Ramblings of a Nomad

My mind doesn't seem to have a great capacity for personal memories. I can easily recall numbers, facts and information I have read, but it's a struggle to recall my own life experiences. For the sake of remembering this past year, I have been keeping track of the skills I have acquired while living on the road.

Here are the concrete items I have learned over a year of camping in the woods, living in RV's, working on organic farms and traveling through Central America. Some are shockingly useful (setting up a tent in the rain), while others are quite random (drip tape repair). But, I am a big believer in everything happening for a reason, so if the day ever comes that I am forced to repair drip tape to save the world, rest assured, we will all survive. 

• Dry herbs in the sun 
• Canning (salsa, green and red tomatoes, pickles) 
• Bake green tomato bread, carrot bread, jalepeño corn muffins 
• Operate a weed-wacker
• Hunt for mushrooms (identification, cleaning, cooking, eating)
• Chop wood for kindling 
• Properly stack wood, so it doesn't come tumbling down when a cat jumps on top of it
• Cook meals from scratch for 12 hungry WOOFers 
• Set up a tent in the rain
• Build a fire 
• Use power tools (angle grinder, screwdriver, compression driver)
• Install metal roofing onto a building 
• Drip tape repair 
• Buck up wood
• Operate a tractor
• Plant various vegetables 
• Tend a garlic patch 
  
• Clean a chicken coop 
• Compost 
• Weed every type of vegetable
• Work a farmer's market
• Fence repair
• Install row cover 
• Milk a goat
• Make goat cheese 
• Mix concrete 
• Hunt gophers 
• Thin onions
• Transplant seedlings 
• Plow a field with a big ole tractor
• Empty an RV's waste water
• Roast chile peppers
• Basic animal veterinary skills
• Make lefse 
• Herd sheep
• Citrus fruit care 
• Build a bio-digester 
  
• Make tortillas and empanadas from scratch 
• Improve my Spanish 
• Plan and teach English classes
• Plan and teach nutrition classes
• Bake anything in a toaster oven
• Distinguish between venomous and non-venomous snakes
• Debone a chicken
• Kill enormous spiders
• Shoo away huge, poisonous toads that hop into my bedroom
• Milk a cow 
• Haggle with Costa Rican vendors 
• Make animals out of pieces of grass
• Make rings from wire
• Create coffee bean jewelry 
• Harvest, dry, roast and grind coffee 
• Only go slightly crazy with 42 itchy bug bites covering my body
• Appreciate luke-warm showers, because they are better than ice cold showers
• Pick fleas off of Gabby 

It's amazing what can be accomplished in only a single year. I have omitted the countless, intangible life lessons that I have acquired while living this nomadic life because many of them are still rolling around in my mind and becoming a part of my core being. I will keep you posted, but I assure you they will only change me for the better. 

 Cheers to lifelong learning!