Day Forty, Orange II, A Pallet on the Floor

Orange Acres, Mission Statement

To host travelers from around the country and world, and welcome people to the last great state of Montana,

To help people with a place to stay while traveling or while transitioning to, and or finding jobs,

To promote quality family time and agriculture with free mini-golf, and mini goats, chickens,

To educate people with recycled building and survival skills for modern day America,

To build the infrastructure for a refugee camp in advance of a major mass migration resulting from an unknown disaster, at an unknown time, at an unknown place that the government will fail to predict, prepare for or protect us from.

That's the official version.  Jeff, our good host, often explains things more simply.  It is, he says, all part of a three-step plan.  Step one, as I understand it, is to collect all the old wooden pallets.  All of them.  Step three is to take over the world.  Step two remains just a little bit vague.

I am, nevertheless, still here, and doing my part for the Revolution.  I have moved from my tent into an extraordinarily comfortable little cabin with picture windows and mountain views and shelf space and a wood stove and a bed and a rocking chair.  If anyone loved me I'd be content.  The Pallet Palace, as it is known locally, has been built almost entirely out of pallets.  You feel safe in there.

A few pallets out the front door make a lovely porch.  It is a nice place to watch my stars.  Even the glow of some wild beast's eyeballs did not chase me back indoors.  Made me flinch, I'm compelled to confess, but it did not chase me back indoors.

I spent most of my day sitting in the warm sun.  There are lots of people to talk to.  I contributed a small token effort to pulling nails out of old pallets.  It is a different sort of work than distance walking.  A nail hit me in the forehead.

Jeff has big dreams for this place and I am inclined to support most of them.  There are worse fellows you could choose to dominate your world.  And we're eating good and more or less picking up after ourselves.  There are new faces here every day.  But my feet are in good shape, my muscles are strong.  The hot weather does not yet much bother me.   I really ought to be walking but it is nice here, too.  It is tempting to stay forever.

"We make you leave after twenty days."

So at least I've got some kind of time frame.  And until I find my path, please accept my best wishes for Peace and Prosperity from Orange Acres Montana.

Fair enou