Appreciating Quiet Even When Living Downtown

Living in downtown apartments are not always quiet

I hate the sound of loud noises. Wondering if it has anything to do with my age. I will be 72 in a few months though I don't believe I have any hearing issues. My apartment is very quiet and I appreciate the silence. Music I do not consider noise. I listen to music daily but not loud blaring music. Sometimes I think people like to play it loud so everyone can hear it. Even the people who do not like it. In fact, I find I appreciate it more at the level I listen to. I always pause it when someone comes to my door or calls me on the phone. I don't want to miss my songs!

Intercom in my apartment

In my apartment building we have an intercom system. The doors at the entrance opening into the lobby are locked at all times. To enter there is an intercom on the wall and you have to buzz the apartment you are visiting. It will buzz in that apartment and the resident will push a button to ask who it is. Then they push a button to listen to your answer. Once they are satisfied that it is someone they are expecting or know, they push the button to unlock the door and you can enter the building. It is a very good system and I like it. But......when the intercom buzzes in the apartment..........it is VERY loud! Rabbit and I jump every time. Even when I know someone is coming here. 

Across the street from my apartment

Quietness was one of the things I treasured when living at Peaceful Forest, my former home. Especially in winter. It was very quiet all year long. That is unless a chainsaw was buzzing a tree down or the generator was running when there was not much sun. I remember listening to my horses chewing their hay and that was the only sound I could hear. Or the chickadees and blue jays during the winter which were welcome sounds to me. You quickly acclimate to your environment and grow accustom to the sounds of daily life. Even though I badly missed the sounds of the birds in the forest I had to move on. To my new life and sounds. The only birds I hear now in a downtown location are crows. Every now and then other birds will show up but they do not sound as happy as the birds in the forest. 

Downtown

City life is full of noises. Trucks backing up to loading docks in early morning hours. Garbage trucks pulling up to the dumpster at my building. I get up early so it doesn't really bother me so much. Sirens at any time of the day or night. Fire trucks, emergency vehicles and police. Bars. The back of the bars on South Broad Street, the main street of my city, face my apartment building. So when they have loud music playing, especially live bands or musicians I can hear it in my apartment. I don't mind that either because it is usually good music. My building also has a theater in it and many times I can feel the beat of the music since it is right here. That doesn't bother me one bit because I love having a theater in the same building I live in. It is not a movie theater. It is a theater for live shows and concerts among other forms of entertainment.

Looking out the door of my apartment

I got used to it. Even though I do prefer quiet, there are times when the sounds of others reassures me that I am not alone. At times I will walk out of my apartment and go to different floors and not see one other person. Then on other days I hear people talking in the hall outside my door as they wait for the elevator. Doors slamming, people laughing, a dog barking, a mobility scooter horn beeping, etc. I go downstairs to get my mail and a group of people are sitting in the lobby talking and laughing. It is nice to have friends in person which I didn't before moving here. I feel I am living alone but am not alone. Anytime I need time with friends I have many to choose from. 

Copyright © 2024 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2024  Kathleen G. Lupole

My Life Five Years Later

It has been over five years since I moved from my Peaceful Forest Homestead. For years, I sold online. On various websites and wrote four different blogs. Not to mention all the physical work that had to be done living in an off grid house. I am thankful every day for the shower in my apartment. As well as the refrigerator with a large freezer that I have now. When I was living off-grid from 1999 to 2018, I presented in what I wrote and my photos, as if it was easy. It was not easy. Especially as the osteoarthritis in my knees worsened. I kept thinking it was caused by what I was doing. To make it even worse, my feet were swollen, red and hot. Sometimes I was so hot I could not stand it. The only relief I got was when I soaked my feet in cold water directly from the well. It wasn't long before that water would get hot from my feet! That turned out to be the beginning of Lymphedema. I now have it under control but back then I was afraid of what it might be. 

Another thing that was difficult was not having any power after the energy system was turned off in the early evening. Imagine sitting for hours before bed time in the dark. In the first years that I lived there, the kerosene lamps were the only lights used. There were fourteen! They worked but they are not as bright as an electric light bulb. They have a smell that not all people can endure. I did because I think I got used to them. There was also the smell from the batteries that stored the power as they were charging. I knew they were highly dangerous, especially with the huge wood stove a few feet away! I had no way to change anything when living there. That is why I value my own independence now. 

The smoke from the two wood stoves affected me also. A chimney needs to be cleaned often. Even more if you have a chimney inside the house that has elbows and goes through the floor to the upstairs. I loved cooking on the wood cook stove but I never felt safe with it going at night after we went to bed. If the weather was cool, but not cold it meant the wood stoves would heat the house to very high temperatures and I could barely stand it. Many times I would get so hot that I would go sit outside on the porch in the middle of the night. My cats loved them though! Their motto was the hotter the better!  

