To Build A Log Cabin

Available in print from iUniverse

If your plans of escaping to a simpler life in the country harbors dreams of living in a simple log cabin you built yourself, I want to assure you it’s entirely possible. 

In fact, I can even show you how, or at least inspire you in a book I did on my experiences with four differently log cabin projects.

Growing up in New York City, living in a log cabin seemed the remotest of possibilities. But when my wife and I moved to Tennessee in our early 20s, the log cabin became a fixtureand focus of our lifestyle. 

Hidden within our old farmhouse in the scenic hills was an authentic one room log cabin we later restored and built our home around.

When It came time to expand our home for our growing family, I had no choice but resort to the old methods, butting poplars off our place, hewing them with a broadaxe and adze, cutting the dovetail notches locking them all together.

Later, when I needed a peaceful office for my writing career away, I built another cabin. Using rounded logs, with saddle notches,it was an easier project, and is where I’m writing this today. I had an opportunity to expand on it by taking down and resurrecting yet another original cabin, this one so early there were carved wooden pegs holding down the floorboards.

Available as an eBook from Smashwords

When we started the first of these projects my wife and I had absolutely no carpentry skills or experience, only youthful idealism and exuberance. Through hard work, determination and patience we saw each project through.

If we could do it, so can you!!!

In fact, I was so proud of our accomplishments, I combined my love of log cabins with my writing career in a book I self published a few years ago. A Home From The Woods tells the story of all four of these projects. Part of each section is a narrative, our story, to give you an idea of what it’s like and the rewards that come with these projects. The other part of each section provides more straightforward “how-to “ advice which can be adapted to your own projects: restoring an old log cabin the hand-hewn log cabin; building with rounded logs; and taking down and rebuilding an original log cabin.

I just published the ebook version of the book published through Smashwords, and the printed version has been available through iUniverse for several years. You can also read excerpts on our Atticcorner website.

If you like what you see, and want to purchase a copy of a Home from The Woods, please click the pictures or  these links for the ebook version or for the print version.

Thanks and good luck!

World's Biggest Treehouse in Crossville

Tennessee has all sorts of hidden treasures, and this past weekend we explored one: the world’s biggest treehouse, just off Interstate 40 in Crossville up in the Cumberland Plateau.

Words and pictures can’t fully convey the marvel of what Horace Burgess has created at the end of Beehive Road there. Inspired by God, since 1993 he’s been working on this expansive complex built on an around a towering white oak entirely of scrap and donated lumber.  The house itself sprawls up and out in all directions, much like that massive tree.

It’s like a fun house on a grand scale with crooked, winding stairs, halls to nowhere, many rooms, layers of decks and ample seating area throughout.  If you climb all the way to the top, you can ring the bells in the bell tower.

At center of this sprawling complex is a chapel which commands a moment of pause and reflection on all one man has achieved with  materials which would have otherwise been thrown away. And he’s opened this labor of love to all, free of charge.

If you go, bring a marker to show you’ve been there, and don’t miss the donation box near the winding stair climb along the tree into the complex. 

His generous spirit deserves a little support; if he asked, many would be more than willing to pay for the privilege of rambling though the treehouse

You can read an article and see some great shots here

A Good Neighbor...

       ...is hard to find. They find you, or you find them, by chance. You choose your place, and once you do, you’re stuck with the neighbors, for better or worse.

       We’ve had the good and the bad. 

       I’d rather speak of the good. The bad speak for themselves by their lack of civility, and how their ways intrude on the peace of your life.

       Here in the country, a neighbor is more than someone on the other side of the fence. A good neighbor is a lifelong friend, someone you can turn to or depend on with confidence. He or she will  they’ll do what they can, whatever you ask. A good neighbor always has time for a friendly word, a smile and a wave. Good neighbors become members of your extended family, people you cherish for who they are.

       We lost a good neighbor last week. He fell in his wintry yard, struck his head, and couldn’t get back up as the life bled out of him. 77 years old. Last time I saw him I could see his health was failing. Last time we spoke we shared a laugh, wished each other well.

        I tried to express my sense of loss with these words, in his book

         Our valley will never seem quite as full without him

        but always richer for him having been a part of our lives.

       Rest in peace, Price.

An Unusual Swirl

        I’m always watching the sky for signs of approaching weather, interesting cloud formations, the chance of a rainbow, and I’ve seen them all.

But I never saw them all rolled up into one unusual phenomenon, as I did Sunday night. As a heavy thunderstorm was approaching from the West, I  first noticed at the very edge of the storm cloud an unusual stream of color, a mix of pink and blue. More like a ribbon than a rainbow.

