Weekly Update: 10.11.25
It’s the end of an era.
As of last week, we listed our tent for sale on Facebook Marketplace. It was a hard decision to sell our tent, but we really don’t have a good place to store it now that we are done living in it. We considered setting it up for a guest cabin, but it’s really bigger than we would need for that purpose. So, after a lot of discussion, we decided selling it would be the best course of action.
Living in our wall tent was one of the best, most adventurous seasons of my life. I’ll never forget the anticipation and excitement of getting it set up. I had dreamed of living in a wall tent since I was a teen. As a young adult, I remember pouring over Mary Jane’s Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook, admiring the glamping style tent in the Outpost section.
Our family spent two years in that tent, experiencing all four seasons — twice. Summer in particular had it’s challenges, as keeping the tent cool wasn’t always possible. And the occasional winter storm could be a bit chilly, though we stayed warm enough with our wood stove and propane heater. Spring and autumn in the tent were sublime, though. I loved the cool quiet mornings with bird song so close that it felt like sleeping outside. I loved the owls, crickets, and cicadas in the evenings. I adored all the natural light that filtered through the entire white canvas roof. And there is absolutely nothing as cozy as a tent with a roaring fire in its woodstove.
We moved into the bunkhouse at the beginning of this summer. Since then, we have used the tent as a storage and staging area, sorting through boxes and organizing our belongings there before moving them into the bunkhouse. Now that we are installing exterior siding on the tent side of the bunkhouse, we need to take down the tent to complete the siding.
So — our tent is up for sale. It’s the right decision, even if getting rid of it is bittersweet.
To that end, we’ve been working on cleaning out the tent. While we worked over the last week, we’ve had a cold going through our family. Several of us have also dealt with allergy induced migraines which slowed us down more than we liked. Still, we tried to make some progress every day.
Last Saturday, we had a wonderful surprise.
While at the clothes’ line, Grace looked up and noticed a persimmon tree heavy with ripe persimmons. No one could believe we’ve never noticed it. Grace and Levi weed trimmed and cleaned up the area right away, and Grace picked all the ripe persimmons. A few days later, she picked more.
Over the weekend, she made some persimmon bread. Later in the week, she made persimmon cookies. My mom grew up eating persimmon cookies made by her grandma, a native of Ozark, Missouri. Persimmon cookies are soft, spicy, and cakey — with a flavor not unlike pumpkin.
We hoped we had persimmon trees on our property, but we haven’t had time to really look for any. It’s a small thing, but we were so thrilled to find it.
Another tasty development came later this week when our dad got our old espresso machine working. It’s a manual commercial machine. We’ve had it for more than 25 years. Our folks used it in several coffee businesses when we were growing up, but it hasn’t been working in nearly a decade. It still needs a little repair, but as of this week, we are enjoying gourmet coffee right at home. It feels utterly decadent.
After recovering from several days of headaches myself, I’m looking forward to being more productive next week. We are making good progress with our siding, and we are ready to start on our kitchen shelving — at long last. Autumn is my favorite time of year, and I’m excited to spend time outdoors in the cooler weather.