This is my home.
Yeah, I know, there's another place where I spend most of my time, and it's my official mailing address, but this is my home. I'm not sure that it's possible for an innate love of a place to be passed down genetically, but since the early 1800's this land has been in my family and it just feels like I belong here. This was always referred to my grandparents as "The Old Place". I'm not sure they meant it in the Celtic sense, but to me, that fits too. My grandmother grew up here. Her childhood home burned in 1935 and the hole where the foundation was is still visible near the southeast corner of the property.
The cabin itself was built in 1929 by a gentleman named Vann R. Law. Mr. Law wasn't a relative but he obtained part of the fifty acres after one of my deadbeat ancestors lost it for taxes. The property was important enough to my grandparents that my grandfather made a standing offer to Vann Law that, should he ever want to sell, he wanted right of first refusal. The property was made whole again, sometime in the 60's.
The cabin consists of three rooms, all stuck in the 1930's.
The living room (which was actually the entire cabin, before the addition of the bedroom and kitchen):
The bedroom:
and the kitchen:
You notice that I said "living room" "bedroom" and "kitchen" but not "bathroom". Ok so it's a bit rustic... It has electricity (though it's quite possible to get by very nicely without it ) and a hand pump. (A bathroom is on the short list of the improvements to be done, since it's the biggest hindrance to us spending more time there. In the meantime, the ladies room is a camp toilet and the men's room is fifty acres in size).
As charming as it may be indoors, that's only half the story. This is what it looks like out the back door....and for at least a half mile straight back:
People often ask what body of water my camp is on, because, apparently there's some sort of mandate that camps be on water. When I say "none" they look rather nonplussed. " Well what do you do?" is the usual reaction... So what DOES one do with three rooms and a crapload of trees? NOTHING, if you don't want to. Sit and read, talk or just listen to the wind and watch the birds. Listen to the rain on the roof. Basking in the timelessness of the place and sloughing off all the "go-go-go" we all subject ourselves to every day can be a little disconcerting at first, but eye-opening and relaxing in the long run. A conscious decision has been made to exclude modern technology as much as possible. No TV, no radio, no computer, no phone and no clock. You get up when you feel like it, eat when you're hungry and go to bed when you're tired. It can be jarring but enlightening to reset ourselves like that, considering that music is my constant companion and my entire working day is dictated by a clock.
When the relaxation gets too much for even me, there's woods to be walked in, trails to be cleared or ridden on the bike, firewood to be cut - funny how when I'm up there, what would be "work" at home isn't. In the winter, there's snowshoeing and skiing.
I was telling a friend about how when I'm up there, I can go out in the woods and work for most of the morning but usually, when I stop for lunch about 2 o'clock, that's it, I'm usually done for the day. I said "It's kind of like when you're at the dentist and they put that lead thing on your chest to take X-rays; I find it hard to move". He said "It's probably all that "stuff" you let go of and leave behind".
I think he nailed it.
