My maternal grandfather died when I was six, so I can't actually remember anything about him.  But lately I've realized that I probably get my obsessive list-making from Grandpa Eckberg.

I also inherited this little red bookcase from him.  The story goes that Grandpa made this bookcase out of orange crates while he and his family were stationed in California during World War II.  Were the wooden orange crates disposable, a slightly more sturdy version of the half bushel cardboard boxes of oranges you can buy today?  Was Grandpa reusing the wood because he couldn't bear to throw the boxes away, or was it just an example of Yankee frugality?  Either way, I figured that Grandpa wouldn't mind me adding a couple of extra shelves and a back to his bookcase to make it easier to fill up with containers of screws.

The pile of miscellaneous stuff awaiting organization in the middle of our office doesn't seem to be getting any smaller, but the space is already easier to use.  This photo of Mark working on our homemade chicken waterers doesn't look like much, but you have to realize that just a year and a half ago Mark was making waterers under a tent in the backyard.  When you start with nothing, every little improvement is exciting.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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