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TALES from SHAWANGUNK, Volume 3
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Volume III is a 138 page, soft-cover book which contains stories about our 50 year adventure living off grid and practicing Minimal Harm. We reside in a $450 scrap-wood cottage in an Adirondack Foothill Forest, quilted between cathedral spires of Hemlock, Balsam and Black Cherry trees and humble, verdant carpets of woodland mosses. What started as a 3-acre preserve has grown to 520 acres of precious forest wetlands under the forever-wild protection of the self-perpetuation non-profit we created and achieved on a substantially low income.
We continue to heat with wood from dead trees, fetch our daily water from a sparkling woodland stream, follow a pesco=vegetarian diet, grow organically, harvest wild foods, recycle our human waste, and interact with interesting visitors and resident wildlife. We've danced between the best of rusticity and modern amenities, the challenges of careers and family, and aging. These adventures are the subjects of this book.
TALES from SHAWANGUNK Volume 2
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My husband, Tim and I have a mutual vision and humbly hope to influence the world with the values of wholesome living, minimally impacting the flora, fauna and elements of the earth, and living together in peace with each other and our fellow creatures. So I share these little stories of our lives as we face the challenges of living our ideals and adjusting to the compromises we must make with dignity, flexibility and high ethical values.
My first book; “Tales from Shawangunk Our First Year”, included the first two years of articles published in Mohawk Valley Living Magazine, Clinton, NY. Here are chapters 25 to 48 published in the following two years; Oct. 2015 to Sept. 2017 which have expanded my stories to include tales from Tim’s childhood in Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio and mine in Westmoreland NY as well as stories from our parents and grandparents and our lives at Shawangunk beyond the first few years of discovery.
TALES from SHAWANGUNK Volume 1
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This book is about our struggle to create a utopian vision. In 1974 we were a newly married couple purchasing a few acres of land along an abandoned, dead-end, dirt road in a wet, wild, forested area of the southwest Adirondacks in New York. With minimal financial resources, plenty of problems & compromises, no electricity or running water, dilapidated vehicles, heaps of creativity and hard work, resilience and stubbornness, our vision has been realized.
I hope this story will inspire those who also aspire to create a vision of a more humane existence; to know that much may be done with little; to realize that living with wildlife in nature does not require guns, hunting, trapping, logging, and chemicals; to understand that meaning is not acquired by accumulation; to learn that vegetarians can be people of strength, determination, and courage; and to believe that with vision, creativity, and tenacity, each one of us can make a difference, no matter what our situation.
And I write this to entertain you with the charm of discovery, lives well lived, struggles that are deeply meaningful, and a sense of humor and purpose that carries through the good and the bad times.