Today--not a moment sooner is the perfect time to begin this blog. I won’t spend a lot of time telling you about my homesteading background right now. I’ll get to that in due time. I have practiced self-reliance since 1987---the year I left my yuppie life in Southern California and began this odyssey. It all began in Washington State where I spent five years earning my chops. Focusing on organic gardening, raising farm animals, learning and practicing long term food storage, and preserving: canning, dehydrating, making butter and cheese—you know the drill. After that I moved to North Carolina and there my focus was aimed at the sustainable ag movement and my knowledge deepened around organic gardening: soil science, Master Gardener class, organic certification and farm inspections.
Today is January 12 and the temperature has been above freezing only once this month. On Saturday my well stopped pumping water. I went through the checklist: circuit breakers; they were good, frozen pipes were next and that is harder to detect. Attempting to uncover the frozen pipe I started at the wellhead and traced the line to my house. I deduced that it could only be there at the wellhead that an exposed pipe would freeze. After fumbling around for a while with hairdryers, I settled on a drop cord with a light on the end of it. I left the light on all night over the wellhead and this morning I had water. The finding and fixing part is kind of interesting but how I lived for 3 days without running water was the trick. This is where the rubber meets the road. Come back tomorrow and I’ll fill you in.
About Me
- Kathleen Lamont
- Twenty years ago, Kathleen Lamont was a Southern California yuppie feeling the pull to create a simpler life. With no experience and little knowledge, in 1987 she moved to an old farmhouse in rural Washington State to learn about self-reliance. For the next five years, Kathleen was a homesteader, growing and preserving her own food, she also raised chickens, milked the cow and took care of a multitude of guests at her bed and breakfast. Although she did have electricity for lights, she heated with wood, got her water from a well with a hand-pump on it, and cooked with propane. Using books and other back-to-the-land people in her community as resources, she learned to become self-reliant. In 1992, feeling that her experiment was a success; she traveled east looking for a new place to put down roots. The Western North Carolina Mountains were her choice and she settled in Waynesville. Shortly after arriving in North Carolina, Kathleen's friends encouraged her to share her knowledge and experience with other people and she started Back to Basics as a way to promote self-sufficient living and to assist homesteading hopefuls.
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