camp « Robin Writes

I did a radio interview last week, and the DJ ran down my bio before introducing me; a friend who listened asked me later, “What about driving a bus? You forgot that!” I had, indeed.

I’ve held a lot of jobs over the years; nothing I could call a career, but that didn’t really interest me. A career, I mean. I had a lot of entrepreneurial ideas, since I was a teenager at least, but my dad always said the road the security was to get a good job with a good company and stay there. Funny, since he was a farmer/politician. I found out later that he told my sister the exact opposite: work for yourself. Weird.

As a kid, I wanted a job. I knew about work, for sure, but I actually, you know, wanted to get paid. Make some money. Have the freedom that goes along with making that money.

The local bowling alley was hiring, so I talked my mom into taking me up there. I was 15, and I convinced them to hire me—with Mom’s permission, of course, since I was really too young to legally work without it. I ran the snack bar, met some people, even covered for the bartender once—shhh!

It lasted about six months or so. My dad got tired of picking me up at 3:00 a.m.

After that, I exercised racehorses one summer, and after high school graduation, I went to work at Girl Scout camp for a few summers. I dropped out the beginning of my sophomore year, in spite of parental threats, and got a job selling advertising for the Missouri State Troopers’ magazine. That was . . . interesting.

I drove all over Mid-Mo until one day, when I got to the office, no one was there. I mean, no one, nothing, nada. So I got on the phone. Finally found this company in Springfield; they’d packed up and neglected to pay anyone.

What did I do? Why, I offered to drive down to Springfield and work out of the office there—and they agreed to pay me what they already owed. They did, and I kept working there for a couple more months. Drove from Columbia every Monday, stayed in the dorms with a friend all week while I worked the area, and drove back home on Fridays.

You can read the rest of my bio here, but about that bus driving job:

In January 1988, I applied to be a school bus driver. They started me off driving the so-called short bus that carried behaviorally disabled kids to and from elementary school. It was easy enough work, although we had a few icy days that winter and I did get stuck once. At a school; they’d cleaned the front circle, but some of us had pickup in the back. Guess they forgot that little fact.

Anyway, the kids were awful. Awful! They bickered constantly, cursed continuously, and often threatened that “my daddy gonna beat yo ass” if I ever dared to tell them to be quiet. Sitting down wasn’t an issue, surprisingly.

One day, having just picked them up, I was driving down a wide, semi-busy road. Two of the kids got into a fierce argument, and one of them jumped up, ran to the front, and grabbed my two-foot-long-plus ice scraper, screaming that he was going to kill the other kid.

My arm flashed up as he pulled back to let fly, and I grabbed that scraper and hung on. The kid came to a standstill, nearly falling on his face. I pulled over, set the brake, and whipped off my seatbelt, clanging it against the side window.

By this time, the kid had slunk back to his seat. I stood up, waving that scraper and hollered, “Sit down and shut up! All of you! I’ve had enough of this crap—knock off the cussing, knock off the fighting, and no more threats!”

Got back in my seat, pulled into traffic, and had the quietest bus in the fleet for the rest of that route.

They never gave me any more trouble. None. In fact, one day, another driver yelled at me and claimed I’d clipped his mirror when I pulled out of a school. I certainly hadn’t, but my kids heard him and responded:

“My daddy gonna beat yo ass!”

This weekend, we went back to look at the “barn property.” You have to understand something: where we’re looking for land is covered with county roads, CRs, and they all have numbers. And you know how well I work with numbers! So we could call them CR-124 or CR-131 or whatever, and we’d be, literally, all over the map. Of course, I still haven’t figured out counties number these things; as soon as it starts to make some kind of sense, they change the rules . . .

Anyway, the property is 42 acres, roughly one-third pasture. Not exactly what I was envisioning, but it has a lot of good qualities. I think this could work. Most of the woods are on a hill, and surround the property. County road frontage—gravel—and a back way in too. Electric on site, no well, but there is a live creek bordering the entire west side.

The front pasture is fenced, about seven acres, with an adjoining barn. A really big one, too, but unfortunately it’s in really, really bad shape. I think there’s more roof missing than still attached, and the inside is rotting quite a lot. But there’s the electric—ha!

Straight back through the front “gate,” which is just a cable now, there is an opening to the back pasture; that’s about seven acres as well, rough estimate.

First things first: we need better measurements and an official plat, of course, to know the particulars, but the plan is to purchase over the winter, in the next month or so, this section or maybe another—hard to say, and still keeping our options open, but we’re getting close.

However, IF we were to buy this piece, here are our starter ideas (keeping in mind, of course, that the actual move date is June 1, 2016—not THIS June!):

First, we need a driveway; gravel, of course. This requires removal of topsoil, grass, etc., before the first layer of gravel is put down. I’m certainly not opposed to driving through the meadow, but mud could be a factor at some point—not sure AAA comes out there! So, remove topsoil, pack it, three layers of gravel. The entire process is not a rush job, as the more we drive it, the more each layer gets packed down.

Second, build a latrine and put in a solar shower. We’ll be camping out and working down there for a year or so before we actually finish the cabin, so, yeah . . .

Third, a kitchen shelter—my camp peeps will know exactly what it’s going to look like! Counters, a couple picnic tables, a stone barbeque pit, and cabinets for cookware storage.

Fourth, we’re putting in a pond, in the front pasture. Dennis likes to fish, we have a feeder creek, and the livestock will need it too. So, Number Four, dig a really big hole. And build a dock. And maybe get a canoe . . . Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself . . .

Next, plow up the garden. We’ll plant some things this spring, like asparagus and strawberries. And gourds; I have a market for those. We’ll put in the fruit trees then, too.

After that, we just need to decide where the outbuildings will go: general storage, woodshed/fuel, toolshed/shop, pump house and food storage. And the cabin, of course.

Once those are staked out, we can decide where to drill the well and get that taken care of—yes, we’ll be hauling water for a bit, but that’s doable.

Now, my original plan was to have, like Mike said, the cleared acreage in the middle of the property. Well, that seems to be quite difficult to find, at least in our price range. So, we may have to make do.

There are always compromises, and I can tell you about a big one—cell service. Yes, I’m planning on self-sufficiency, but I also have a company to run. So, yeah, that whole “out in the middle of nowhere, but with WiFi?” Yep, that’s me.