The Rules of Living in a Small Space

We hear a rooster in the mornings, greeting the dawn with a time-honored "karck-a-doodle-doo", but this afternoon we had the distinct pleasure of a visit from a neatly turned out Rhode Island Red hen, picking her way across the grass. Our spot borders a row of houses, and one of them obviously has a flock of chickens. I love chickens, and to have one as a visitor is an unexpected pleasure. I took her picture, rather poor quality but through screen wire, and she was in deep shade with brilliant sunlight between me and her. At least you can see it's a chicken - I think. Idn't she cute?

Tony just asked how I'm finding housekeeping in the trailer, as opposed to keeping house in the apartment. I've wanted to live in a small space for a long time, for both ecological and philosophical reasons. As Peace Pilgrim said, "Consume to your level of need."

In general I think we need a great deal less than we consume. I think of all the stuff we left behind, and wonder why we even had much of it. Most of it was rarely used, some of it was never used. I may purge again within a few weeks. But I'm finding that the rules of living in this tiny space are:

• Immediately clean anything you've dirtied.
  
• Immediately put away anything you've used, in the same place you took it from.
  
• Dump the waste tank every day.
  
• Make sure you have clean water to drink.
  
• Make sure you have "Wet Ones" and paper towels. I never used disposable paper products at home but they are a necessity now, at least until we get our running water back.
  
• Walk the rotten cat at least three times a day to try and wear him down so he'll sleep at night.
  

So far the last rule hasn't worked. The Red Rascal woke me at least 10 times last night, wanting to play, wanting to smooch, wanting to snack, wanting to go outside. Today I'll walk him more often, and hope he sleeps tonight.

He's clever though. The mornings are quite cool, down to seven degrees yesterday morning. I turned on the electric panel heater yesterday at about 5:00 am, and this morning the cat wanted me to turn it on again. He kept jumping on it and meowing at me until I got up and turned it on about 6:00 am. He then curled up in his box near the heater and slept.

I am enjoying using things I hardly used at home like my flower bowls, and the pretty cups and my beautiful pinwheel quilt. It's easy to have a beautiful small space with very few things. We haven't had the energy to dig out the box with the pictures, so the walls are still bare, but I suspect we will hang about a quarter of what I brought. More would seem overkill. Guess we'll rotate pictures.

So far the experiment in small space living is going well. Except for the internet and e-mail aggravation we are doing well.