Juniper Fields Cabin

Since January 11, half of my bedroom has looked like this, or usually, even worse. See  Ick! These are disgusting! . This kitchen cabinet rehab from 2d hand cabinets to atypical kitchen needed to: 1) provide easy access for my monthly grocery shopper; 2) be moved out of sight and require very little footprint, except on monthly cooking days; 3) and keep me safe on post-allergic-reaction, brain fog days, when inadvertently turning on a burner could lead to a forgotten burner and a fire. Cooking solution: A combination convection, regular oven, dehydrator, toaster oven on a formica-covered chest of drawers. This will  be used daily for preparing breakfast. The top drawer will house a two-burner hot plate--mostly for cooking the eggs that Miss Winnie and I eat on Saturdays (I have heard eggs are good for dogs! they make their skin and fur healthy). I then removed two drawers, turned the faces into doors, and installed a shelf where the bottom drawer had been...

Friday, March 13, 2020--The truck with the cabin kit arrives, just 15 minutes behind schedule. Alas! the driver does not want to attempt to back in. Scott Rider, owner of Dogwood Mountain, agreed with the driver. The truck would have gotten stuck in the mud had it tried. In 45 minutes, Erwin, in a fork truck, hauled bundles of parts and logs from semi to cabin site. Erwin shared that he used to be a truck driver until a semi, going to fast for a heavy, deep snowfall, jack knifed in front of him. Erwin's head is now screwed onto his neck with a plate in front and loops of metal in the back. One wrist is held together with a plate. Zane Cyzick, my contractor, hired Erin, 18-months post accident for a day. Impressed with Erwin's work, he is now Zane's foreman. Daughter AnnaMaria (2d from right) is amused by and appreciative of my "fan club". There has been a gathering at every step during this project--staking out the land, prayer walks, groundbreaking.....

Groundbreaking "Have you thought about a groundbreaking," Steven Leaman asked. And yes, I had, but for a house? "I did it when I built mine," he said. "Just a few friends." And so, a couple days later, on February 19, 2020 Zion Hill Mennonite Church members; Steven Leaman, director of advancement at Virginia Mennonite Missions; and Joe Longacher, a retired doctor serving as chair of Faith & Life Commission gathered for a ground breaking. I picked 6:15 p.m., about a half hour before Zion Hill's evening Bible study for the service. My thinking was that it would be easier to move up a regularly scheduled event that try to free up a full evening. It did get dark though before we finished. I dug the first shovelful using a new shovel Steve donated just for this celebration. And everyone else dug a shovelful, too--from elementary school age through retired adult. Daylight left before w...

  So many decisions made, but now where EXACTLY should the house go? I needed to roughly stake it out to guide the contractor, and I needed help. So I called my friend and home school teacher, LaVonne, whose four kids were glad to help. She also brought along a 100 foot tape measure, and I brought my compass. Our first attempt was angled wrong, but we talked through my goal, and on the 2d attempt got it right. Aim north--and then set a stake 26 feet east and another 26 feet west. Our end result was not quite square, but close enough. The contractor did suggest moving the footprint one foot east, and assured me the praying mantis and their juniper house would still be safe, and the cabin safe from the growing tree. The grandsons, visiting from New York, helped John Burleson, Burleson Engineers (Charlottesville VA) with staking as he surveyed and Tony Wittig dug test holes. Ground met the requirements for an alternative septic system (required) without having to use the ...

To visualize the "Lay of the Land" (see Lay of the Land: Mapping & Sketching, March 3, 2020), I needed visuals. The start page: The "cross" at the top is the "register"; all overlays will also have one; aligning these crosses ensures I don't get "lost" and alignment is accurate. During each visit to the land, I note wind direction, the sun's path, plus any other important observations: location of ankle spraining gopher holes, the deer path, the praying mantis tree, for examples. On January 3, 2020 the engineer plotted the location of the alternative septic system (the wavy lines in right middle); only grasses are permitted there. Anything else will destroy the filtering process. Each overlay is coded: W1 is the first winter tracked (I wish I had coded it 20W1, so I remembered that the first winter was 2020) OL is for overlay, and the number following is the number of the overlay, this one if the 4th overlay created on ...

The Lay of the Land: Mapping & Sketching Research, even when I think I know how to do what I want to do, always leads to some neat tricks applicable to and easing the work involved on a project.  Two textbooks on mapping and cartography, and a book on how to create hand drawn maps helped me think about ways to map that which might influence Juniper Field Cabin's orientation and floorplan. I traced this plat onto a sheet of paper, each square representing 10 square feet. Tracing paper overlays created each month illustrated the path of sun, wind, and critters. Capturing the location of gopher holes, and adding a nature journal page of information Photo by Steven David Johnson (steverinojohnson@mac.com) Holes, up to a foot across, and hidden by tall grass threatened to knock me off my feet and sprain an ankle. Naturalists and farmers all suspected groundhogs, and though I have yet to see one, the hole design and grass patterns around them matched...