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.
After he’d finished building our driveway, Phil went on to clear land around the toolshed. Loggers were hired to open up what we hoped would be a view of Mt. Monadnock. Our nearest neighbors had one, and we thought this was a strong possibility for us as well.
The loggers began cutting on a day of deep fog, followed by two more foggy days. We were spending the nights at Mended Oar and coming up every day to work on the toolshed and the land. One morning Buzz got up early, realizing that the fog had lifted. I slept late that day, but was awakened by Buzz shouting excitedly, “you’ve got to come up and see our view!”
There, indeed, was the “mountain that stands alone.”
Buzz began building stone walls along the driveway, from stones Phil had dug up during its construction. There were also stone walls along the north and south sides of our property that had been built in the early 19th century by the first settlers in the area before they took off for the “black gold” of the Midwest. Buzz loved restoring them and realized that working with stones had become a new passion.
Finally, when the house was completed, we realized: wait a minute–we can camp out here instead of at Mended Oar!
At first we used oil lamps, but decided that we should dig a conduit and bring up electricity underground–we didn’t like the idea of having our driveway lined with telephone poles. Once the electricity was hooked up, it would be easier to continue building with power tools instead of using a portable generator.
Meanwhile, we kept on making little adjustments to Thoreau’s cabin. To facilitate staying there, Buzz built a sleeping loft over half of the space, with a ladder leading up to it. We put together a rustic, makeshift kitchen and moved in some old furniture. It was so much fun staying there–especially now that we had electricity–that we decided we’d come up for Christmas.
“Be careful,” our daughter Keri warned us. “This might end up being your house!”
Her words were prophetic. When the grandkids started coming, we knocked out one of the windows, added a whole new wing, and created another sleeping loft. The toolshed had, indeed, become our retreat house.
A house that just kept on growing….