The camper did not smell any better the next day.

“I suppose I’m not surprised,” I muttered. “Ok, maybe I’ll fast track the bunkie plan.”

I had always known the camper’s days would be numbered, because soon it would be fall and then, shortly after, it would be winter, and way up here in the north we were looking at a solid six months of snow cover and freezing temperatures. Getting a house built was an enormous and cost-prohibitive task, but I had started to look for prefab homes and cabins and eventually found a really affordable solution: small cabin kits that would let someone quickly build a tiny structure called a bunkie.

The bunkie would be a small space, but it was still a lot more comfortable and roomy compared to a pop-up camper, even before it reeked of skunk. It was something I could mostly put together myself, even with my limited DIY skills, which made me feel like I was truly building my home, even if it was a pre-planned build from a kit with instructions.

My email chimed with the confirmation of the order of my chalet-style bunkie kit, and I said a silent farewell to another chunk of my condo sale profits. Fortunately, the sale had brought in more than I had planned for, so I still had a lot of room to maneuver before I had to start figuring some things out. With the bunkie kit purchased and on the way in the coming weeks, I made another call to the folks I had got to lay the driveway gravel.

“Sure, we can bring you out a load of gravel this week, Jack,” the voice on the phone said. “You said you’re building a bunkie? You’ll want to dig out the soil first rather than just dumping the gravel on top.”

That led me back into town to pick up a shovel from the big orange box store, as well as a few other tools, some pressure treated lumber, and leveling stones to set in place for the foundation. I also grabbed some insulation to stuff in the floor to keep the winter cold out, and got some advice from one of the employees about fireplaces and heating.

Living off the grid wasn’t particularly uncommon out this way, so I learned a lot of useful information just by asking around. The people were pretty easy to talk to, as well. There was a distance between us—I was clearly from the city, and knew nothing aside from what I had read online, and forming new friendships at my age might be a challenge—but none of that stopped them from being helpful and sharing what they knew about living in the north.

Back on the property, I stuck the shovel into the soil where I wanted to prepare the foundation. I levered and lifted, turning and dumping the soil into a wheelbarrow I had also decided to purchase, so I could move the excess soil away from the site of my future tiny home.

The sight of the soil confused me a bit. It seemed dark and rich, far nicer than I had expected. The well driller had said there was no granite below the clearing, and the soil seemed full of the necessary stuff for plants to thrive, so why was the clearing not full of healthy, happy trees?

Unless I wanted to get the soil tested, somehow, it was a moot point. Perhaps it would matter when I tried to put in a little garden, because if something was in the soil and killing plants, it would affect my future tomatoes. Meanwhile, I only concerned myself with digging, and ignored the sweat pouring down my back as I put in the work.

My shoulders, back, and every other part of my body were aching before I was done, but by the end of the third day I felt good about the amount of dirt I had moved and the area I had cleared for the foundation. I double checked the instructions about building a foundation for a bunkie from the company’s website, and started staging the materials I would need.

The best foundation would have been a poured concrete slab, but I was opting to go with a simple floating foundation. It might shift over winter, but the bunkie was small enough that I should be able to jack up any low corners and build up the gravel or add pavers to keep the bunkie level each season. If I decided I wanted a slab later, maybe I could rent a tractor and move the entire bunkie on forks in order to do the concrete work before putting it back in place.

Before the week was done, my gravel delivery showed up and they filled my excavated spot with the load. I flattened it as best as I could, then laid in the leveling stone and constructed the pressure treated base layer to build the bunkie on top of.

I had been keeping pretty busy in the week since I had arrived, but until the bunkie kit arrived, I finally had some downtime to really relax and enjoy the property. I walked Goofy through the forest, exploring the area around the clearing, keeping the rambunctious dog on-leash to avoid any further incidents with the wildlife.

Wandering through the woods, we stopped short when we found an area where the ground rose up into a large, jagged, rocky outcropping. It was pretty well hidden in the surrounding forest and foliage, but it was still a shockingly large mound bursting out of the earth.

“That’s odd,” I muttered, walking around it and giving it a wide berth. “Surprised I didn’t see this on the GPS image. Would have been bad if the driveway crew ran into something like this. We got lucky, Goof.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The dog’s head snapped over, and he started pulling me around the rocky hill faster.

“What’s got into you?” I asked, but as I rounded the hill some more, I saw the opening in the side of the rock. “Oh, damn. A cave?”

I crept forward, holding Goofy back from pulling free with the leash as he strained towards the cave entrance. When we got close, I started to smell something rank coming from within.

