{"id":1003,"date":"2023-01-31T10:12:46","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T15:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shinytinymansion.com\/?p=1003"},"modified":"2025-09-11T13:58:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T17:58:37","slug":"its-ron-and-sue-not-scott-and-helen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shinytinymansion.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/31\/its-ron-and-sue-not-scott-and-helen\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Ron and Sue, not Scott and Helen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Nearing<\/a>
The house Scott and Helen built in Maine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the summer of 2015, we took a two week vacation to Maine. The purpose of the trip was mainly to rest and think about how we wanted to direct our life’s goals, but I wanted to stop by the house of two of our homesteading heroes, Scott and Helen Nearing. Helen and Scott built this house in their later years. They built a self sustaining homestead in Vermont in the 1930’s. In 1953, they sold the homestead, purchased property in Maine and started again. The books, The Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing’s Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living<\/a><\/em> and Loving and Leaving the Good Life<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>describe how Helen and Scott lived a self-sufficient life and created a legacy that would be an inspiration to people during their lives and long after they both were gone. The house and grounds are preserved as a teaching center for folks who are interested in such things. We happen to be quite interested and learned a lot from the visit. Scott and Helen did not live in a tiny house, but they built it themselves from stones found and gathered and were self-sufficient in their living habits.<\/p>\n

\"Nearing's<\/a>
The wooden cabinets gave the utilitarian kitchen a cozy feel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
Looking out the dining room window to the ocean.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
<\/div>\n
\"Scott's<\/a>
Scott’s study was full of books and items that felt like he just stepped out for a second and would be right back.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Composting
They built a composting toilet that took the waste to the basement for cleaning.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Nearing's<\/a>
Crops were starting to pop up in the garden.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
A face sculpted into the corner of the stone fence shows that they weren’t completely utilitarian. They had a sense of whimsy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Nearing's<\/a>
A nice sized greenhouse sat at the edge of the garden, a nice addition to help ripen less hardy plants.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We interviewed to be the residents for the house for 2023. That would last from May until Indigenous Peoples’ Day. We are waiting to hear. If we are chosen, we will blog about the experience here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the summer of 2015, we took a two week vacation to Maine. The purpose of the trip was mainly to rest and think about how we wanted to direct our life’s goals, but I wanted to stop by the house of two of our homesteading heroes, Scott and Helen Nearing. Helen and Scott built […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[294,212,290],"class_list":["post-1003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-living-the-good-life-in-the-21st-c","tag-harborside-maine","tag-nearings","tag-the-good-life-center"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shinytinymansion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/House1.jpg?fit=3264%2C2448&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shinytinymansion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shinytinymansion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shinytinymansion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shinytinymansion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shinytinymansion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1003"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/shinytinymansion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2040,"href":"https:\/\/shinytinymansion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions\/2040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shinytinymansion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shinytinymansion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shinytinymansion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shinytinymansion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}