Peaceable Man Files #60: The Simple Bare Necessities

Random musings on my vagabond existence in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania and wherever else life takes me.

Rachael and I spent the week between Christmas and New Year's in the Arctic.

Okay, it wasn’t officially the Arctic, but it sure felt that way. We were up at our mountain house in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania where the temperature struggled to hit double-digits during the day and dipped down to near zero at night.

We arrived just as a cold front was arriving, bringing several inches of snow along with a wicked wind. We tried taking the dogs out for a walk, but it was impossible with fifty-mile-an-hour winds blowing snow in our face and whipping up snowadoes out in the field.

The power tends to go out easily up here in the mountains during windstorms because of all the trees and above-the-ground power lines. Sure enough, shortly after we arrived, the lights flickered and went off.

Thank God for the new full-house backup generator we installed last month. The generator went on just as it is supposed to, and within a few minutes, we had power again, albeit powered not by the PP&L electricity grid, but by the propane tank behind the house.

We have three sources of heat up here at the mountain house: baseboard electric; two ductless mini-split units that provide both heat and air conditioning; and the gas fireplace.

I try to avoid using baseboard heat because electricity is so darn expensive right now. The ductless units are much more cost-effective, but the problem with them is that they tend to become less efficient at producing heat when the temperature drops toward zero.

The gas fireplace is cost-effective as well, but it has the issue of the pilot light blowing out whenever the wind is gusting, which is exactly what happened. We kept having to relight the pilot, only to have it blow out again.

Finally, we gave up and relied on the baseboard heat for the first few days of our stay until the wind died down and we were able to use the fireplace again. I dread what our electricity bill will look like next month. It’s not going to be pretty.

Still, I am grateful that we had heat and shelter. A couple friends joined us for New Year’s Eve, and we spent a cozy evening playing cards. Then two of my sons and my daughter-in-law came up for a couple nights, and we had a wonderful time playing cards and reminiscing.

View of the South Knob of Elk Mountain beyond the Arctic tundra

In between these visits, Rachael and I hung around the house not doing much of anything. It was too cold to go for walks outside, so we read books, watched movies, and made pot after pot of hot tea to warm our bellies.

It was altogether a lovely week, despite the Arctic conditions. It got me thinking how much we take for granted the simple necessities of life. In his book Walden, Henry David Thoreau outlined four essentials for life: food, shelter, clothing, and fuel.

Once we meet those four basic needs, he said, everything else becomes gravy. We can spend our time pursuing activities that satisfy a deeper need within, whether that is painting, crocheting, gardening, or doing volunteer activities.

The key, Thoreau argued, is to keep our material needs as simple as possible, so that we can spend less time working for a living and more time doing the things that meet the deeper needs of our spirits.

For me, that is writing, and I had plenty of time for writing last week when there was nothing else to do. In addition to writing this blog post, I finished a short story I’ve been working on for a few months and rewrote the beginning of my multi-generational family saga, Unto the Mountain.

I could not have done any of this if I was battling the elements. Let’s face it: For the vast majority of our time on Earth, homo sapiens have not had the luxury of pursuing creative intellectual and spiritual pursuits because we were too busy just trying to survive.

Because of our scientific advancements over the past hundred-and-fifty years, we can do more of the fun, fulfilling stuff and less of the drudge work. And because of our medical advancements, we can live longer while doing the fulfilling stuff.

It’s a wonderful thing, and it’s important, I think, to be mindful of it.

By the time we returned from our week-long sojourn in the Arctic, I was feeling a renewed sense of gratitude for the many blessings and advantages in my life. It is so easy to take these blessings for granted here in the United States of Abundance, but the fact of the matter is that many people around the world are not so lucky.

My New Year’s resolution is to do my best to keep that candle of gratitude burning amidst the highs and lows of the year ahead.

May your 2026 be filled with blessings and gratitude for the simple things.