Somers Camp
I should take a step back here as this was a new adventure that took on a new life during the pandemic. Brandon’s late uncle Burt built an off-the-grid cabin in the woods on Solon, ME in the early nineties. There was no power or running water and an outhouse but it’s a beautiful slice of heaven to get away from it all.
During the pandemic, this established the ultimate social distance but Brandon and I wanted to make life a little easier when you were there. First, with some old boat batteries from the yard and some new solar panels bought out of the back of van from Facebook Marketplace, Brandon wired up solar power. “Let there be light!”
Then with the tractor in tow with an upcycled clean-out drum that once stored bulk anti-freeze from the boat yard, we rigged up a cistern at the top of a hill next to the house. Now instead of hauling 5-gallon buckets of freshwater by hand that runs from a spring coming out of the same hill down the driveway, we now with a pump can you bring the water to us using gravity!
A few more trips later we had an on-demand propane water heater, and a recycled kitchen from our friends who were renovating their own kitchen and we were going to throw out granite countertops and cabinetry. We also gained a new large free couch and only purchased a new mattress for comfort.
All these improvements took about six or seven trips in total between 2020 and 2022. The latest endeavors include in June of this 2022 was the tile around our tub and hot water stone and also creating a mezzanine so we can have more guests and bed space off the floor.