I might have relented and parked a trailer down here.
Four years ago today I arrived in North Carolina to the big machines clearing a pad in the forest and digging in a "tater field" for my rock walls. Visions of a little cabin quickly rising in the forest danced in my head.
Four long years later, instead of a tacky trailer, a little gem that slows traffic and gets compliments from the locals rests comfortably in the forest. I built it and one day it will be mine. Right now the lawyer and the banker want to make the land transfer and the mortgage an ordeal. The object seems clear enough to me. I don't understand the slow muddled response from so called professionals in their fields. Their both thinking about the proper processes and procedures. I think the internal family nature of the deal has thrown them for a loop to certain degree. I breathe. It will get done in due time.
Meanwhile I am mostly moved in to Hale Mana. The little cabin in my head is now real.
I am the last resident to move in. Others have been living here far longer.
Did you know bats really will not wake up in the day time even if you pick them up and move them because they are in the way.
The insulated plumbing box was recovered with its bead board siding. All that's left on this project is a couple of small trim pieces that broke when I tore the thing open to find out what the problem was. With that done the cabin felt more complete. It was time for me to move in.
At least for those four long years I was able to wander a mountain top garden of wild cultivation filled with botanical splendors of every kind and every season.
There was grass in this garden, but you didn't have to mow it.
It was part of the exuberant chaos where plants seeded themselves and wandered about looking for better locations and nicer neighbors. Each of those four years was different. I lived in a garden with a mind of its own. This garden made the slow building process that much more tolerable.
By my first spring the roadside vegetable garden was ready to plant and this year will mark my forth season. More than anything the vegetable garden has been my salvation. It regularly produced a finished product, something that was missing in so many other areas of my life.
So I would strongly advise anyone else who is thinking of building their own cozy cabin that the very first thing they should do is Plant the Vegetable Garden. I was just extremely lucky to have full use of the wild cultivated garden next door too.
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6 comments:
What a tremendous difference of the before & after. The after looks as tho it has been there all along. It belongs.
Didn't know the fact about the bats.
Neat.
Gardens do seem to console us most of the time. That seems to be our connection, the earth, being with nature & the Creator.
All the very best, my friend.
Are the Spots acclimating themselves to this home?
Sallysmom
The most famous 4 words, "if I had known"! But in this case it all turned out spectacularly, as things that are worth the wait often do. Enjoy the garden building now!
bev
Congratulations, and thank you for sharing this long saga with your devoted readers who have lived every moment of it along with you. When you mentioned making the vegetable garden first, it reminded me of the standard advice to new homeowners to plant slow-growing trees first -- but, of course, you didn’t have to be concerned about the forest and the trees because they were already there. Be happy in your own abode. I wish for you good health and much contentment. And hope you continue taking a break from the work every day -- to watch the changes in the growth. I have learned a lot from you. Thank you for having the discipline it takes to keep up with the writing.
Lois
Yes Lola from a naked wound to a cozy cabin surrounded by a growing and evolving garden is a big change. It does sit well with the forest.
Sallysmom the Spots are a whole other ballgame for another day after the sisters have come and gone.
Bev I am already glad I did not know. Building this with my father can't ever be replaced and it turned out nice. Even he thought so.
Thank you Louis. My little building story would have run much much longer in the NYT yea? Taking a little break each day if only for a few moments to appreciate the beauty that surrounds me is what keeps me going. I don't know if my writing is discipline or a replacement for TV that is just so awful now.
Yes, you are a lucky man. Quite talented too. I can't believe the CC has been four years in the making. I think I have been reading about it for that long. I am glad you have your veggie garden. How interesting that you have bats hanging around.
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