Luck Cabin For Sale

The Luck Cabin..... built in 1970 by some mountain man.... hardly touched until 2010/11 by me.... i did a total transformation to this cabin. I wanted to stay here for the rest of my life. But it ain't gonna happen. And now it's official, a small piece of my sweat and soul is for purchase.
$120,000.... and all this can be yours (see list under the pictures!) :))))
Above - outside shower, below is the back deck...
the mini barn with built in chicken coop me and my uncle designed and built.
and here is the front door.... go inside....
the living room and kitchen are open to each other... the loft is up top...

bathroom has composting toilet (dont worry i will clean it out before i leave), clawfoot tub and little birdbath sink...
and the one bedroom.....
ALL ABOUT IT :::::::::::::::

--- composting toilet
--- grey water system for sink and tub
--- gravity fed spring water to house, with outside non electric pump
--- pond
--- mini barn with storage space and chicken coop
--- fenced in approx. 1 acre
---property approx 8 acres
--- flat, sloping, steep, wooded, small cleared area for garden
---claw foot tub, stain glass window, outside shower
--- locally milled hickory wood floor
--- new metal roof with 40 year warranty
--- PEX (pecs) plumbing
--- gravel road
--- large deck and covered porch on three sides
---creek, springs
--- satellite internet, with French Broad's Broadband being installed
--- electric stove, electric fridge
--- new storm windows
--- woodstove

Mountain Laurel Blooming

All around the Luck Cabin, there is mountain laurel bursting open, with clusters of white flowers. When they very first open they smell so sweet and good. Then the flowers slowly fall to the ground like white confetti, in a way so natural brides wish they could recreate such simple beauty down their wedding aisle, but could never compare.
I like it, alot.
XOXOxooxxox

Warm Sunny Days Make....

Being Warm & Sunny Makes So Much POssible! *
1. eating watermelon in the sun 2. getting vitamin D & nice tan 3. planting seeds to grow an awesome organic garden 4. watching the animals lay down in sunny spots & run free, yay! 5. don't need no socks and shoes.... 6. for that matter, underwear becomes optional too! 7. hanging clothes to dry on the line, they come out smelling sooooo good 8. Theoretically could be sprayed with a hose for fun 9. Can open windows for fresh air 10. everything is just easier!!!!!!!!

* xoxoxoox

To The Lil' Local Library and Beyond- (a bit of fail)

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The girl on the phone told me the library opened at 3:30.
Away I go.



xoxoxox

Fixing My Spring Water... In The Dark

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Most of ya'll know by now, i have been having every water problem thinkable since winter started. The last few days I had an increasing problem with sediment coming from my outside pump (cause of course my inside water has been frozen for weeks)- there was not just a lil dirt in my drinking & cooking water, but a dead salamander so decayed it's legs were gone, large pieces of bark and leaves, and the clincher that sent me out into the night... little shavings of plastic with bits of plumbing glue on it (somehow from back when the piping was put underground.)
I will drink salamander decay water ANYDAY over plastic!!!!!
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xoxoxox

Screwed Blued and Tattoo'ed (or just snowed in again)

Terrible no good very bad SNOW STORM PREP ::::

• drove truck to state road that gets plowed and hiked back up a mile to the cabin
• filled the tub with water (pot by pot cause the water pipes under my cabin froze a week ago)
• fill pots and jars with water
• cook food ahead of time
• clean house, change cat litter, feed animals
• cleaned out composting toilet (frozen urine would be just TOO frOckin' much for me at this point!!!!)
• carried in STACKS of logs into the cabin and onto the porch
• hand washed comfort clothes and hung to dry above wood stove
• move all my bedding into my loft, where it's warm & I will be sleeping when it get down to -20 degrees
• charge up my crank lantern
• fall down in snow a bunch and not cry

And this is not even the beginning of what is to come...
the last storm never bothered to melt, my pipes under the house never defrosted (even though my gravity fed spring is still running just fine. It was supposed to rain today but instead of nice melty rain it snowed a few more inches. And well the icing on that snow cake is coming tonight and tomorrow thru the night.... feet of snow icing I am guessing.

What can i say? I dont like this part.... whatever this is a part of. But the feeling of accomplishing so much in one day to prepare for the worst feels damn good.

I need a girl scout uniform... but one that is long sleeve and made of alpaca wool, comes with matching wool gloves, hat, scarf, coat and leggings. With logo snow boots. Thanks Universe!

*****

BTW- I hope i don't lose power, internet or phone... but I dont know what is coming, and after last year I except the worst. Will miss ya'll if I do go M.I.A!!!! SMOOCHes!

