My husband and I have been looking for mountain property for years, off and on. Our treasure hunt has included the Landrum, SC area, Campobello, Weaverville, Gowensville, Lake Bowen, Lake Hartwell, Lake Lanier (particularly a parcel off the Blue Wall Preserve bordered by Nature Conservancy land), Flat Rock, Hendersonville, Lake Cherokee, and, the jewel of them all--Lake Joccassee. (A girl can dream...) There was the 7-acre trash pile land we walked which resulted in two very sound decisions: One, covenants and restrictions are a really good thing, and Two, 7 acres is a really lot of land.

As Frank Sinatra said, "We've been up and down and over and out, and we know one thing:" Exploring is fun. Chasing our dream has been a hoot down every holler, and has helped us refine our wish list until we found that perfect place.

In October, 2015 we found that perfect place. By December, we owned it.

Of course, I got busy immediately putting the cart before the horse, looking at floor plans.

My husband got busy too. And when I say "him" I mean "us". We have cleared the overgrown gravel driveway which was cut many years ago but then left for nature to reclaim. With at least a foot of accumulated debris, it was nursery to all manner of vegetation and small trees, making it impassable.

We have dragged our unwilling daughter up there on numerous occasions to help clear the area where our log cabin will sit. (Perhaps you can hear me, in your mind, saying, "Look, this will all be yours some day so get off your butt and help us.")

We have cut, dragged, trimmed, sawed and stacked many harvested trees for railing and spindles.

We have erected a small storage shed that looks like a mini-log cabin with flat logs, chinking, and a simple A-frame red tin roof. (Personal Note: chinking is a lovely look, but it's sort of like make-up...way too much trouble to justify the end result. I ran through 6 large tubes of the stuff just on one side of our tiny little shed. It stuck to absolutely everything, including the rubber gloves I wore. I decided the "chinking look" was highly overrated and became comfortable, quite quickly, with the notion of just putting it on the front side.)

We planted a rhododendron, graciously given to us by dear friends as a lot-warming gift. It died. We also planted 2 cherry trees and an apple tree. We lost one of the cherries. We transplanted a peach tree and the jury's still out on that one. It does make me wonder how that driveway grew over so healthily though, without any tending whatsoever. I think it's the color of my thumb.

We cleared a little spot for our picnic table and installed that.

We cleaned out our driveway culvert--I personally climbed inside the claustrophobic space to chisel away years of collected silt, dirt and rocks. We also widened the driveway entry, which involved a truckload of slag and a whole lot of shoveling. As part of that exercise, we needed to remove a sequoia-sized dead tree that had fallen and partially blocked the driveway. That involved a chain saw, a small bulldozer, and a whole lot of prayer.

We did get around to looking at floor plans. (Good thing I got a head-start...) We knew we wanted a small, airy, open cabin--roughly 1100 square feet--with 2 full bathrooms upstairs and down. We knew we wanted a laundry room and a basement for a theatre, and we knew we wanted a very simple roof with porches on three sides. We knew we wanted a wall of windows on the side overlooking our gorgeous view. We knew we liked the flat log with 2-inch chinking, although we now know there are ways to get the Chinking Effect without the Chinking Bother.

We decided on a stock Satterwhite Log Home, and made some modifications to better suit the land such as adding a basement. Our acre-and-a-third has a gentle slope that just makes a basement a no-brainer. There we can indulge my husband's audio/visual addiction with a full-blown theater room complete with a car (for sitting in at the drive-in, of course) and a concession stand.

Every night before I go to sleep, I put myself on our mountain, looking out at the view. I hope you'll come with me to that mountain via the blog. (I won't make you work, I promise.) There is much to tell about our little cabin on the mountain. "Where’s the trail to our mountain?" you ask. "Well, you won’t get there following me," I answer. "If your heart is like mine, you would already be there." (Adapted from Cold Mountain Poems by Han-shan)

Thanks to my dear friend Karen who suggested I begin blogging about this experience. Check back when you can to see where we are, and please share with your friends and family.