I have had quite a few people wonder out loud why I am not "totally freaking out" about homesteading in a travel trailer. The only answer I have to that observation is, I have done this before. I grew up in the West Indies in what many would consider a three room shack with my maternal grandmother, my mother and about five older cousins my gran took care of for my aunts and uncles.
We had no indoor plumbing, no electricity, an outhouse, outdoor shower, gas tank stove, two beds and a huge garden. The one difference I have had to deal with while RV homesteading is the frigid temperatures. The temperature rarely drops below sixty in the West Indies. That might be the reason for my obvious obsession with being warm.
Before my uncle installed the outdoor plumbing, we would walk to the local standpipe with various buckets, empty jugs and canisters to fill with water we hauled back to the storage containers we kept in the kitchen. There would be a line and occasionally someone at the standpipe would be taking a bath with an improvised shower curtain.
I consider how I am living now to be luxurious compared to my upbringing. I have electricity, a refrigerator, television, a computer, telephone and other amenities we would walk over to a more well off neighbour to obtain the use of. I never heard of insulation growing up. Our house was simply unpainted, uninsulated and untreated lumber. If a board or two rotted my uncle or cousins would simply rip it out and replace it with a new one.
Everyone had chores as far as my grandmother was concerned. I cleaned the glass chimneys of the kerosene lamps, trimmed the wicks, washed any of my clothes that did not need bleach and took out the portable toilets (aka chamber pots, potty) all by the age of five. By age six I knew how to light the gas stove with it's portable gas tank, handle basic knife skills, garden and cook the basics.
These skills are essential to most of the worlds population who do not live in developed nations or live in the poor areas of developed nations. I never thought of these as extraordinary skills or that not everyone knew how to live a simple life. Normal is whatever you make it. What I am doing today, homesteading, is like getting back on a bicycle.
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