The Summer of Demolish-Recontruct

I came home electrified by my newly perceived empowerment. Before the end of Summer, 2008 I had replaced all the windows on three sides of my house and gutted and rebuilt my entire main bathroom. I never did construction of any kind EVER! My improvements enabled me to add 25,000 dollars to the asking price of my house when I sold it.

"Log Look"?

My daughter Natalie and I attended a log home show in Tampa, Florida in the fall of 2007 after our first camping trip to Winterwood. We were despondent and unimpressed as we drove home late that afternoon. What a bunch of log home gimmicks! As we drove over the causeway in silence, Natalie turns to me and adamantly stated, "I don't wanna live in a log-look home!" It was that night I went back to the LHBA website that I had found a few months ago.

The plan was that we would both go but Natalie was a college student and classes were starting so I ended up going alone. I left EMPOWERED!

Getting Our Feet Wet

inkin

We spent nine days in the July heat chain-sawing standing dead, brush-cutting an opening at the road, finding old rusty barbed wire and shaping up one of the most beautiful apple trees I ever saw. We got up at dawn and went to bed at sunset. When we got too hot we'd drive around the mountain hills in the Blue Beast with the air conditioning on. Then we reluctantly left to go home to Florida. The craving to stay really hit us bad. We had stopped thinking of Florida as home.

Our First Camp at Winterwood

Natalie and I never camped in our lives and here we were on our beloved Winterwood with a tent as big as a house and a little latrine tent. I felt very vulnerable despite having the three dogs in the tent and despite the Benelli shotgun I clutched all night.

The Blue Beast

Now that I was a big land baron, I needed a working truck! I found the The Blue Beast in Venice, Florida at a Nissan dealer. Here she is showing off her brand new pipes! The Blue Beast cannot sneak up on anyone within a half mile radius because she is so LOUD.

Do You Believe....

....In love at first sight? We had already seen some very pretty properties for sale down in Madison County. We would gasp at the views from high hillsides with falling streams that looked down over red-barn farms in the valley. We saw properties in Herkimer that stood on windswept hills with views to the cardinal horizons. But once we set foot in Fulton County, on an old neglected piece of farmland, we knew it was the one. The running stream with many tiny fish disappeared into a low field with old broken apple trees. The scrubby forest hugged its front pasture shielding it from the westward winds. Twanging toads hid near the pond jumping and splashing into the dark water when we came near. The old forest covering more than half the acreage had little underbrush and tall straight trees with a high green canopy. It felt cozy, safe. It would be our home some day.