid? "With a smile, explaining that no, it's not a lifestyle that you can advocate for everybody, it is exclusively a personal diving in the harmony between nature and me. Or even say nothing at all. Here everything is measured by the yardstick of silence and pace. And childhood memories, in a chalet at the top Austrian Tyrol.
Four years. I left as a gift for my pin few tears in its three arms, on the day of my departure. Elsewhere I start a project of straw and wood house bioklimatske new adventure, new discoveries that perhaps harmony with a place to live and a commitment to human beings. But I do not forget… it is highly probable that one day, again, the hermit in me tip his nose and urges me: will live in the hut…
Martine house -Dersou Ouzala-
My house in the Forest
"In my house, you come, in fact it is not my house, I do not know who she is, I went like that one day, there was nobody. "
Jacques PREVERT, Paroles. Extract from : « In my house ».
I was still last night in the hut. It really is a wonderful place to live, which is shared with other hikers that you do not usually, but leaving traces of their passage benevolent generally in the form of wood, candles, drawings on the walls , a little routine maintenance. Let me at least once a week in this shack, which is my "headquarters", my breath of fresh air, in front of the beautiful mountain of Donon ..
Donon massif december 2000
I was still last night in the hut. It really is a wonderful place to live, which is shared with other hikers that you do not usually, but leaving traces of their passage benevolent generally in the form of wood, candles, drawings on the walls , a little routine maintenance. Let me at least once a week in this shack, which is my "headquarters", my breath of fresh air, in front of the beautiful mountain of Donon ...
"My house in the forest" is not up to me and does not seem to belong to anyone. It offers modest "comfort" to all those who cross the threshold, hikers seeking shelter, one-night partygoers, loggers, or "hermits Sunday," like me, looking for a bit of calm .
My house in the woods is minuscule, but I feel so good! She has a small awning, a door, full of windows and almost no walls. The interior is summarily furnished with a table, two benches, two-door and coats, supreme luxury, a large stone fireplace sandstone. The soil is clay covered with gravel. Light enters through six windows with ... 25 tiles!
I counted this morning because last week by storing wood, I have broken one. Simple strips of newsprint have enough to take action and I just barely make a change. The sealant does not dry because it is cold, but it made me very happy to replace the old tile dull and broken by a new, transparent everything! Suddenly, I wanted to change another, next door, cracked by other occupants. And I did. All these windows make the house very bright and provide details of the landscape 18O degrees, were safely sheltered and warm.
I write on the table, back heated by the fire, looking from time to time in front of me ferns redheads undulating in the wind. To my right, other ferns, and spruce forest, a remnant of the 1999 storm, a large root whose arm gesticulent in every sense as a Hindu deity. To my left, the antenna and the Temple of Donon play hide and seek with the mist. Behind me finally, the forest always and a big pile of wood protected by a plastic sheeting woven white. The interior walls are lined the refuge of the same material, simply stapled.
It reminds me of the cushions embroidered with bright colours adorning the Berber tent in Morocco, which are made with the same fabric and Chloo, a charming girl nomadic I photographed in full swing. This privileged spot me for many years and it seems normal to watch over him regularly carrying empty bottles and other rubbish left behind by some casual visitors, put some wood under the canopy to dry, Leave some candles, matches or fire thinking of the next. Other people do a little maintenance and some repairs, but I have not encountered. I cherish this little house, which makes me think of one of my films "cult" Dersu Uzala, KUROSAWA, an absolute reference with regard to the "mind-bivouac."
It is in this sense that I have seen fit to add to the furniture of a humble metal shovel, handy for cleaning the home and lay the cold ashes. A stranger had left an axe who disappeared shortly thereafter. Maybe he recovered? My shovel does not arouse any for the moment lust. It is so nice to spend a few quiet hours! Whether it is good to read, write, dream, make a siesta on a bench in front of the fire, or enjoy succulent grilled with some friends. In light romantic candlelight, it is a pleasure to listen to the hiss rain on the tin roof, the wind screaming in the woods or watching the snow fall, the smell is so cool mixes with that of a wood fire …Martine schnoering
Julia is back
Julie returns from trip, she returned from the United States, it gives us his impressions and the lack of what she had left. It also offers us his watercolors.
That's me who Julie returns from the United States to France, regain its good bread, and good cheese. Bridges Lyon whose names I know. Cars are human-size, rather than size-ing. In one of them with Simon and the madman who took us a lift, I look at the France out of the window. There is a change from real stone houses; someone took the time to put stone on stone because he believed it could be pretty.
It happens. Here, a small nowhere in the middle of the country. Simon tells me that if my backpack was not fuss j'entendrai as there is nothing to hear. No cars on the road, no barking dogs, no airplanes passing.
We approach the pretty house of Richard and Nanon, with Richard inside. It laughs with a little. Then we go to the cabin to see the head of Guillaume when he will learn that I came back to France.
This way, I saw on Google Earth. But I did not understand. Satellites they do not see the mud or the dry leaves that remain on the oaks. They do not show the need to climb to get to the hut, a hill dressed with small trees and moss brilliant.
Above Guillaume ago with a smile as big as mine. He says hello. And there is the cabin, not at all like in my head. Larger, more real. The photographs, it only shows that in both, we can not reach them all. But known for the true, the cabin has become a personality. To enter, on the approach, we circles; once in continuing spiral around the trunk of a tree that comes through the roof.
On the first floor, we can also go out on the balcony of a sudden there was space in the world. By monitoring the view from the height of a tree, we realized that a hut, it exists without the wood around, then the wood is a play with us too. A nice lounge where they would want to invite the world. Come on, we go through the door from the balcony. In the kitchen was a big pebble invited to keep us company. It is supported. A small stove warms us tea, but not yet the pieces because mud walls are only half mounted at the moment. Still already seen the views of wood through the windows, and reduced frames large and small wood is no less beautiful. Neither converted into a hut elsewhere. It looks like the tree trunks are glad to be
Give to a project so full of life.
What we did not see in the pictures, it's like you feel there. Yes, it is sometimes necessary to remember bowing their heads so as not to bump against the beam, but there is ample space to live without voûter. A life-size human, not size-ing.