Thanksgiving dinner with an author

We had Thanksgiving dinner with the author of Dancing in the Dew, the journal of a man's quest to live closer to nature. Harvey, the author, lives in a sod house he built himself. He has a root cellar, a sweat lodge (instead of a bathtub), a barn with a sod roof, 4 goats, many chickens (the chickens snuck off and laid their eggs in the woods, then came back one day with the babies following them), 3 horses, a dog and a barn cat. We visited his house on Friday and got to meet all the animals and tour the house and grounds.

It was fascinating. He has no electricity or running water. The house was quite warm and was heated by wood burning stoves. He has 3 rooms, but only uses 2. He decided the third was just more space than he needed, so he closed it off with blankets to conserve the heat. His "refrigerator" was a hole in the sod that was kept cool by the dirt. In the summer it becomes his oven. He gave Violet a bunch of dried apple pieces that he'd made himself by drying the sliced apples in a basket in the rafters of his house. They were better than anything we've ever bought at Trader Joe's. Harvey also showed Violet how to feed the goats "goat potato chips" which were actually dried oak leaves. The goats loved them.

He also has a tipi and we sat in there for a long time where he'd built a fire. He said his grandkids like to visit and play in there and camp out. He and his former wife lived in a similar tipi for several years, until changing diapers with no heat got to be a bit of a pain the, well, diaper. It was a nice toasty place to talk, out of the 30 degree Wisconsin afternoon. Wouldn't it be cool to spend the weekend in your grandpa's tipi?

How did we come to spend Thanksgiving with this man of the earth? He is a friend of my father-in-law. They live in the same small town and shortly after my inlaws moved there (couple of years ago) they met him. My father-in-law actually convinced him to turn his handwritten journal into the book. Dad-in-law edited it, Mr. Incredible did the layout work. This was the first time we'd met Harvey.

Violet is looking forward to returning to Harvey's farm to visit him again. She liked playing with the dog and the barn cat. Watching the chickens chase each other and feed the goats. I am actually going to read his book now. Although they'd talked about it for months while working on it, I never paid much attention to what it was about. And we are all hoping he'll join us again for another holiday meal.