Ode to a Root Cellar
When temperatures soar about 85F, things start to feel roasty toasty on the homestead. Here are three ways we keep cool without resorting to the trailer’s sketchy AC.
Effort 1. Turn on the fans. Thanks to our solar panels and the generator, we are able to keep at least a small fan going most of the time. We wedged it up into the window in the bedroom and even the circulation of warm air offers more relief than stagnant air. In the evening, we add a box fan in the trailer’s living room for some added umph to help chase out the heat.
During the high heat of the day, though, even the fans reach their limits.
Effort 2. So, when circulating hot air becomes intolerable, outside is the next best place. There is usually some shade to be found around the trailer, and the goose neck provides a patch of shade even at high noon. Usually there is a bit (or more) of a breeze as well. I never thought I’d enjoy the wind, but it is sure a blessing on a hot day! We follow that shade around the trailer as the day progresses, taking our crafts, books, and toys with it.
Effort 3. One day, however, there was no breeze, and even the shade felt stifling. On a hope and a prayer, we headed for the root cellar, once our comfortable home in the dead of winter, then a damp disappointment in the seeping melt of spring, now a neglected cache for boxes and totes that had been shifted out of the eroding square yurt. We had an inkling that it would be better than outside: every time we popped in for a canned food item or a book, it was remarkably cooler.
Last year as we were sweating on almost 100 degree days mixing cement and plastering it on the walls, we fantasized over how nice it would be when it was completed. Fantasies don’t often come true, but this is one that has! Even though the temperature outside was a melting 98F, the thermometer in the root cellar read 70F. Bliss!
After letting our overheated brains cool down to a working temperature, we started moving around the boxes and totes stored therein and uncovered a living space with room for a hammock to be strung between the eyebolts we’d set into the walls for this very purpose!
Seeing this dream come true is exhilarating! Other than the water seepage in the spring, the root cellar has lived up to all our hopes. There is storage in the root cellar for food items, which store beautifully because of the consistent temperature (This morning the cellar was 68F compared to the morning’s 50F). There is space for the extra boxes and totes we don’t need in the trailer, and they are safe from moisture (most of the year). And there is room for us to play, study, and even cook on the gas stove during the heat of the day.
So much about homesteading can be really difficult, and progress is often so slow that it is hard to see the results. Having this cool, quiet space – created by our own back-breaking labor – is a timely reminder that good things will come with time and that hard work is worth it in the end.