Boom Box, Lamp, Television.......Bunny!

I eventually started getting things on my own to improve my life. Like a small fan that I could use if there was enough power. Could not use it during the night though when I really needed it. Music always improves my life and puts me in a good mood. So I bought a boom box (that I finally wore out this year and had to throw it out). I would use batteries in it and always bought some at the store so I could keep it going. After that I got a MP3 player and an external speaker for it. I would play that at night when I was in bed. I had to go to bed early because it was dark. The Kindle Fire also helped me endure those dark nights. I read all the time. I even read out loud to others until they fall asleep.

My son doing laundry!

When I mention to others that I used to live off the grid it gets all kinds of attention. People glamorize it. People think washing your laundry by hand and hanging it on a clothesline is great. It is not. I never felt that I could get my laundry really clean. I did not have enough strength to really scrub it clean. You have to scrub hard! Then carry more water from the well and rinse. After that I had to carry the laundry to the clothesline to hang. I have horrible problems with my shoulders and maybe that is how it started. Reaching up always hurts me now.  Luckily I don't have to wash by hand anymore. I do hang my clothing on the shower rod to dry. Though I can use a dryer if I want to and I do for bedding and towels. 

Yes, life is easier for me now. I am still active. I still clean my home and cook foods that I prepare myself. I now have friends I see in person almost daily. I can go to the store if I am out of something and not worry about whether I have enough gas to get there and back. No, I can't walk in the forest or work in my garden. Those are things I had to give up in order to improve my life. I do other things instead. As you get older maybe it is not such a good idea to live secluded with no friends or in charge of your own life. Being single has made my life easier to stick to a budget that I set up for my own needs. Not what someone else wants.  

People think living in an apartment building is not a good idea because of having such close neighbors. For me, in the building I live in I can go a whole week-end and not see another person. I do my laundry and will be alone in the laundry room the whole time. If I want company I can invite some of my friends to my apartment for coffee or stop in their apartments to chat. We play Bingo downstairs in the Community Room. People seem to gather at various times in the lobby on the first floor. It depends on the building you move to. I honestly don't know how you could check it out before you moved in though. I didn't know what to expect. 

Stores, restaurants, coffee shop, drug stores, 4 parks, the library and the county office building are all within walking distance of my apartment. I use a mobility chair for the times I have trouble walking or if I want to get somewhere fast. It is more like my vehicle since I do not own a car. I didn't need the expense or headaches owning one includes. There is a bus system here as well as taxi service. Grocery delivery has been an added improvement for me! I use it all the time. As I look back on these last five years, I think it was the right decision to move here. 

Copyright © 2023 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2023  Kathleen G. Lupole

 

My New Life In The City

My windows have the colorful curtains on the 2nd floor!

I moved to a small city over a month ago and I found it was not that big of an adjustment moving from an off-the-grid homestead in the middle of the state forest, to moving to the center of a small city in an apartment building. I thought it would be. Not at all. In fact, I have found it easy and very satisfying to me. Maybe I was never meant to live in the country to begin with. I know my mother always said she really wanted to live in the city, but she knew my father was not a city person and he would have been miserable. So we lived in the country most of the time I was growing up. I have found that I don't really miss the country at all. Instead I look around like a kid in a candy shop. So much to see and do!

The building next to mine!

For one thing I saw more cars going by my house at Peaceful Forest than I do here in my apartment. My windows are not facing a street. I can see the parking lot of the stores along the main street. Directly behind my apartment building and where my windows face is the lawn and another big brick building that is a gymnasium of some sort. It doesn't have much activity that I can see. At least nobody lives in it so it is still pretty much private. You would think a building in your view would be distasteful. Well, not at all. The roof of that building seems to be the landing pad for many city birds. Crows are pretty vocal out there in the morning. I enjoy their sound so it is not distracting to me. I heard them at Peaceful Forest too.

Beyond the parking lot is the green forest and hills.

In the distance, I can see the forests and greenery that surrounds us here. New York is mainly hills, mountains, forests that are thick with trees and bodies of water, ponds, creeks, lakes and rivers. We usually have plenty of rain too, so water is abundant. I can see the sun coming up to the side of that brick building, so it is not blocking my view of the sky at all. I cannot see the sun going down, but I am a morning person, so between the two, give me an eastern view.  I enjoy sitting here at my computer or in my rocking chair having coffee and just seeing the view outside my windows. I try to find positives in everything I do or places I go.

