Hassle, and luxury, happily left behind

When school's out, so are we . . . out of town, out of state, and as out of touch as possible.

We have a New Hampshire summer place notable for all the things it lacks: television, computers, air conditioning, a dishwasher other than the two-handed variety. Radio reception is so spotty we had to drive to the top of a nearby hill to catch a Red Sox- Yankees game last summer on WEEI.

This is not waterfront property unless you count the vernal pond out back, a rich source of tadpoles (and mosquitoes), nor will it be featured in Architectural Digest anytime soon.

The house consists of three rooms and an attic, built around 1830 and redecorated, unfortunately, in the '70s. We tore out the wall-to-wall burnt orange shag, but hung on to the avocado green stove because three working burners is really all you need if you do most of your cooking outdoors as we do, in a cast-iron sink dragged up from behind the barn. With the addition of a couple of racks salvaged at the dump, it makes a perfect fire pit. Cheap, too, since all we burn is wood and we have 20 acres of that.

The other thing we have is the aforementioned barn. This was not a big selling point, inasmuch as it leans slightly, owing to sill rot and the industriousness of the powder post beetles that, along with a porcupine and many mice, are its only current inhabitants.

One year, I arrived to open up the house and found a dead squirrel in the bedroom, having apparently succumbed to indigestion after chewing every windowsill in the place while trying to get out. Another year I got to play ``CSI: New Hampshire," while tracking down the source of a gag-inducing smell that seemed to come from under the refrigerator. Some industrious investigation with a yardstick produced a dead mouse no bigger than my pinkie.

So I recognized the smell the following summer when I opened up the barn.

``Yikes, I think an elephant died under there," I told my neighbor, an old New Hampshire hand well versed in the local fauna.

He sniffed. ``Nope, not an elephant. Bigger than a mouse, though. We'll wait it out."

After a week or so, the smell subsided and we brought a drop light into the crawl space and found Rigor Mortis the raccoon, who was dispatched into the woods on a shovel.

If a time-share at a cushy resort is beginning to sound good right now, let me say that a lack of luxury can have its own carefree charms. Along with the pesky smaller critters with which we share our space, we have our summer dog, Roger, an elderly neighbor's border collie, who shows up early each morning eager for some tennis ball tag and a shower from the sprinkling can. We are visited from time to time by a bull moose that manages to take a shortcut through the yard without taking out the clothesline.

In our summer place, we don't fret much about housekeeping; the kids are allowed to eat in the living room while playing poker on the rug. Our summertime standards of personal appearance are lax, to say the least. I wear no makeup, and a half-hour in the lake equals a shower. Jeans, too worn for home, are just right for hiking up here. After all, it's not like we'll be running into anyone we know. Or, most of the time, anyone at all.

Which is another good thing about a summer place: you are out of your element, relieved of the need to appear respectable, make idle chitchat, impress anyone in any way, keep to any schedule but your own.

Up here, I am without credentials: I drink beer with my lunch and swim in the lake after dark with bats swooping overhead. If I want to take a walk, I walk out the door unencumbered by purse, keys, or cellphone. I drive barefoot over dirt roads while eating ice cream cones, and keep the kayak on the roof rack should any interesting body of water present itself.

In the summer I'm not myself. I like to think I get away to a better self. Which, for two months a year, is a fine place to be.

Barbara Donlon lives in Winchester and in a small New Hampshire town that she promised her neighbors not to identify.