One afternoon Dad went for a hike to find the source of a nearby creek. He took Ginger (our Irish Setter) and starting at where the creek crossed the road he followed it into the bushes. This may seem a strange thing for a dad to do, but not mine. Ostensibly he was hunting and indeed there were grouse in the brush – in reality it was also exploring around our in progress home.
After about a 15 minute walk, Dad found that the creek passed a meadow and at the top of the meadow was an abandoned cabin. This cabin had clearly been the party site for a number of weekend visitors. The large stone fireplace had obviously been used, but the windows were intact, for the most part.
The two bedroom, plus a larger family room single story cabin was accessible from a small service road which Dad followed back to the main road that led home. A number of times during the summer dad and mom would take a walk up to that cabin and do things that their children are much better off not thinking about. All I’ll say more on that is that mom carried a blanket with her.
In late summer, Dad was able to track down the owners of the cabin. An offer to keep an eye on it turned into an arrangement where we would live in that cabin while finishing our own. This suited our family well enough and was certainly a better option than spending another winter in our still in progress home (remember, the one with the floor mom raked?).
So we packed up a few things and the dogs, goats and cats and moved up the street (sort of) and settled in for the winter.