I Live In An Allotment House - Part Two

Introduction

For the last two years I’ve been living in an allotment house outside my home city of Odense, Denmark - first and foremost with the clear aim of saving money and stretching my dwindling funds. Begun out of pure necessity, the project has over the seasons both turned into a way of life and turned out to be very addictive. In this post I will discuss some of the anthropological experinces and eye-openings I’ve had living under primitive conditions over the last 18 months.

“The Experience Is In The Mind”

This is where it gets anthropological! You see; one notable feature of our allotment house is the absence of a loo.

So the lighter part of relieving yourself takes place in a corner of the allotment itself

I’m not going into much detail here, but pissing outdoors has really opened my eyes to the changing seasons!

Watching the Sky

It has become routine to check the sky when I’m out for leak in the evening. One very practical effect of this is knowing how cold it’s going to be in the night.

If it’s cloudy and still, the heat of the day will stay for most of the night. If the sky is clear or if it’s windy I will have to put on another duvet and turn up the fire before turning in. And if I’m clever, I will make sure to have some extra firewood for the cold morning.

Reading the sky like this is fairly easy to learn, but still it is something most people with central heating (and in Denmark that is most people) will never have had the need to do.

It has made me very aware of the seasons’ changing and the usefulness of a thermometer and a barometer. Predicting the weather and managing the firewood supply also makes you think about older times. How it really felt to live a hundred or a thousand years ago.

Shooting stars are another nice thing that you can appreciate when you’re out there. Again, people who live in “boxes” and spend their time in front of Aunt Telly seldom get the chance to admire such phenomenons.

In the past, however, recurring meteor showers such as the Perseids and the Leonids would have been spectacles admired by young and old. I can recommend it highly!

Fun With Cooking

Sometimes, when I’ve forgot to buy more cooking gas, dinner is prepared on the firestove in the living room. Cooking like that is not much different from cooking on an electrical stove.

But the gas stove is cool. In fact, I have come to consider the gas stove as a technological peak in human history!

At first this is was a surprise to me, but it makes sense once you consider that among professional cooks - people for whom a stove is the major tool of the trade - gas stoves is the standard. Not because is cheaper or easier to clean, but because it lets you control temperature in a way and at a speed that no electrical stove can achieve. Simply put, it’s a superior tool.

Anyone who has ever switched from gas to electricity will know what I mean!

The ease with which modern coffee making devices can produce a hot cup o’ caffeine is what I miss the most. I’m not being religious about living under primitive conditions and would really really wish that my solar electricity system, had in it the power necessary to run one of those nice italian quality espresso machines!

Gardening

Most people do their gardens as hobby. I really don’t like gardening. Not at all. But living among herbs, flowers, fruits and nuts gives you a nice supplement to buying foodstuff.

The planning involved with growing vegetables is another point where I have had a taste of life in earlier times. You don’t just plant something and then hope it grows up to be edible.

Rather you try and err, then try again and either fail or end up with faaaar too much of something. Although they have a nice name, I strongly recommend that you never, ever, ever, ever plant Jerusalem Artichokes in your garden! Ever!

Plant’em in your neighbours garden instead. I’m quite sure he’ll let you have all that you can eat if you ask him!

The art of making ‘kryddersnaps’ (spiced schnaps) has held very high regard in my family for centuries. Moving to the allotments have given me lots of opportunities for collecting the herbs and berries for making ‘kryddersnaps’; sloe, elderflower and walnut being but a few.

What I Have Learned?

With the danger of sounding like a ‘hippie’, I will have to say that I have reached a closer connection to nature and the seasons. The influence of the seasons and the weather on animals and plants is huge and it’s something I didn’t expect at all, when I first chose to live in an allotment house.

Also I have learned alot about the use (and usefulness) of a lot of old artefacts, many of whom I have known for years without realising how important they have been to generations before me. When you can’t just turn on the heating, having enough firewood (and matches, mind!) is essential to making a fire and staying alive and warm throughout the winter.

Does such learnings influence my studies? In short: Yes.

The lengthy answer would be that this way of life has shown me the strength of an ethno-archaeological approach to the material culture at the time of, say, my great grandmother.

But I have also grasped more firmly some of the weaknesses of this approach:
Even though I expose myself to the material conditions of the early 20th century, my mind’s not entirely ‘with’ that period. I still blog and I call up my mother to tell her I haven’t died from the cold yet.

I still go to the supermarket when I need some modern convenience: I don’t actually live entirely form stuff grown in my garden.

On the strong side, however, I have had my eyes opened to some of the troubling conditions of everyday life just 60-70 years ago.

A Few Thoughts

Carrying water to the house through 2 feet of snow every day for 2 months last year (not because it was fun, but because I bloody had to) made me think a lot about how we’ve ‘convenienced’ our lives. Likewise, cutting firewood, mending holes in the roof and generally feeling miserable and poor has largely added to the experience.

Next winter, I will probably be living in a decent, modern apartment because I’ll have to stay closer to University. I will miss the freedom of having my own (medium crappy) house, and even though I probably won’t regret turning up the heat and turning on the electric lights, it will not be the same as making a fire and heating spiced wine on the stove!

Whadd’ya Think?

I would like you to comment on this piece and part one, if you will. You’re welcome to share your experiences with living under primitive conditions, or your thoughts on “the experince in the mind”.

If you know Danish, you can read more on my danish website, where I have blogged about life in the allotment house. Here’s the link.

Leave your comment below.