Okay, I'm gonna try and wrap this up now.  So we are "roughing" it and enjoying ourselves and then, about the end of October, the temperature starts to drop; the wind begins to blow. You can't very well have a safe campfire in 40mph-plus winds. We went to using just the stove in the camper, but it quickly got crowded and uncomfortable with four of us plus pets. The establishment where I was working part-time graciously put us up in one of their motel rooms for the first two weeks of November. There were many confrontations with the contractor and the real estate agent during this time. We traveled to grandma and grandpa's for Thanksgiving and by the time we returned, December 1st, we had a junky double-wide – WITH FOUR WALLS AND A ROOF!! Green tag be bleeped, after fighting tooth and nail for this for months (blood, sweat and tears begins to have a literal meaning), we moved in and set up housekeeping.

Electric hookups followed shortly thereafter. It was a bit longer for the propane, but we used kerosene heaters (yechh) donated by a friend who wanted to get them out of his garage, and mountains of blankets, double layers of long johns, and rediscovered the night cap – the kind you wear on your head. Due to a plumbing pipe that kept breaking, we still carried buckets of water into the "house" and heated it on the stove for baths and washing.  After the third "repair" by the plumber, I fixed the pipe myself and ten years later it has not yet broken again. We replaced the old water heater and, with the advent of propane, now had hot and cold running water in the house. With a little oil, the motor on the ancient forced-air unit began to pump warm air through the ducts. We now also had gas to the kitchen stove, and water and gas for the washer and dryer. Victory is ever so sweet.

Lessons learned for rural living:

• If you want something done right, do it yourself. 

• Celebrate the small stuff. When we finally moved into our trailer and got the electricity on, the first thing we did (it being December and all) was put up the Christmas tree and lots of sparkly lights.

• Don't feel bad about wimping out here and there. We're only human, and coming from a pampered lifestyle, it takes time and faith to adjust.

• This IS the good life.

After giving notice on our house and packing up all our worldly belongings, we went out to the property to see how things were progressing on the trailer setup. The lot looked exactly the same as it had a month before, when we had purchased it. Not a grain of dirt had been moved by human interference. We sat and meditated for a few minutes. Shouldn't they be digging a septic system? Shouldn't there be some signs of overturned earth? We walked the property. Then we went to the real estate office to see what was up. In true "it's not my problem" form, we were told to contact the contractor. Okay. You got your money now, you're done. We called the contractor, who seemed to be at a loss as to who we were. Suddenly remembering, he said "someone must have forgotten to get the permit." Could that someone be you? Is that not what we hired you for? Did you not get your first draw from the construction loan already?

So there we were. Two weeks to move out of our house 30 miles up the road and no house to move into. That's alright, it's September, still hot, cool nights, we can handle a month camping. Little did we know, we wouldn't be in until December! We went back to the property, which was well treed and had very few neighbors. We chose a location fairly far back from the street, shielded by trees, took the camper off the truck and stabilized it for living.

We pitched 2 tents nearby, under some junipers. Then we started moving all our stuff that wasn't in storage out to the property and arranged it around the campsite.

We built a big fire ring and now we were in business. It looked a lot like some of those old westerns where they have to unload some stuff off the wagon because they're being chased by bad guys. A dresser here, a dining table there, boxes of dishes.

Life was good. We cooked over an open fire, ate out under the stars every night, heated our wash water over the fire, and rigged up old sheets from the side of the camper around a ladder to take a shower with the solar shower. We had a 400 gallon water hauling tank on the back of the truck, propane lanterns and the propane stove and fridge in the camper, plus a large cooler.

We had the toilet in the camper. The cell phone would pick up a signal from the fire station 2 miles up the road. Who needs television? We were having fun. Then the weather turned ...

Here's a high desert autumn for ya. The weather can not tell what season it is. After a killing week of frost (low 30s overnight, 60s during the day), we have had three weeks of more Indian Summer – 40s overnight, 80s during the day. This morning I woke up and it was 10 degrees outside! I thought maybe the thermometer was broken, so I opened the door. Immediately shut it and went for my coat and boots, gathered some sticks and came back in and fired up the woodstove. Snow was forecast for Tuesday, but the clouds came and went yesterday. We have yet to see what today's weather brings.

The eight surviving guineas are thriving. Soon they will be big enough to jump out of their bucket brooder and run around the house, so we are putting them in the outdoor brooder, with one heat lamp, during the day to start acclimating them to the cooler temps. We are still bringing them in overnight.

When we moved to Arizona in September of 1998, it was after two years of working and saving and paying off all our bills. We bought and rehabbed an old camper that fit perfectly on our Ford long bed, then outfitted ourselves for full-time living by putting nearly everything else that we couldn't sell or give away into storage. The camper included a 3-burner propane stove, a dorm size 2-way fridge/freezer, and a toilet. We added a solar shower, microwave/convection oven and small TV/VCR. We took a test run of a three-week vacation, and all seemed to be in order for our adventure. Three preteens, our dog Lucky, a hamster and me. We found a lovely campground with hookups in the tall pines, where we made our base for two months, then it started snowing. We moved into a motel in town, then lease optioned a house. One day I was contemplating the small yard thinking, a horse will never fit in here. We went looking for cheap acreage and had to decide between 40 acres, no trees, no utilities, or 5 acres of trees, seasonal stream, electric and phone available. It was a no-brainer, despite the fact that available utilities meant impending civilization. We closed the deal, including construction financing for the septic system and trailer setup. We gave notice on our house, and looked forward expectantly to moving into our trailer in a month's time.

And then the real adventure began . . .