Naturally, when people find out that I live in a bell tent full-time, they have questions – and rightfully so. I’d have questions too!
In this blog post, I’ll give you a glimpse into what full-time tent life this past week has looked like for us. There are certain aspects of tent life that are fun and exciting – and of course, there are parts that aren’t so fun. But at the end of the day I still choose this life.
WHY I choosefull time tent life is somewhat of a loaded answer, so I will make a more specific blog post about that:) For now, enjoy this look at some of the behind-the-scenes.
Our Morning Routine
I am usually the first one up and out of bed each morning. The first thing I do is turn off our propane heater (our nighttime source of heat) and get a fire going in our wood stove. By the time I’m finished, Britton is usually up and ready for breakfast.
Most mornings, Britton just wants waffles toasted in the cast iron skillet. I generally don’t cook anything crazy for breakfast. Just tea for me and waffles for Britton.
Showering Off Grid
On this particular day, I took a shower. Living off the grid, without a real bathroom means showering only when necessary LOL.
I generally take a full shower two to three times a week and just use a washcloth and my little squeeze-bottle bidet to keep the important areas fresh in between showers.
To take a shower, I fill a bucket from our 275 gallon water tank, heat the water up on the wood stove and then go outside to my very primitive shower setup.
Showering Outside
Yes, I really do shower outside in the cold. Once the warm water is running down your body you really don’t feel the cold at all. Unless it’s windy. The wind does make it less of a pleasant experience. But generally speaking, it’s truly not that bad to shower outside as long as your water is hot enough.
I do have a shower tent, but there is nowhere to hang the shower head inside. So a bungee cord wrapped around a tree works just as well LOL. I am deep enough in the woods that no one would ever see me anyway.
Our Rechargeable Water Pump
My shower is a rechargeable pump that I found on Amazon. I can take several showers with just one charge. And when I need to recharge the battery, I can just plug it into my Jackery power station.
Mild Fall Weather
I know the sky looks gray but the weather was really nice on this day. Britton and I spent quite a bit of time outdoors enjoying it. And of course, the dog and the cat enjoyed it as well. Normally they prefer to sleep inside the tent next to the wood stove, but I’m sure it was nice for them to get out and run around a bit.
We also put all of our power stations out on the solar panels – even though the sun was intermittent. To our surprise, everything charged up pretty well! Not to 100%, but I was impressed by how much everything managed to charge up.
Nighttime in the Bell Tent
Once the sun goes down and we lose daylight, we will just hunker down in our tent for the evening/night. I have a few battery-powered lanterns I use to give us some light.
I let the fire in the wood stove die out so I can switch back to the propane heater for overnight. I get lots of questions as to why I don’t keep a fire going all night.
First of all, it’s a very small stainless steel wood stove. It’s meant specifically for heating a tent and nothing bigger. So once the fire begins to die out, the heat does not stay as it does in a cast iron wood stove.
Additionally, it just would not be safe to fall asleep with a fire going. God forbid anything should happen, our tent would go up in flames in a matter of minutes. Would Britton and I wake up in time? Better to be safe than sorry. And actually, the tent company and the wood stove company both highly discourage overnight fires. So the propane heater it is.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post about full-time tent life! If you have a question or something you’d like me to write about in detail, I’d love to know! Leave me a comment and let me know what you’d like to read about in the next blog post 🙂
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