I watched it for a while, and over time the colors kind of swirled together, as if they were being stirred up/ Reminded me of the great spot on Jupiter, then it took on the shape more like an eye, with streams of color visible above and below it, swirling around a focal point.

The pictures don’t do it justice, of course, but at at least convey’s a sense of what I saw. Click for the larger picture and you’ll have a better idea) Not sure what it is. My best guess is sunlight being dispersed through clouds at different levels, at different angles, to create this multi-hued sense of motion. That’s my guess, anyway.

But being so unusual, I took this “eyebow” as some good omen.

The Smithville Jamboree

It’s Jamboree time here!

This time of year Smithville, county seat of our county, invites everyone in for the Fiddler’s Jamboree and Crafts Festival. This is the 39th year for the event. It’s the biigst thing that happens all year in these parts, draws tens of thousands over its two day run.

Young cloggers take the stage to dance to some good old time music
at the The Smithville Fiddler's Jamboree and Crafts Festival.

The Jamboree was our first introduction to the area way back in 1977. We’ve been here that long. A third of a century.

Over those years I developed a real fondness for the music the Jamboree celebrates: old time bluegrass and mountain music still popular throughout the South. All acoustic: guitar, banjo, mandolin, upright bass, dobro, dulcimer, and the fiddle of course. 

I now know many of the old time standards contestants play during the various events. Can even strum a few myself on the guitar. One of the joys of country living is to sitting on the front porch in the evening, watching the hills and hollows slip into darkness, strumming some chords on the guitar.

There was a time when that was the only regular entertainment folks in these parts could enjoy, after a long hard day’s work. The Jamboree helps keep those traditions alive.If you're ever in these parts the weekend nearest the Fourth of July it’s worth the trip to Smithville. AN dif you don’t know what clogging is, well, y’all come.

Huckleberry season

The soil here on the ridge where I situated my office is highly acidic. Without a good dose of lime and fertilizer it’s not conducive to much in the way of fruits and vegetables, except for the native wild blueberry, better known as the huckleberry.

It’s a deep woods plant here, usually an intermittent shrub found in laurel thickets. Years ago one of those hucklberry bushes established itself in the woods I later cleared as a garden spot. I somehow missed it, I’m happy to say.
It’s right at the very edge of the vegetable patch outside my office, and thriving in the full sun in a way it never could in the woods.

This time of year, early to mid June, it’s fruiting in abundance. Takes a lot of work to gather a cupful of these pea-sized blueberries, but I’m rarely that determined. Whenever the mood strikes, I’m more likely to take a break from my desk, step outside and nip a handful or so. Then, pop them in the mouth for a sweetly tart bit of refreshment.

There’s more huckleberries to be picked every day until the season run its brief course. Plenty to satisfy me and the parade of birds which make their way to that bush throughout the day for the seasonal treat we share.

Funny how time slips away...

That song came to mind when I checked on my last entry. That’s a thing about blogging. Hard to keep at it, especially when it’s more of a personal journal, than anything else.

But time does slip away until you realize it’s gone. Thirty one years ago this weekend the eldest of our children was born, at home in our log cabin in these Tennessee hills. Back in those days we were still fresh from the city, enamored with a lifestyle that was more like camping than anything we’d experienced.

By the time our son arrived we had electricity in the house, a bulb and an outlet in each of the four rooms. We still drew our water from a well with an old windlass and bucket. And the boy, like all of our children, was delivered by a midwife. My wife’s decision, home birth,

The birth of any child is a magical moment, one of life’s simple and essential miracles. The first time you experience it completely overwhelms you with emotion and appreciation of the ones you love.

It was a cool night in May, much like we’re having now. My wife was overdue. The daughter of the neighbor up the road had delivered her baby a day earlier. They shared with my wife a bit of their womanly wisdom: if the baby’s ready, a little castor oil will bring it on.

At 9 my wife took a tablespoon or two then lay down.‘ Around midnight her water broke, and then began our wonderful ordeal. She suffering the pain leading to the miracle event, helped by her mother, sister and our midwife. I was more or less the amazed bystander. At 3:15 our son officially arrived.

I came away convinced that if it were up to men to have babies there wouldn’t be any. There’s nothing in our life histories to prepare us for that kind of pain.

But what a reward motherhood must be.

I can still hear the first scream of our newborn son at this world. And I can still see the shriveled old man in the new born babe fresh from the womb, a life of possibilities.

We had five more children, all at home. Four of those six were born here in our log cabin in the woods.

31 years later the youngest is just about to enter eighth grade, his nearest brother graduating high school Friday night.

31 years raising children. It makes a house a home.

And it’s funny how the time slips away.....