The Road Washes Out in Spring : Brandeis University Press : 9781684581603 : 1684581605 : 07 Mar 2023 : A new edition of an evergreen back-to-nature book in the tradition of Thoreau.   For nearly twenty-five years, poet Baron Wormser and his family lived in a house in Maine with no electricity or running water. They grew much of their own food, carried water by hand, and read by the light of kerosene lamps. They considered themselves part of the ?back to the land? movement, but their choice to live off the grid was neither a statement nor a protest: they simply had built their house too far from the road and could not afford to bring in power lines. Over the years, they settled into a life that centered on what Thoreau would have called ?the essential facts.? In this graceful meditation, Wormser similarly spurns ideology in favor of observation, exploration, and reflection. ?When we look for one thread of motive,? he writes, ?we are, in all likelihood, deceiving ourselves.? His refusal