Can you believe that there still exists places with no internet? Better yet, with no electricity? Well, believe it, my family's cabin is one of these places. Every opportunity we get, we go there. Speaking of which, this is where we spent Easter and in the summer, it's where we go berry picking.
You don't realize how much background noise there is in your home until it's not there anymore. Seriously. It's actually kind of scary when you hear complete silence. Did you know that your body creates anti wavelengths to cancel out the sound of background electricity and surrounding household/city noise? When it disappears your body feels so much lighter and less tense.
Going there in the winter is quite an adventure. Since there is no electricity, the water pipes are frozen... Which means, no warm water for showers (actually, that means no water, period) and don't get me started on going to the bathroom! What we do is we dig a big hole in the lake and fill up huge buckets (melting snow works too, ah!). We boil the water on our heavy-duty slow-combustion iron stove and wash ourselves with a hand towel. For drinking, we bring bottled water.
Winter days up here are very short; the sun sets at around 4pm. After dark we don't go outside much, because with no street lights, it's dark. Very dark. Like, really really really dark. We will usually have supper shortly after, around 5 or 6. Bed time is usually not long to follow. It's amazing how quickly you get tired when you don't have good lighting (propane lights as opposed to electric fixtures).
This is me pulling my son around on the frozen lake. He loves his sled. The weather was absolutely amazing and the sun was shining, we just had to spend some quality time outside. Breathing. Pure. Air. Is. So. Yum.
The cabin is actually quite old. It reached 100 years a while back (the chapel is a few years younger). There's a few other cabins around the lake, owned by old family friends or extended family members. In the summer, every Sunday, we go to the chapel and read texts out of the bible together as a community. Afterwards we gather around outside for a while and chat, just like old times.
What is your favorite place to go to relax?
This sounds really challenging but so relaxing. I think it would be good for everyone to have a get away like that.
ReplyDeletemerveilleux et superbe a voir
ReplyDeletemerci mon oncle!! contente de voir que tu visites mon blog! ca me fait vraiment plaisir. j'ai hate de vous voir toi et ma tante! :)
ReplyDeleteit sounds challenging, but it totally isn't, getting your basic necessities is all you have to do all day. makes you go outside, grab some fresh air, come back to the basics. i love it. what do you like to do to relax?
ReplyDeleteI love beaches too but we don't have many here. It's sad. I guess I'm lucky my husband is Mexican, at least we can go to beaches in Mexico once in a while!
ReplyDeleteWinter isn't too bad, you dress up really warm and you don't feel it as much. Plus you get used to it. What I find hard is going from -2 to +27 Celsius in less than a week... ouch.
And yes, going back to the basics, I totally reconnect. It's nice to... disconnect! AH! :)