3. You’re averaging a book a week. Last summer, you read every Kurt Vonnegut book ever written. Twice.
4. You spend a lot of time getting stoned and sitting in your chicken coop. “They’re just like us, man. They’re just like us.”
5. Your biggest fear is having to take a dump in the middle of the night. And having to walk down a slippery hill in the dark to a caving-in outhouse at two in the morning. Alone.
6. You use the same half liter of water to first wash your face, then wash your dishes, then water your plants. Pushing a wheelbarrow with seven liters of water in it every week from your closest neighbor’s house is a bitch. Conservation is key.
7. You fight with your partner every night over who has to get out of bed and blow out the candle.
8. You can’t remember the last time you washed your hands. You also can’t remember the last time you’ve been sick.
9. When someone asks what you did today, you recount for them in intense detail every interaction you had with another human being.
10. Your refrigerator is a mossy spot under a tree.
11. You have bragging scars on your arms from a broody hen that turned against you.
12. You calculate time by what NPR program is broadcasting on your wind-up radio.
13. You’re writing a novel in your spare time.
14. If someone asked you what your most prized possession was, you’d say “ice.”
15. Your friend once popped in unexpectedly. You were flying a kite in the nude.
16. You know how important it is to “take advantage of the sunlight.”
17. You’ll grill anything. Grilled watermelon. Try it.
18. Your food standards have lowered considerably. When you had access to running water and a fridge, you might not eat a moldy strawberry. Out here, a trip to the grocery store means a half-mile walk to your vehicle followed by a 10-mile drive. You’ll eat any edible or slightly edible thing that crosses your path.
19. Once you were bored, so you built an outdoor kitchen.
20. Your most successful day was when you figured out how to clean the ash out of your wood cookstove. You use the leftover ash to make waste decompose faster in the outhouse.
21. Someone remarks how awesome the sunset is. You’re like: “Meh. Seen it.”
22. Watching a movie consists of driving three towns away to the video store, only renting a movie you’re absolutely sure is good (Inglourious Basterds), driving home, detaching your car battery, transporting said car battery in a wheelbarrow to your home, using a power inverter to connect your car battery to your laptop, OD-ing on the same movie four times in a row because you were stoned and confused the first three and a half times you watched it, then reversing that entire process.
23. You have hours-long conversations based around the suspected health of your tomato plants.
24. You’re merciless with a chainsaw.
25. You’re in bed before the sun goes down.
26. You beg to your closest friends, “Seriously. Please tell me if I smell.”
27. Once you left a beer baking in the sun for an entire week before you remembered where it was. You drank it anyway.
28. You throw a mini-tantrum when you have to leave your home/land.
29. You’re a rock star when it comes to cooking with wood.
30. Your proudest summer purchase was a mail-order garden cart. 