XOxoxoxoxo

Run Leslie Run (What I do When Car Sick)

I have gotten brave in the last 8 months... or maybe just more healthy. Sometimes it's hard to say what makes what happen in a universe full of so much circumstance - but I tried driving my Jimmy truck to downtown Hot Springs (remember when i could not drive at all for a gazzillion years?). It's a town I have never been to before because the roads to get there make about as much sense as a plate of spaghetti, regurgitated. And trust me, there are many stops on the side of the road to do just that.
I thought I was doing well, in spite of the many fast driving rednecks daring head on collisions on blind curves... but eventually the road waves got to me (BaD nausea), and I had to get out the car, give up my original plan and just... run around.
*
BENEFITS OF CAR SICKNESS::::

• You pull over and see the beautiful details of life you would never see blazing by in the car
• Time to play
• There are no other benefits i can think of cause actually car sickness sucks

I saw things I really love... giant icicles, awesome mountain views....

BIG rocks!

.... GRAffiti!

and the most brilliant sunset I have seen in a long time. All these things made it worth it. Of course I drove about 5 mph all the way home and never did make it to the town of Hot Springs. ;)

(for those who dare to wanna puke, I have a 6 minute video forthcoming tonight, of the roads I traveled...)

XOXOXoxox

My Gravity Fed Spring Water System (in the real!)

Ya'll might remember back when I first moved into the Luck Cabin, that a critter had pooped in the main puddling area of my gravity fed spring water. Not only that but the original system had all the piping (landscaping pipes) above ground which had cracked from harsh freezing temperatures in the winter, making the water pressure nearly nothing. The tank was also a small barrel that had some leaks too... with all the squirting water and the poop prob I had the system re-made this past Spring season, using the same spring water spot!

*

I wanted to make sure the pipes were deeply buried so that they would not crack in the winter (5-6 feet), and a big tank put in that could catch sediment (at the bottom naturally) and wouldn't leak unless the water overflowed the top of the tank through a pipe (called an 'overflow').

**This all could have been done with back breaking digging man power, but I needed water right away and had some dudes use a bobcat machine to get all this in place.**

The spring water source was also 'boxed in' between the rocks it was flowing out of to keep out animals... with just cement in the front and tin roofing on top the larger rocks that existed there already.

My main concern was that if all my house pipes froze that I would still have water easily accessible down at the cabin, and this was solved with a non electric water 'pump' of sorts that won't freeze in the cold, and pushes the water down underground till it's ready to use. (Watch the video below to see how easy it works, and how much water pressure blows out tha' thing!)

To Make a Gravity Fed Spring Water System You Need::::

• Water source
  
• Tank(s) to catch the water (more tanks create more pressure)


• Pipes to get the water where ya want


• Digging power to bury pipes & tank in colder climates


• Ability to connect it to your house plumbing


• Something simple to 'box in' the source if critters might be a problem

***
Here is a walk through vid I did today of the improved water system...
(guest appearances from JuJu the donkey, the chickens and my neighbors dog!)


Xoxoxxo

Animal Tracking: Bobcat & Wild Turkey

Can hardly see it huh? Neither could I. As I was walking I began to stare to my right at the smooth clay & silt where rain had drained down the side of a mountain road, I imagined how nice some tracks would look in that perfectly smooth mud...
then I saw it.
Bobcat tracks.
One after another in a staight line, wide apart and shaped with such perfection that it left no doubt as to what had left it. No claw marks, large pads, feline shape... (see track info & drawings HERE)....
A bobcat moving upward along the road, moving towards some turkey feathers and...

...wild turkey tracks (see pic below)! You can almost see the scene unfolding, like a dream of something to happen, already happened, to always happen. The hunt. The cat trailing the bird in hunger, in play and power.

Xoxoxo

Bort, Bones and Acorns

There's things I like about walking in the woods, specific things that are hard to ever describe in any human words - it's something that only connects with your own soul or another soul standing there with you... a soul who might be looking too. Not everyone looks, at least not in the same way.
Not everyone sees everything there, which is why I have always loved to walk with another person, another set of eyes with me so that the discoveries double, the moments are shared, the rest of the world & my own problems disappear. I forget, just about everything.
Bort has been my closest nature friend for what seems like a lifetime but is a blink of a dinosaur eye in history, today we walked aimlessly but began collecting things. First I thought I would collect some small trees for a Barnyard project...
but then Bort saw the bones.
He found a skull, some teeth, some claws, the jaw bones... we tried guessing the skull was of something like a raccoon, we tried guessing who mighta' ate it since there was also a cracked snail shell there, and animal tracks & trails. Bort mentioned an owl eating while dropping things high up in the trees, i wondered about what was the biggest animal an owl could eat.
Then I found the spine bones up a few feet...

