Couple continues effort toward self-sufficiency

This is the continuation of a story began here which described how Alex and Scott Mueller left behind their corporate-driven lives in Western Washington and relocated to a home in the country near Spokane, where they hope to live more sustainably and encourage others to do the same. The vision of exactly what Alex and Scott Mueller’s new life would look like started off hazy, but a honeymoon road trip to North Dakota (not a typo or a joke) provided clarity. While driving home through Big Sky Country, the couple was awestruck. The romantic, rugged appeal of Montana drew them in immediately, especially Alex. “I had a dream since I was a kid that I was going to live in Montana in the middle of nowhere, and when I died, the land would be turned into a bird preserve,” she recalls. But the practical reality of living “nowhere” had since tainted her childhood dream. While awesome and breathtaking, Montana was just too wild for the urban-grown pair, who admit that they weren’t totally ready to give up restaurants, art galleries, and modern conveniences. And with that, Montana and the bird preserve-fantasy faded in the rearview mirror. Continuing west towards home, Spokane unexpectedly presented itself to the road-weary travelers as the ideal balance between urban and natural. The couple was impressed. “Maybe the sun was shining just perfectly or something,” Alex explains. “We bought the second property we looked at.” For the next year, the couple travelled across the state almost every weekend to oversee the construction of their new home. By April 2010, they had cut their west-side ties and made the move in a U-Haul full of tools. During the icy spring of 2010, the couple camped and worked in the construction zone of their new home, learning finish-carpentry through trial and error. “There were times when I was just so sick of being cold and sitting in a camping chair. I just wanted to be comfortable,” she said. “But at the same time, it was wonderful to be outside all the time – you hear everything, smell everything, every movement of the wind – I wouldn’t have changed a thing.” Her last statement carries more weight than one may realize, considering Scott’s next account of that first spring: “At the time, we just had an outdoor shower. I remember waking up one day, looking out the window, and seeing Al, who had a job interview that day, taking a shower outside in the snow. I was like wow, that’s pretty hardcore, and went back to bed.” Alex laughs, and says the outdoor bathing was totally worth it because of all the “when I was your age” you-don’t-have-it-so-bad anecdotes she can dump on future grandchildren. Today, the Mueller’s home is nearly finished, and it includes both an indoor shower and a flush toilet. Life sounds pretty comfortable, and is definitely slower. Scott traded his high stress, demanding job for a position at the Valley School District, where he does communications and community relations, and Alex teaches an art class and picks up substitute teaching shifts when she can. Instead of merging onto gridlocked I-5 every day, the couple now drives 20 minutes together in their old farm truck, on empty roads. Now that Alex and Scott devote far less hours to their employers, they have the freedom and time to create their ideal homestead, a concept they have intentionally left undefined. Neither has a clear vision of their lives in 20 years, and say they wouldn’t want one. Their plan instead is to try a lot of things to see what works. “That (vision) would be boring,” Alex says. Scott finds comfort in their flexibility to experiment: “Now that we are no longer trying to protect such a large and lavish lifestyle, we have a lot more room to screw up.” At this point, potential children appear to fall in the yet-to-be-determined category as well. When asked about a creating a family, Alex immediately responds with, “someday, yes,” while Scott offers, “I think I would like to get a yak.” After jabbing him in the ribs for avoiding the question, Alex offers a compromise: “We’re not there yet, we just got a toilet.”