I started to do this last year.
I set up a site that later turned out to be too hard to use and update. I chose the name based on my plans to take my green van, my Turtle Shell, on the road. I did the mini-build on said van in preparation with only a little help from the hubby. I stocked it up and we took it on a campout at my daughter's in Minnesota. I was set and ready to go. I wasn't sure where but I was going.
And then, well, you know.
With everything shutting down, activities being canceled, civil unrest, and so on this was definitely NOT the time to be traveling. Or much of anything else. Even crafting seemed pointless without any of my groups or anyone else to share them with. What was the point of filling up the overcrowded shed with more things in boxes?
Honestly, I spent several months curled up on the couch playing silly little video games and watching videos. Wasting off the days. It got a little dark.
One of those videos was a guy from the UK who does bush-craft videos (TA Outdoors, check him out. He's pretty cool). How to start a campfire, build shelters, tie knots, cook over a fire, and try not to die when you go outside. Stuff like that. The video that dragged me in was one in which they built a variation of a Celtic roundhouse.
Did I mention I love Celtic anything? Or that it had been a dream of mine to have a yurt or roundhouse of some sort?
The video series grabbed my attention for what they were building, but also HOW they were building. They had done stuff like this many times but this was a bigger project. And they didn't have any instructions. They were sort of making it up as they went along. Sometimes they made small mistakes but they fixed them when necessary, and then learned from them and moved on. It was great, It made me feel like it was okay to mess up. It was okay to just try.
The funny thing is I am NOT an outdoorsy person generally. The family joke is that I don't do outside because the air will get on me. But suddenly I felt motivated to go out into the woods behind our house and see what I could do.
The nice thing is that there was no real pressure. There was a lot of standing deadwood in the woods around our house. Something that needed cleaned out anyway. If I messed up or got bored the worst that would happen is that wood would get used for the woodstove in the house instead of cool shelters and camping stuff.
So outside I headed. Did I mention I live in northern Wisconsin? And it was November? Weirdly we have had a nice winter and I have been able to be outside a lot. Hours on end sometimes. The days I can't I spend looking up more how-to videos. It wasn't long before poor husband was hearing things like, "Hey, did you know you can start a fire with certain tree fungi? Or cattail fuzz?" and "Did you know lichen is edible, sort of?"
But he is a good sport and for Christmas he gave me a draw knife (he's such a romantic) and the cutest little kettle for cooking at my campfire.
So far I haven't gotten bored, I have gotten back into shape a bit, we have cleaned out most of our couple acres, I've listened to birds chirp, I have a cool new 'fort' to play in, and I 've learned some new stuff.
And I have found more reasons to get off the couch.
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