New Hampshire - Kristen Ann McLaughlin

Another building project: The ADU

We thought we were done building, that this would be our “forever house.” Never say never. Or plan too far into the future. Life has a way of taking curious and unexpected courses.

Last year our daughter, son-in-law, and two youngest grandchildren decided to return to New Hampshire after several years of living in Vermont. They moved in with us “temporarily” while looking for a house to rent. After months of searching, however, they couldn’t find anything suitable. There’s a severe shortage of houses for rent right now, a situation that appears to be occurring throughout the country.

Lectin-free cooking: beginnings

I didn’t begin the right way. When I headed off on my lectin-free cooking adventure, I hadn’t read Dr. Steven Gundry’s “The Plant Paradox.” If I had, I would have discovered his three-phased approach to this diet.

Instead, I simply found his “Yes” and “No” lists, copied and carried them with me to the grocery store and used them to choose my produce. Then I decided what to make for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Advice: read “The Plant Paradox” first.

Musings on the month of May

Today’s the first of May and as my husband and I took our morning walk, we reminisced about making May baskets when we were children. Usually these were made of woven strips of paper or paper cones with string handles. We’d fill them with flowers and sometimes little candies and then take them to the front porches of our friends and neighbors and, after knocking on the door or ringing the door bell, run away as fast as we could so they so they wouldn’t see who’d left it.

Easter Treasure Hunt

Creating an Easter Treasure Hunt has been an annual family tradition, one that began when our daughter Keri was a child and then continuing when her children were toddlers all the way to their teen years.

Now three of the children (including those two above, Zoe and Brendan) are living in faraway cities, leaving Emma and Soren to participate in the ritual without their older siblings. What happens is that their Papa gives them a first clue, which then leads to another and another until the treasure (their Easter baskets) is found. Each clue has to be pondered carefully. The following photos were taken from a treasure hunt the two went on some years ago (an added bonus is the physical workout)…

Snowstorm

Last week one of the biggest snowstorms we’ve seen here in New Hampshire descended on us with a fury.

A lot of snow was predicted, along with bitter temperatures and high winds, and the predictions weren’t wrong. One of the first things that concerns us with a pending storm is – will the power go out? We have a generator we bought in 1999, in preparation for a possible Y2K disaster. Having a generator is great, but there’s still a lot of tension along with it, such as: how long will a possible outage last and do we have enough propane if it lasts more than a few days?

Another addition

We started out building a toolshed, but that morphed into a cabin and then just kept on growing–with the addition of a storage shed, new wing, and a deck–until finally it became a real house.

After all that, our building funds were depleted. So for a few years we just worked on creating a garden–removing rocks and planting grass and perennials. Meanwhile, Buzz started drawing plans for a real living room and a big front porch.

Taking a gardening break from building…

Once the toolshed had turned into a cabin, and the cabin had turned into a house, we decided to keep it going. Over the next several years we would build if we had any money, and if we didn’t, we didn’t. During those “didn’t” years, we turned to gardening. Buzz built window boxes and we planted them with impatiens.

Phil, who’d done our driveway and septic, came back with his bulldozer and pulled out all the rocks in the yards that he could. What he couldn’t pull out, we gardened around, planting Shasta daisies, Black-eyed Susans, bright red Bee Balm, and about 25 different kinds of Day Lilies, along with big containers filled with colorful Wave Petunias.

The toolshed that turned into a cabin and kept on growing…

After the building of the toolshed (which had turned into a cabin) had been finished, we stained it Bluestone Gray, put in window boxes for spring planting, and came up whenever we could. Since Buzz didn’t teach Jan term or summer courses, and I could write from anywhere, we were in New Hampshire often, always working on the place, always busy with some project.

The next undertaking was to build a storage shed, since we couldn’t store anything in what we’d just built–it was now our little retreat house. Friends and family members often came up to help us.

Building Thoreau’s Cabin

So we bought this book and, with help from friends and family, Buzz began building a large toolshed in which to store all the equipment we’d be needing to build our house.

Mended Oar Outpost

This is a view of Mended Oar Outpost today–not exactly the way it looked during the 10 years when we rented it, since the land around it has been cleared and there’s been considerable renovation, both inside and out. But it does show the gorgeous location, complete with lily pads. And it’s still painted red.

(If you want to see what it looks like today, go here and scroll down to the bottom of the page. There are more photos here as well. It can be rented through Lakefalls: A Private Estate for Weddings & Retreats.)