TODD AND SUSIE’S PLACE
I am invited this weekend to spend a night or two at Todd and Susie’s country home.
Twenty two years ago Todd and Susie heard about 15 acres for sale in Madison County, down in a “holler” and out of sight of any neighbors. When he took Susie out to see it and the roads became narrower and narrower and finally rocky and rutted, she was intrigued. And now she loves the solitude.
There was an 8×15 foot cabin with a small loft up a ladder and a porch looking out over a meadow to a stream with an outhouse up the hill in the woods. There was also a leaning, about to collapse, barn and an a house in bad shape and a building that Todd could use as a shop. Over the years Susie has made a number of vegetable and flower beds with enriched soil and planted flowers everywhere. Todd built what was supposed to be bath house and laundry shed to which they added a big porch and is now Susie’s writing place with a futon for guests. Their water flows from a spring up the hill and they have electricity with a hot water heater and an outdoor enclosed shower under a tree. Todd also built a large storage shed. They have been living here for 22 years and enjoy the simple life canning enormous quantities of tomatoes and beans, heating their little cabin with a wood stove and after the arrival of Internet using their computer as a television. In the summer they sit on the porch but in winter have only this one small room with a kitchen at one end and a table and a small couch. It is cozy.
But now in their 50’s as they see old age approaching they are going to move to 45 acres on a large flat meadow above their house where they are going to build a small house with an indoor bathroom with a flush toilet and shower, a bedroom that isn’t up a ladder and a large living/cooking area with a large deck in front in a spot where the sun will heat the house in the morning and drop behind the trees in the afternoon and evening.
I had never been out for the night and this time I will spend two or three nights with them.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 