Change of Plans...

No, we haven't changed our minds about rebuilding a cabin. Just a change of the plans for the cabin. The contractor we met with during our last trip, Brian Shelton, has gently revised my amateur drawings, one step at a time. And they're good changes.

We first contacted Brian via his company's website in mid-August. I'd spent the time since we'd gotten back from the trailer in early July with my graph paper, thinking through our needs in relationship to how much we had to spend. I poured through cabin books and looked for plans online, stealing ideas. By the time we were ready to send the design out for bids I had 13 documents -- floor plans, elevations, electrical plans (for godssake), and a six page narrative specifying materials. It takes a brave builder to deal with that. We had several discussions on the phone with Brian post-contacting him and pre-trip. He'd voiced concern about my roof and suggested more of a Cape Cod style. Of course I knew that would change the way we'd access the loft, which would change the kitchen, which would change... "Let me show you the drawings when we meet," said Brian.

When Brian arrived the day after we'd gotten to the trailer it was glorious weather. A comfortably warm, sunny afternoon, just a bit of breeze, huge cumulus sailing by like ships. We were able to use the picnic table on the deck under the awning; what could be a better venue for the initial steps in rebuilding the cabin? Brian pulled out the plans and I pounced on them. Well, it's still 20'x32' I thought, and the living room still faces the best view. For weeks I had been living inside the cabin I designed, moving around in it, cooking, entertaining, sleeping, reading -- this was like being teleported to a new locale. I had a bit of whiplash. But then I really looked at the plans. The kitchen had a much better work triangle, the bedroom was bigger with better storage, there was no space wasting hall, and the stairs to the loft would be a lovely focal point for the cabin. The roof still soared, but at the center, not to one side, and with a knotty pine ceiling it promised to make for a cosier feel. There were some details to work out, but I could see how much better Brian's design would be. And all my work had not been in vain. Not only was it terrific fun and had given Brian a good idea of what we were trying to accomplish, I'd thought through so many aspects of living in the cabin that I recognized a terrific plan when I saw it.


Brian spent the whole afternoon with us, reviewing the plans and walking the property with us, discussing the county application process, wells vs. cisterns, septic systems, material options, construction schedules, and where our efforts could help save us money. One of the things that had appealed to us about Brian was his philosophy of welcoming owner participation, both as a way of saving money and for the owner to feel more personally invested in his new home -- sweat equity, not just financial investment. My husband had helped build the first cabin that stood on this spot over 45 years ago, and he wanted to be involved in this one too. We'd felt good each time we talked with Brian on the phone -- he was relaxed and enthused about our project, responsive and full of terrific ideas. After the day at the trailer we knew we'd found our builder.

By the time we left Colorado we'd met with Brian one more time for the hand-off of the latest rendition of the drawings. We've been through one more iteration, slightly changing the dimensions of the cabin to 20'x34', giving us two more feet of width in the kitchen, which will be the heart of the house. I love to cook and entertain and we have many friends in the area we enjoy sharing time with, and a meal is usually involved, and friends farther afield are already making plans to visit. Also, we are hoping the cabin will again become a hub for family gatherings, and this kitchen will allow for lots of people to participate in prepping and cooking the next family feast, from both sides of the kitchen counter.

There's room for a large table to gather around, and space to cosy up near the wood burning stove. The loft will have room for many sleeping pads and the landing a space for the little ones to spy on the adults below. Our window to living space ratio is high, but when we're not outside, we want to see outside, and we'll have views of every direction in the cabin. The deck space is also extravagant, only slightly smaller than the main floor, and it wraps around three sides of the cabin, including the very important shady afternoon side with its up close and fascinating view of the voluptuous 25 foot red rocks flanking the cabin to the east. And yes, the railing facing the view will be a bench, just as it was in the cabin that burned. Even with a full house and more, there will be space for everyone to find a place to sit and enjoy the view or a good book. And that's important.

With the reality of rebuilding the cabin upon us, we're facing some interesting changes. After so many years of being so careful, so frugal really -- still driving our decade-plus old cars, considering a trip to the Costco food court for a hot dog a "date", and socking away all we could, it is a shock to stop the deferred comp and talk about selling investments to fund the building of the cabin. But we know, in our heads and in our hearts, that this is the right thing to do. Our plans are to spend at least four months a year in this new second home, avoiding the activity-limiting searing heat of the desert during the summer, and providing us a healthy outdoor lifestyle filled with nature and motion in the two places we love best on earth.

When do we start!!!???