All within walking distance for me!

Having lived in a rural area, if I needed anything from the store, I always had to drive or have my husband drive to the store. I could not drive the truck he had, so I only went with him, not on my own. Now I can just walk out my door and down the street. There are shops along both sides, though there are a number of them that are empty and some that are closing even now. On that street also is a small movie theater that I look forward to going to sometime in the future, before it goes out of business too. The library is across the street from my building and not far from that is the county office building that has the motor vehicle department and other offices in it. I haven't really gone off down the street yet, but hope to do so soon. I am still in the moving process bringing things from Peaceful Forest. Soon I will know my way around pretty good!

Copyright © 2018 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2018 Kathleen G. Lupole

Preparing When Living In A City

Forest Path

I have talked many times on my blogs about prepping as part of the homesteading lifestyle. Looking back through them, I pretty much covered my ideas on how to get started. Included was information on how to prepare if living in an urban setting. What about "wanna be" preppers who live in an apartment building with no yards, decks, patios or roof top areas to grow food? Can it be done in that setting? Can your prepare and how? I set out to research that problem this morning.

Wheel Hoe 

Many cities now have those small garden plots that they rent to city dwellers for garden space. It may be inconvenient due to having to drive to it, depending on how far your home is away from it. Though if you are like me, and garden organically, the other plots around your plot may not be and most likely are not organic at all. Using fertilizers and pesticides that contain toxic chemicals would affect your plants and dirt, just by being nearby. In my own garden, I do not even use a rototiller which distributes toxic gasoline fumes onto your garden and lawn.

Saving Seeds

I myself, have never done that. One other problem with gardening this close to other gardens is that if you are a "seed saver" as I am, their plants could cause your plants to not grow true. They may cross pollinate your heirloom plants and your vegetables may come out different than you expect.

Squash Plant in Compost Pile

In 2011, I had a summer squash plant come up in the compost pile. It took over the whole area and was enormous. Kind of reminded me of the play, Little Shop Of Horrors. I believe it was a hybrid zucchini that crossed with my own heirloom yellow squash. These vegetables were huge! Probably a pound or so each. I let it grow and harvested from it for months. My canning cupboard is still stocked from this plant!

A city yard could easily be turned into a garden.

Another idea I had was that you could find a local homeowner who has a back yard and would be willing for you to make a garden plot there. By renting it and paying them in either cash or produce, you both win. Ideally it would be as close to your home as possible. Makes it convenient to go to do your weeding and watering. Time spent gardening will save you big time in the grocery store as well the health benefits of being outside in the fresh air and sunshine.

A window ledge is a good place for your plants.

Everyone knows you can grow in pots and containers inside an apartment if you have sunlight for the whole day. Plants really need a lot of light. All day if possible. But not everyone has bright windows to use for plants. Possibly using grow lights would help. I lived in a small house where I was raising house plants and had shelves with grow lights above each shelf of plants. A window ledge can be used to grow small pots of herbs. Instead of putting the planters on the window ledge, if you even have one, use a couple planter poles. If you are not familiar with planter poles, they were popular in the seventies. I had one in that same small house. I had a lot of house plants back then, no food! A planter pole looks like one of those lamp poles that has a spring on the top so you can adjust it to whatever height your ceiling is. If you need to move it for any reason, it is simple to do. Instead of lamps on it, there are hangers to hang your plants from. Some have little round shelves instead and some have both.

Home canned food

What if there is no way you can grow any plants anywhere? The next best thing is to purchase them from your local farms, produce markets or a CSA (Community Sustained Agriculture). Buy in bulk whatever is in season. Then can it, dehydrate it or freeze it. Freezing is not something I do or even would do if I could, because that is how more people lose large quantities of food. Power outages, and don't even tell me the one about canning all that food if the outage goes on for a length of time!  No way in the aftermath of a storm or other emergency are you going to be setting up to do your canning. In our area there was flooding and many people were not even allowed back into their homes for three weeks and not to stay. So all that food and your hard work is ruined.

Another option of course, if you have been into prepping for any length of time, you already know about this, would be to buy from the preparedness types of stores. Buying foods that are dehydrated or freeze dried. I do not buy the meals, instead I purchase the ingredients to make the meals. I buy these by the case from Emergency Essentials. Since I eat low carbs, I do not buy baking supplies, grains, legumes, sweets or the mixes. I always purchase the dehydrated eggs, cheese, buttermilk, meats, vegetables and berries. It is all part of my prepping plan and if you make one for where you live and what is available to you and what you can afford, then you can be prepared wherever you live.

Copyright © 2018 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2018 Kathleen G. Lupole