It's been a long time since my first blog, back in around 2012 or thereabouts. Much has changed since then. For one, it's too bad Dad had to go into a nursing home. As I inch toward retirement and have more time, it would have been nice to spend quality time with him at his own house where he would be most comfortable. I go and see him frequently at the nursing home, but I wish he didn't have to be there. It just goes to show how precious each moment is.
Not everything that has changed has been for the worse, though. My business plan for Live Axle Machine Company turned out to be a success. I figured that out in 2018 when I suddenly found myself unemployed from a fantastic job that I thought I would retire from. It was the success of Live Axle that inspired me to restart Old Stump and get back into blogging.
The Old Stump is a lifestyle blog about finding peace in simple living, which is something that I suspect from my Washington, DC, days that many people long for. While it is true that whenever I would tell my city friends that I wanted to come back to the Appalachian hills of Pennsylvania and live out in the woods, by and large the question was, "why?" But then there were the occasional ones who were curious and wanted to know more, and that's who this blog is for.
In other words, while most city folk probably want nothing to do with a quiet life out in the woods, I suspect that there are a lot of people who long for the freedom that I feel more and more each day. Freedom from what? Freedom from traffic, from debt, from the high cost of living, from usurious property taxes...
By the way, I'm not trying to convince anyone. There are already too many people moving here for my taste. What often happens is they come here to visit a friend or relative, and they don't want to go home. I'm not complaining either, as I realize that change is inevitable. It's something that is beyond my control, and I end up being friends with many of the transplants. But the influx does drive up costs for locals.
No, Old Stump is for the people who've already made up their mind that something feels off about the way they're living. Something feels unhealthy, like it shouldn't be that way. The noise, the traffic, the crime, the rude people, the neighborhood HOA Nazis...
It should be noted that living this life is not antithetical to a rich and meaningful existence. I mention that because, if you choose this life, there are those who would have you believe you are limiting yourself in some serious way. As an educated man who loves physics, computer science and electronics, and literature, I have never felt limited by choosing this existence. And I have lived in both worlds -- here, and in a big city where I was a white collar professional for many years.
Yet I enjoy a sort of independence that most big city, white collar professionals will never know. I never take my vehicle to a mechanic, never hire a plumber, an electrician, or a carpenter, and I heat my house with firewood that I cut. I can barely see my neighbor's porch light through the woods at night, and the stars out here are amazing! It's not a perfect life and there are tradeoffs, though, and that is a fact that must be accepted.
Things will probably be kind of slow with this blog for a while. As it happens, I wasn't smart with my money when I was younger. So when I quit my job (with cause) back in 2018, I had a lot of debt and not quite enough liquid assets to cover it. As such, I've taken a job with an oilfield services company in the town where my dad's nursing home is. I'm not that far off, however, and in a couple years I will be back to just running Live Axle Machine Company, and hopefully blogging here almost every day. In the meantime, development of this site will probably come slowly. Stay tuned!