Forging a Life in the Wild | Home in the Wild
(TORI: Nice.)
(JIM: Our bushwack has commenced! We want to make our camp more like home, so we're going foraging for wood and supplies to build some furniture. But our camp here is situated on protected land, so we need to hike to a spot upstream where the government allows you to cut down dead trees and live branches, and basically source the wood that we're gonna need. And we're bringing the canoe on this bushwack, so we'll have a way to bring all this wood back to our campsite.)
(TORI: Oh God. I think you're stuck, hon.)
(JIM: That's a no.)
(TORI (off screen): Reverse to your left. Turn the back.)
(JIM: Yeah, I'm just gonna go straight here. (grunting))
(TORI: Carrying the canoe is definitely an awkward and uncomfortable thing to do, with all the weight on your shoulders, but he also can put it down at any moment. I'm carrying both children, each weigh 30 pounds, so... basically, wearing a 60-pound weighted vest, and I cannot take it off and put it down for a moment, but... I think I have the cuter job. (heavy breathing) I think this is our best bet.)
(Jim grunting - Hi. There we go.)
(babbling)
(That's wonderful. Good job. I'm just noticing how happy Wesley is, and how much eye contact he's been making with me. And, um, eye contact is something that he's not always been so good at, and... it's a big indicator of some progression for him, so. Hi. There it is. Hi, sweetheart. Yeah, I think this is so good for him.)
(JIM (off screen): Whew! We made it.)
(TORI: All right. Ooh. (exhales) Feel like I'm floating. Look at Wes sitting so high in the canoe there on his elbows.)
(JIM: Come here, Wes.)
(TORI: He was so happy pretty much the entire walk, like, when he wasn't sleeping, he was, like, super happy. Also, just looking around at his surroundings, like, looking up at the trees.)
(JIM: That's really good, eh? It just goes to show that it's even better for him to be in the outdoors and in nature than your average person.)
(TORI: Yeah.)
(JIM: So, you know, just that-- I don't know, just different surroundings or whatever it is, it seems to be working for him.)
(TORI: It's fun to watch Hudson interact with Wesley. Hudson doesn't see Wesley any differently than he does Jim or I.)
(JIM: I feel like it's definitely helped Wesley just have another person there that kinda he can connect with, even though his little brother pulls his hair sometimes, it doesn't matter.)
(And I also think that...)
(TORI: He bites.)
(JIM: ...that Hudson is going to learn so much more responsibility and be so much wiser at such a young age because of his brother's challenges. Judging by the way that the kids are behaving and how happy they are out here, it's making me think that, uh, you know, maybe we get a little property in a place like this, and build a little wilderness home. Even if there's potentially a place of buying a remote property in there...)
(TORI: Mm-hm.)
(Right.)
(JIM: ...it could be a possible place that we might consider building an off-grid cabin, and slowly, you know, basically starting to make that our home base 'til one day, maybe that's our permanent residence, who knows?)
(TORI: That would be amazing.)
(JIM: Ah, yeah.)