chopping water and hauling wood

We belong to the order of monks that chop water and haul wood, ( instead of the other way around) and as my husband said this morning, thanks for loading the fire, we load the fire. 

Last weekend i visited such monks in their cabin along the river.  They said their 250 gallon  tank last 4 weeks. It looks the size of our hauling tank, which is 250 gallon. ( our indoor tank is 1500 liter, 420 gallon)  (it is all a bit weird i guess, gallons/liters, we use gallons when it comes to water, but we buy gasoline by the liter, whatever.)

Anyway i was surprised, Don and i get  the same amount of water at least every ten days, so we can do better then that right?

Now i am not going to give up on my bath, which i probably take once every ten days. (and i probably have one shower in that amount of days)

 Yet I can learn something from them when it comes to water use! and at the end of this post, i tell you how i did!

But first the chopping water part. Yes yesterday we had to chop. Not always:) and we do not actually use that term. We do haul wood , every morning, a tabagon full. and we do load the fire, several times a day. 

For our drinking water we go to Stony Creek. And ten days ago there was lots of open water. and as for my polar dip practice it is hard now to find open water, so i was going to dip in Stony Creek while we get water. Not so!

 Another monk was standing at the creek when we arrived.

Tt hasn't been that cold lately but the creek was  frozen over  quite solid, the regular hole  that is being kept open by all who 'chop' water here was 3 feet deep and in the bottom a film of ice and only half a foot of water underneath that. Normally we dip our blue jugs in at least 2 feet of water. Talking to the other monk, who brought blue jugs, a dipper, but no axe. Yes, we have an axe! He admired our axe,  i did not know it was special. Don says it has an ox-head blade, and came from Germany! i never knew.  So we, Junior and I take turns chopping, but really it is not going to work  we will be chopping for an hour to make the hole wide enough for the blue jug, and the water level being so low.Also filling the blue jug with your dipper is...a lot of work.

Junior walks a ways up creek, i follow, he finds another hole, which is much better, in no time we have a hole in the ice that we can dip our blue jugs into a foot of water, good enough. I fill the jugs ( half due to low water level ) and he makes full jugs, by pouring one in the other.

But this post is about doing dishes! now i do dishes twice a day (we cook 3 meals a day, so we do have quite a bit of dishes. even if we use our same bowl at times. for sure the same cup. I now use 5 liters of water total per day to do dishes, and with that i even have enough to clean the counters and stove top.

No dishwasher needed, which saves me in space and energy. In winter our hot water comes from the woodstove.  250 ways to do the dishes i like to say when it comes to different opinions about anything. So now i do dishes this way:  my dishes are pre-rinsed and wiped clean during the day, with handwashing water, vegetable rinse water, whatever water that ends up in the sink.  when times comes to do the dishes, i take two small bowls of hot water, one soapy, one not. I fill one sink with the wiped but still ditry dishes, the bowls sit on the counter. I dip my cloth in the hot soapy water and wash above the dirty dishes. Rinsing: then i pour some clear hot waterover the dish above the soapy bowl.  And really! clean dishes, with a little more vigilance are the result!

niksen

 Of course i like the word 'niksen'. A dutch word, meaning; doing nothing.

I like i because i would say 'niksen' is a very environmentally friendly activity. No energy or resource being used.

The word 'niksen' has been popping up, and as i have grown up in the netherlands, friends here in Canada will send me articles.

Note i am no expert on anything dutch, I  grew up there, but are more of a Mendenhalite  (lived for almost 30 years in the mendenhall subdivision.) and i have learned not to generalize behavior.

My experience with niksen, is just that, 'my' experience. Not even my brother's ( I will ask him).

Yes, i grew up with the word. Despite my  slightly calvinistic upbringing, niksen  was  somewhat allowed. For sure, niksen was done on a regular base.  If I had to do my home work, or housework, it was ok to be found doing nothing, but ' you better get on with it attidtude was expressed.

I think it was most allowed for old people,

I suppose even my 'oma' was never truly doing 'niksen' she would be sitting  seemingly doing nothing, but she would be sitting on a handkerchief to iron it, not having to use an iron.

Also what comes to mind  is what the word is not; 

to me it is not meditating ( yet it occurs to me that is the best form of meditation, because  you truely do nothing, no judgements .

it is not  sitting perse,  not enjoying, it is not sulking, it is not relaxing.

To me it is more to be in limbo.  but to be ok with that, not frantically trying to figure out what to do next.

I wonder what your experience is with this word, do you have a Dutch background, or have you read about it?

I am glad that i grew up with it. As I am waiting for daylight, i will do a bit of it after i post this, and know from now on i will miss the morning darkness which is soon to be over for next half year.

haha Don is calling me for a game of trionimos

back away, record and report

 hmm, yes i agree but maybe we should add that as in the schoolyard... we should have a common understanding that bullying is not acceptable.

Yesterday i had a n interesting experience. I felt that i was drawn into an argument... do note that i always admit to the fact that i am a somewhat argumentive person. Not always knowing when it is a fair debate or when i just contradict what you say.

I backed off, and while working in the yard cleaning up branches from a fallen tree. a job i love. my mind kept going back to the email in which i felt, this is only going to be an argument. I had not emailed back right away. AIn the yard my mind also wanders to wars in the world. 

When backing away does the other person think  he was right in his/her statements? I wondered.

On the radio now, another such story, hockey Canada and charges being laid. 

As a people we have to establish that violence of any kind is not acceptable. yes?

Already this morning my story had a very happy ending.  Last night i did send an email, I backed away from the argument, but  kept the conversation going in a more desired direction. The response i got was  lovely, kind, glorious really Me here humbled and grateful for good friends who get it.

I will write my MP again, that at least Canada is not supporting retalliations.

I hold all my heart to see which bully in the world is backing away and  pray for both coming out  as loving after all.

Something like that.

peace to you all!