Water Witching

The beginning of any major construction project, even for a small 800 square foot cabin like ours, feels a little bit like trying to levitate. While juggling. Balls you know about like finding the money, finding a contractor, negotiating time off with an employer, designing the cabin, applications to the county (AKA Bureaucratic Hell), readying the site. And being extremely rural, planning a septic system and a well. And then there's the balls you had no idea about. Like getting a water witcher (AKA douser, deviner).

The contractor we met with while in Colorado suggested getting a water witcher before drilling a well, adding the drilling company would be reluctant to drill without one. When the contractor had built his own home in the area he'd decided to pass on the water witcher, chalking it up to charlatanism at worst, unsubstantiated "science" at best. After over 300 expensive feet of drilling with no water, only a broken bit jammed into dry rock, the drilling company said they'd drill again AFTER he'd gotten a water witcher. The water witcher indicated a spot 40 feet away and they hit water.

We decided we wanted to be around for the water witching, partly for the experience and partly because we were nervous about being able to find water close to the cabin site. The line from the well to the house has to be buried in a seven foot deep (!!!) trench per code (an increasingly irritating word), and as the ground is mostly rock....well, you see the problem.

We were planting ponderosa and fir seedings up on the saddle when we heard the water witcher's diesel truck grinding up the steep dirt road leading to the cabin site. I wandered down the hill to welcome him, leaving my husband to finish up. Two men got out of the truck, brothers. Steve the water witcher (not his day job) and his brother Stan, an excavator who was along for the ride with a side order of drumming up some business for himself.

"Is this anything like a seance," I asked Steve, "where a disbeliever will screw it up?" I looked up the hill at my husband who was just then making his way down to us, muttering "I'm a scientist; this is BS," under his breath no doubt.

"Naw," Steve the Water Witcher said, good-naturedly, "nothing like that".

After a little chit-chat and some discussion about the cabin's location, Steve got out the tool of his trade, a freshly cut forked willow branch over two feet long. He stuck a huge bunch of blue flagged markers on wire through his belt for easy access. Holding the forked ends of the willow branch in his hands he rolled his wrists slightly, torquing the end that had grown closest to the ground into a slightly up-tilted position and started walking.

As his brother Stan chatted with my husband, I watched as the tip of the willow branch dipped straight down, again and again. Each time Steve would jam a marker into the earth at that spot. Since I couldn't believe that the branch was moving over 90 degrees on its own, I assumed Steve was moving it. It simply made no sense to me.

Steve spent a good 20 minutes wandering the land surrounding the cabin site and eventually you could see patterns in the blue flags dotting the landscape. There were two relatively straight lines that followed a path radiating down from the high point of our property just to the east of the cabin site, supposedly fissures in the uplifted rock in which water collected -- the spots that drilling was most likely to be successful. One line ran down in front of the cabin, the farthest from the driveway; fine for drilling before a cabin stood on the site, but bad in case we ever needed to get a drilling rig (all 40 feet of it) in there again. The other ran right behind where the cabin would stand, with easy access from our road and that would require only a short seven foot deep trench to the house. If you believed water witching worked -- Steve claimed a better than 98% success rate after witching for over 500 wells -- it looked like we had a good chance of a well close to the cabin.

"Can I try?" I asked.

"Sure, everybody's got to try it," replied Steve.

He handed me the willow branch, showing me how to gently roll my wrists to get the right torque. And understand this -- I badly wanted to be able to feel the tug of water deep below the surface of the earth. It would be equal to a religious fanatic finding the image of the Virgin Mary as clear as day on their breakfast toast, like having something reach out and touch you from the "other side". I wanted the connection, but I was also certain I would not be a Chosen One. Besides, I knew where the water was supposed to be, so it would be too easy for me to imagine the tug. I ratcheted my skeptic meter to high and walked slowly across the line Steve had marked.

Just as I passed over the line I thought I felt the slightest vibration, a gentle pull. "Nonsense," I thought, "you just want to feel it." So I turned around, determined that I wouldn't feel a thing on the return trip. As I crossed over again, very conscious of keeping my hands immobile and with Steve and Stan and my husband watching, I felt a decided pull and we all watched the end of the willow tremble. Frankly, it scared the crap out of me. I was a believer. AND I had the gift, at least a little bit.

