After our trailer has arrived together with a lot of snow, it seemed as if we had to let all the excitement settle. So we had some quiet days of visiting the trailer regularly, sitting on it and talking about the next steps in this big project. It is interesting – we waited so longingly for the trailer to arrive and I somehow assumed that right the next day we would start building. Of course, for this we still need a lot of material (As of today we are still proud owners of two windows and one trailer) and maybe the weather would have influenced this as well. But somehow the arrival turns out to be a several day process, defined by pausing, taking in and observing. This of course is not at all a bad thing:
Recently, after an afternoon of sledging on a nearby snowcovered hill (it has been ages since I’ve done that; I forgot how much fun it is!) we decided to go and sit on our trailer and watch the sunset over the fields. We admired the view that we got with our trailer being positioned not quite parallel. Somehow it before always seemed like a given, to align it with the train tracks in front and the stone wall in the back. After our challenging move of the trailer over the wall however it stood differently and we decided to for the moment just leave it like that (we were tired and hungry 😉 ). But seeing it now, we realized that this slightly shifted position adds some dynamic and offers some new – even more beautiful views – from certain windows. It is nice, how sometimes purely by chance those realizations happen that slightly influence and change your original plans. It taught us that, while you have to be flexible and ready for things to change without having a lot of influence, you also gain some freedom in short term decision changes.
Even though we are still in the “Arrival – Phase” and waiting with commencing the actual build, we are clearly both anxious to get busy with building something Tiny House related and continue the project of creating our own home. And roaming on Online-secondhandshops for building material and watching Tiny House building tutorials and tours just didn’t cut it anymore. So we decided to dedicate some of our time to the outdoor area. Because as previously stated, the surroundings of the Tiny House mean almost just as much as the indoors. The snow had in the meantime almost completely melted, which is in general a shame of course (we want a white christmas! 🙂 ), but worked well with our intentions. The plan was to build an outdoor fireplace; it will allow us, to keep our trailer company while sitting at a warm fire and it makes this little piece of chosen land already more feel like a home. We decided on a spot next to the (future) kitchen window, close to the little stone wall, with some distance to the train tracks.
The fireplace is supposed to be part of the expanded garden, that we will still create and develop around our Tiny House. A garden with fruit trees and berry bushes, that grow harmoniously and naturally next to and under the big old fir trees, who guard our building spot already since a very long time. For this reason we wanted to build the fireplace in a simple organic way; kind of as if it has, like the trees, always been there and has already heard thousands of campfire stories. With some big stones, that we carried all the way from the front to the back under the watchful eyes of several curious cats, this plan was easily and fast achieved.
It in general is a simple project; it just takes some time and patience and some practical skills to find the right sized stones and place them in the right order. I found it to be a very peaceful and satisfying work. It was in fact my first (or maybe second?) fireplace build and just like the cats, Sam had very watchful eyes over my work, as we slowly closed the stone circle.
After done work it seemed logical to immediately make use of our new addition. The weather was beautiful – a very strong sun brought some generous warmth and a lot of light. So with Solomon Grey’s “Home” fittingly playing in the background, we lit our first fire. We toasted to our first “mark” left here next to the fir trees and enjoyed this little festive moment in presence of the trailer, deciding, that a fireplace is a good place to officially start our build; after all it is a place around which people gather and come together and share stories, memories and visions – something we truly wish for (again) in the future; especially after a year where coming together was so limited and greatly missed. So, we toasted to the beginning of a new chapter – not only for the three of us but also for everyone all around the world.
The Three Tiny Deers 
I can’t wait to raise a glass with you by your new fire pit, maybe with some veggies browning on the fire 🙂
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