Tomorrow morning we leave early, early, early to go spend the weekend at the cabin in the woods for a family reunion. (Dad's 80th birthday, shhh don't tell) It's a special place. Magical actually, it has 3 log cabins that my dad built with help from family and friends. I remember helping with the chinking, that's when you stick as much moss as you can into the spaces between the logs. Thats also the year my sisters and I learned that are many varieties of moss, so back to the swap we went.
Each of the 3 cabins has counters or cabinets that were either made or got from someone getting rid of them. Old kitchen tables and chairs all wood and nothing matches, but that's the charm of it. There's only an out house and the only water comes from a well. My Dad found the water source by using a branch from a tree in the shape of a Y (that must be where I get my super hero powers from)!
The largest of the cabins has a old wood burning stove in it. That means lots of chopping for the men, while the women folk cook then clean and then cook and clean again and again.
Almost everything is done like back in the "olden days", you boil water to wash the dishes, clean up, wash up. I don't mind it for a weekend and as I do the daily work I can't help but wonder about the women that use to live this way back in the day. Make your own bread, clothes, tools. Cook, clean, garden. No time for naps! Hard work no doubt. But seeing the sun through the trees, the smell of the moss and ferns in the woods, watching the birds and hearing them sing, the quite peacefulness at night (that is if bears don't come knocking)!