Now it was my husband's turn. I grabbed the camera, knowing I could get good money from his staff of fellow-scientists for evidence of him dabbling in the dark arts. He doesn't particularly like advice, especially from people he half considers quacks about something he thinks is pure hooey, hooey he's about to pay good money for. Ignoring Steve's advice about turning his wrists gently, he gave his wrists a healthy twist which resulted in the willow branch snapping up, bonking him in the head. While we all tried to stifle ourselves, Steve attempted grasping instructions again, but to no avail. Impatient with the whole thing, my husband reversed his grasp with the result of the willow branch snapping in the opposite direction, thwacking him firmly in the crotch. Marginally recovered and anxious to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible, he simply strangled the willow branch, snapping it, and proceeded to stomp across the supposed water line holding the tortured branch in a death grip. No one was surprised when he said, "I didn't feel a thing." Though we all knew he did, at least in his privates.

We'll let you know how the drilling goes.

Expect the Unexpected

We seem to draw climatic extremes wherever we go. Finally, FINALLY back in Colorado after over two hellishly hot months in Tucson, we were reveling in the crisp 8700 foot Rocky Mountain air on our annual aspen turning week. The week was not strictly a vacation. Having decided to rebuild the cabin we were meeting with the contractor we hoped would build the cabin for us and doing a little site prep which included moving a storage shed off the cabin's footprint. But we were also looking forward to several quiet days of hiking, birdwatching, fishing, and planting ponderosas and firs -- our normal mountain activities.

We arrived Friday afernoon to perfect temperatures, cool in the shade and gently warm in the sun. Saturday we spent the whole afternoon outside with the contractor, on the deck reviewing the plans and wandering the property discussing wells and septic systems.

Sunday we had a long hike to the base of Cedar Mountain, enjoying the changing colors and collecting dried wildflower seeds to scatter on the sunny saddle on our property. We were having friends for brunch the next day and I hoped we'd be able to move the picnic table to the sunny edge of the deck and eat outside.

My husband, a very early riser, woke me up before 7 AM the next morning, saying I had to come up to the swing near the granite peak that is the high point of our land. The fog was rolling through the valley, back and forth like water sloshing in slow motion, a truly mesmerizing sight. Snatches of cloud began sneaking between the swing and the rock not ten feet in front of us, and then the sleet started skittering off the canopy overhead. Unable to tear ourselves away from the ever changing view and plummeting temperature, we sat fascinated beneath jackets and blankets. By the time we'd headed back to the trailer to get brunch underway it had started to snow. When our friends arrived there was already an inch accumulated on the deck. Clearly we would not be using the picnic table.

The snow continued off and on that day and into the next. High temperatures hovered around freezing and we struggled to maintain 60 degrees in the trailer. Eventually three inches of the white stuff covered the deck. It was lovely to watch drift down, slowly smothering the ground and cloaking the trees. We sat inside alternately watching the snow blanketing the red rocks behind the trailer and reading to our heart's content, sipping hot tea or cocoa out of thermal mugs. We did some walking nearby, but didn't stray to far afield as we'd been unable to get anything other than the most general weather forecast. By the next afternoon the sun re-emerged and it seemed to be over. We swept the fluffy dry snow off the deck and the sun quickly finished the job. Tomorrow we'd get back on track with what we needed to get accomplished outdoors. We still had three full days, right?

Wrong. Wednesday morning it started snowing again, in earnest. Something we'd kept in the back of our minds -- our friend's offer of their cabin, complete with fireplace and indoor plumbing -- pushed its way to our consciousness. They were traveling and we knew they wouldn't mind, especially given the circumstances. After breakfast we decamped to what can only be described as an enchanted cottage for the duration of the storm which was predicted to last all that day and into the next.

Their cabin is one of my favorite places and as the fire in the stone fireplace did its job I spent my time looking through each curtained window in turn. How deep is the snow on the arms of the Adirondack chairs now? What's the temperature on the thermometer outside the kitchen window? If I watch long enough what animals -- deer, elk, fox, bear -- will I see crossing under the snow-laden ponderosas out the sitting room window?
We finally settled cozily in front of the fire where I read an entire book and where we decided lots of things about our own cabin. It won't be like the one our friends, built by their own hands over decades, filled with their own art and steeped in their children and grandchildren. We'll be starting from scratch, inspired by the old family A-frame and borrowing on our pasts, shared and otherwise. In time we'll season the new cabin with visits from family and friends, reinstating some old traditions and creating some new ones.

In the end, the weather cooperated the last two days and we did get through our list of must do's. The shed got moved. Trees got planted. Seeds were scattered. Oh, and we had a visit from a water witcher. But that's another story.