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Pay no Attention to Blog Dates, I'm writing a story in sections. Let's start way back in May of 2008.

The house

that fairies built........

From start to finish, the story of my house...........but, 

it's not finished yet, and it's really more like a cathedral, 

a cathedral in the woods.........well here's the story so far.......

I didn't want to change down my house.  I was comfortable in it.  Yes, it was getting cluttered...being a small, small space with a loft. Just 24 feet by 24 feet, six feet of that space was being used for storage, and the small loft served as my bedroom.

But the outside world was invading-a leaky roof the culprit; water cascading down the north wall, mushrooms growing on the inside walls.  "No problem", I thought, a screen can cover that till I can figure out how to finance a new roof.

But doesn't that wall seem to be cracking at the seams and why isn't my door closing? "No problem", I thought, I can remove it from it's hinges and cut an inch or two off one side-that will do the trick.

But why am I tip-toeing across my floor from one side to the other...did I always do that?  Is something sinking on one side of my house?  The log piers are looking their fifty year age.

"Have Nick come and look at it." my contractor friend suggested, "His house is on piers, he knows what he's doing. He can give you an idea of what's happening."

So that's how it all started, a simple little problem.  I could get a rehabilitation loan from the town for a new roof and piers.  Nick and I could solve these problems in no time at all, it's Spring, plenty of time!   

June 2008

But then after a few weeks of rain, more rain than Vermont has ever seen in a short three week period since recording began.......the ants came.  And not one by one, hurrah, hurrah!  I'd seen them before, almost every Spring I had a little bout of big ants.

But this time they came bringing with them bits of my insulation, actually lots of it, piles of it in every corner, nook and cranny.  These weren't little ones stopping to suck their thumbs either, they meant business.  In fact I don't think they were taking any breaks.  And besides that, squirrels were cutting holes in my house and a vole was stopping in each night to play keep-away with Ruby, my dog, from 3am to 5am, going in and out right through that little space where the front door didn't quite close!

I know my sweet home is sounding like a hovel, but really it was quite cute, known by many in the community as the fairy house.  Yes, it was definitely inhabited by fairies....mischievous, but no trouble really.

In tears, I called Nick and he came right over.  Much, much more serious.......this would call for a new bid and lots more hugs. 

July 2008

It's mid July now and I'm stalling.....can I afford this? Do I deserve it, a rebuilt house? How extensive is the damage? We can't know until the dry wall is pulled down.  Unknown, I am living with the unknown, scrutinizing my still clothed wall. Not wanting to remove one thing. Not wanting to disturb the illusion.  Ignoring the piles of not-fairy dust or are these ants fairies of a different sort?

I waffle, I delay, I pray, I sit and worry, I wait, I wish, I discuss, I cry.  I come to grips with the facts.....my sweet fairy house is falling down around me.  I fill out the application for the much bigger loan than I want to be responsible for, but I will be.

Nick knows how to speak fairy, sturdy fairy.  The roof will be raised with wings that shed snow and rain with out a thought.  It's the perfect square of 24 x24 that allows this water shedding design to work.  Cross-gabled it's called in architectural  terms.  At the peak a star is formed by the rafters all coming together to form a single point.  The windows will be new, sealed and double pained with a fairy emerald green grill on each one. The shingles are emerald green too, a mix with black just like you would expect on a mossy home in the woods. 

Yes, Nick is in touch with his fairy roots and somehow we understand we are building a church in the woods not a house at all.  I will be a temporary guest until I pass on to the ethereal plane, joining my fairy and angel friends with my own set of wings.  Until then I will be a servant, bringing people to the woods so they can forget about their humanness for a bit and remember how to play in the woods again and commune with the same freedom of forest fairy sprites that live in the trees.

But I am ahead of myself........that is the vision, and all of me is dedicated to it........I think.....but first the tear down.......how much can be saved?

Late September

Nick says, " I wish we were starting this project earlier, not on the heels of fall...."

All vision quests strip us of human comforts, forcing our spirit through desperate prayer to show itself, to come back into alignment with the Divine, our Great Creator which resides within our soul-selves.  Human folly ends quickly when brought eye-to-eye with survival.

Preparing for winter in Vermont, up in the tip-tops of the Green Mountains is a sort of vision quest in its own right.  There is Grace, but not the sort that allows you to leave projects half finished...but maybe the warmish weather will hold out just one more week...and after that it is all prayers that get you through the one to two foot snow falls back to back, followed by ice storm, fallen tree and freezing, freezing cold.

Still wood must be brought in, groceries and other supplies.  Snow must be shoveled, wood uncovered again.  Stoke the stove, over and over and over, especially at 3am.  Yes, winters are long up here and sometimes I wonder why I am making it so hard on myself.  But then I remember my heartbeat is here in the woods with great flying pine tree branches, simple flowing streams with beds of emerald green moss and the vibrant reds, oranges, yellows and greens of leaves in the fall blowing against the bluest of breath-taking sky.  Then later the pure black sky filled with sparkling flood of stars and earth lit up by gushing moon-light.....That's why I am here.

But the building of a new house was a sort of vision quest I did not bargain for.  I was happy with my small fairy house and the few sweet renovations I did mostly by myself.

Many people look forward to, or maybe it's even a goal of theirs to build a new home...not me, I have never been interested in that kind of dream, not in any serious way at least.  I mean it's kind of a nice thought, but the details are too overwhelming for me.    

Pine, hemlock, rough cut, 

a fat 3/4 inch, 

driver, framer, nails, screws, finish nails, 

trim, siding, foundation, studs,

locus, spruce, poplar,

flooring, sheathing, ship lap, board and baton, 

live edge, vertical, horizontal, 

casements, right, left, 

flashing, storm collar, metalphestos, roof, chimney, 

caulk, window caulk, floor caulk, silicon, clear, black, white, 

frame out, level, shim, cut, 

shingles, venting, insulation, cellulose, fiber glass, foam, 

water shield, braces, vices, staging, planks, 

generator, compressor, choke, throttle, gas, 

utility knife, staple gun, pliers, 

this angle, that angle, water, rain, wind, fire, 

de-nail, re-nail, screw, staple, tack, 

saw, trim, cut, re-cut, put-in, 

floor boards, roof boards, joists, ridge line, 

rafters, beams, door way, door jams, 

what a jam......more than I ever wanted to know about my house!