“Ew, no Goofy, something must have died in there. Nope. The smell of skunk just started to fade, you do not need to get even more disgusting rolling in or eating some rotting corpse.” My stomach heaved a bit just thinking about it, although the smell lingering in my nostrils likely played some part in that.

Dragging the dog all the way back towards the clearing, I left the cave behind, and mostly put it out of my thoughts. Walking through the forest was interesting, but with a massive driveway through the property, it was easier to tire Goofy out just walking the length of the cleared, flattened lane instead of trudging through thorny shrubs and mud.

* * *

“This is really coming along,” I said, looking over the bunkie build-in-progress. “I’m actually building myself a little house. Unreal.”

The feeling of creating shelter for myself—even if it was somewhat premade, from a kit, with instructions—was surprisingly liberating. It felt like I was conquering the land, taming the wild, a true settler staking my claim on this territory.

“If it weren’t for building bylaws, everyone could do this. Although I guess plumbing would be nice.”

Most of the instructions were quite straightforward and doable, but the roof was a bit of a challenge. The instructions recommended having two people, but with a little cleverness, redneck engineering, and elbow grease, my future cabin slowly but surely approached being fully closed in.

I was up on a ladder adding some of the finishing touches when Goofy started going absolutely apeshit, barking his damn fool head off at something in the forest. The dog pulled and strained against the line tying him to the anchor I had drilled into the ground to keep him from going after the wildlife again.

“Shut up, Goofy! No more skunks!” I shouted, then peered out at the bushes at the edge of the clearing. All I saw was greenery, the leaves gently swaying in the breeze.

The air stilled, and in the moment of rest, I saw one bush shake abnormally. As I stared, I made out a pair of yellow eyes, which I noticed when they blinked.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” I shouted, jerking back and causing my ladder to tremble. I grabbed the roof, holding myself stable so I wouldn’t fall, and once the ladder was back under control, I quickly descended and rushed over to Goofy, whose barking had stopped as he looked up to me wagging his tail.

Peering back at the brush, nothing appeared unusual. Just trees, bushes, leaves, and the wind.

“What the fuck was that? A coyote? Bobcat?” I frowned, worrying about predators that might get bold enough to approach the clearing and attack me or Goofy.

Hurrying over to the pop-up camper, I opened the storage and rifled through some bags and boxes until I found a large case that was tucked away. While I had waited for the property sale to close, and knowing I would be living in the wilderness, I had made sure to do everything necessary to prepare and outfit myself for some of the more dangerous possibilities. That, and I was also considering learning to hunt in the fall.

Popping the case open, two brand new firearms gleamed up at me. The .308 was for deer hunting when the season opened, but for the moment, I pulled out the 12-gauge shotgun.

“If construction noise is going to attract predators, I probably need to start keeping this nearby or on-hand,” I muttered to myself as I pulled out some shells and refamiliarized myself with the firearm. I had almost no history with guns, but after my courses and some time in a range outside of the city, I had learned the basics.

Loading a single shell into the magazine, I pumped the action, and it was ready to fire. I pumped it again and the unused shell flew out, clearing the chamber, and I bent over to find it and pick it up out of the tall, folded-over grass that was growing wildly throughout the clearing. I needed to pick up some kind of mower so I could knock that all back and keep a tidier yard for my home. I had not pulled a tick off myself or the dog yet, but I was just asking for it in this kind of overgrown grass.

After looking it over and seeing that it was still clean, I loaded it back in the magazine, ready to load with a single pump if I encountered an issue but with less risk of the firearm going off if I knocked the thing over while I was working or grabbing it.

“There,” I muttered, and set the shotgun down against the side of the bunkie while I climbed back up on the ladder. I had a roof to build, and I wasn’t going to let some ‘yote or bobcat stop me from finishing my new home.

Once it was all put together, I made another trip to the big orange box store to pick up what I needed for the finishing touches. Stain, brushes, more insulation, waterproofing stuff for the roof, and I put in an order for sheet metal to be delivered to finish the roof off with. All these small costs added to the total cost of the bunkie kit, but the small cabin was still a much more affordable option than anything else I could get, and I felt like I was picking up a ton of new construction skills.

“I think I could probably build something somewhat comparable from scratch, now,” I thought aloud as I looked over the bunkie when I returned home. All the measuring and cutting and design would add to the time it took to build, but I already knew I wanted more covered space to keep stuff in. “Maybe I’ll try building a shed from scratch, next.”

After staining, insulating, and waterproofing, I settled down to wait for my sheet metal delivery, cracking a beer from the six-pack I picked up in town and sitting on the small cabin’s front porch. I took a swig and sighed, a smile breaking across my face.

“This is the life.”