I sometimes think if i had snacks (aka enough food) I could spend forever in the woods. Then again... I suppose I do.

In the same area we found the BIGGEST most magnificent acorns I have ever seen - so healthy, so plump and perfect. Hardly a rotten one. A neighbor later drove up as we came down the hill with our bag full of acorns, and said that lots of acorns meant a harsh winter. I can only hope this year i have worked as hard as a squirrel to be prepared.

(BTW- we plan to dry and cook these acorns! read more about it HERE.)

OUR COLLECTION(S) ::::::

I would like to use the tiny bones to make decorations for my baskets or jewelry. And to be in awe of how pretty they are.

The acorns, will be for food (upcoming post soon!).

Xoxoxo

Rural Entertainment: The Fireman's Fair

Ya'll know by now I love local rural events... they are nothing like the big splashy Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest and French Quarter parties I grew up with in New Orleans - instead they are personal, down home, small crowds, nothing fancy, and people are just happy to see the other people who all live the same hidden mountain & farming lifestyle. They don't try to put on a show, they just are themselves. (I mean this even for our local wrestling matches, even if the guys do sport a few sequins!)
So Yesterday right around the bend from the Luck Cabin was the Spring Creek Fireman's Fair, I had gotten a flyer in the mail 2 weeks ago that made it hard to resist attending (see pic above) - seeing that Smokey The Bear was going to be there, they were going to play Bingo, have live music plus live Firemen....I HAD to see.

The first live band rocked the stage, i mean as much as they could rock out without scaring the other locals (aka slow and country).... they kinda rocked it Johnny Cash style, with the Beatles song "Act Naturally" thrown in the mix. And you best believe I danced - in fact a old, smelly drunk man found me (he said he lived "down yonder") and we were the only two people who cut a rug on that green grassy area in front the stage, while a crowd of maybe seven people watched & clapped.

Since me and the drunkard became BFF's, he also taught me how to play HorseShoes! I had never played before, but basically you are throwing heavy ass horse shoes like 40 feet into/across the air in order to hit a tiny metal pole sticking out the ground, in a pile of sand. I hit it once... out of about 30 tosses. :)

My awesome neighbor (remember the one who saved me in the night when I first got my donkey JuJu?) was diggin' into the atmosphere - as we watched the M.A.M.A helicopter fly in. The helicopter landing pad serves two purposes in our rural nook, and that is to bust people growing pot & for when we call 911. Yeah, we are so freakin' rural they can't even get us to a hospital in time before we'd die so they just fly this bad boy in and save us. (see pic above).

There was plenty food & drink --- including fried apple pie, hot dogs, hamburgers.... none of which I can eat since I have Celiac Sprue and shall never be able to partake.
There was also a silent auction. Well. There was a really odd assortment of things for auction, my favorite being this set up below.....

Faux Wiener Dog in a Baby Bed.

I had no idea why they had numbers spray painted on the ground in a circle either, till my neighbor explained this was for the Cake Walk.

I can't eat cake, but I can walk - so i joined in. Basically it's like musical chairs and each person stands on the big ole' number on the ground, they start up the music and everyone gets walkin' in circles (i was getting dizzy) till the music stops. Then they pick a number out of a hat... the kid who picked it picked his own number (little psychic!) and won a cake (go ahead and eat it little kid, cause i can't anyway)!

My Drunkard BFF took this picture of me and smokey the bear. Drunk people don't always get the main attraction in the picture, ya know. But you can tell SMokey The Bear reallllly was there, right?

I thought "Sparky The Fire Dog" was gonna be a real dog, but it was just a dude in a costume. He was not real, like Smokey The Bear. ;)

The BIG main attraction that it seemed so many had prepared for was the Lawnmower Race!! For real, a woman standing next to me during the race told me her son had spent weeks on getting his lawnmower ready for the race, by putting in a go-cart motor... and in fact he had fixed his lawnmower to race a few years back.

Right at the beggining one guy's lawnmower BLEW into smoke, another's broke down had to be pulled off, one older man road slowly on his, while just a few guys were blowing past everyone, nearly tipping over trying to come in first place.

Decorated with Hooters Stickers, numbers, southern flags, cow bells....

I was rooting for the grey Lawnmower, cause i was standing next to his Mama, but he didn't win.......

The Fireman's Fair though was a total WIN!

PS- I never did find tha' Bingo game? Where was it at?

Xoxoxo

Orange Salamander with Black Spots

Orange (some may call it red). Black spots. It speaks for itself.

Read more about North Carolina salamanders HERE.

Xoxoxox