Baby Cabin
A simple life, immersed in nature, with more direct connections to our subsistence — this was the shared dream we fell in love over on a park bench in downtown Portland years ago. Over half a decade later, in the summer of 2014, we stumbled across a little run-down, off-the-grid cabin surrounded by five acres of woodland near Cloverdale, Oregon, and couldn’t pass up the chance to give it a go. We imagined making a garden in the sunny meadow, and fixing up the 1970s kit cabin surrounded by lush rainforest.
Months later, after a few enthusiastic weekends of demolition and junk removal, we discovered extensive dry rot, mold, bats, and general deterioration had taken hold of the 900 square foot structure.
Realizing we were out of our depth (and proposed budget) with the original cabin, and knowing we’d need more permanent lodging than our backpacking tent if we were going to spend any significant time on the property, we shifted gears. We enlisted Judith’s family to help build a platform tucked in the trees, then hired a local cabin builder to erect a one-room, off grid structure in the trees. Using reclaimed materials to outfit the inside, we installed a little Jøtul wood stove, and set up a kitchen on the porch.
Six more years were spent puzzling over the original cabin, trying to square the cost of a full rebuild with a changing climate, fire danger, challenging county and neighbor relations, and our own fear of isolation. At some point, we knew it was time to let it go, accepting that the moments we’d spent in our little mossy sanctuary were magic we’ll remember for a lifetime.
“We couldn’t pass up the chance to give it a go.”
Still, we’ll always ache a little when we think of the tiny Douglas squirrels who ceaselessly prattled on as they munched on pine cones, the drifts of False Lily of the Valley blanketing the forest floor, the cacophony of birdsong echoing across the meadow at each morning, the Sitka spruce so wide six of us couldn’t wrap our arms around them, the way the fleeting light crawls across dead alders draped in skins of moss, the silence of countless lives lived under your feet.
