Our little cabin in the mountains is now a home……

We loaded our Desert Rat (the Toyota 4Runner) up to the brim and headed to our cabin perched on the edge of the Mogollon Rim in Pine, Arizona.

This was the fourth load we had hauled to Nuestra Cabana de Montana.  Our plan was to stay up at the cabin for pretty much as long as we wanted—to play, hike, dance, and to settle in and make our cabin into a home.

We interspersed fixing up our cabin with lots of hikes on the rim and in all the National Forest land that surround Pine.  This area is a hiker’s delight!  

 

I very carefully and lovingly held Dan’s unique and beautifully constructed VW Bus diorama in my lap all the way from Nuestra Casa in Mesa to our mountain cabin up in Pine.

And look how it fits in perfectly with it’s new home!

I had a wonderful time setting up my kitchen and making it just perfect.   Like I always do, I had a free hand to set it up just as I wanted it.  My kitcchen is very functional, a joy to cook in, and lovely too. 

 

I had such fun selecting special heirlooms from both of our families for our curio cabinet. Some of these treasures are over 100 years old.  Each item has a very special meaning to both of us.

I put up our “Wall of Fame” with all our children and grandchildren in a place of honor—on our refrigerator.  We will see all those we love several times a day.

We finally have the perfect cabin and the perfect place for our 1950’s Oklahoma Indian glasses. Knox Gas Stations gave out these unique glasses back in our childhood.  That was the day when there was a gas stations on every corner, and they were competing for business with “full service” and free useful give-away items when you filled up your gas tank.

Dan collected the Indian glasses, so as they left the gas station Dan’s parents gave each glass to him.  He kept them in his bedroom.  They were one of his prized possessions.  As an adult he bought the matching pitcher and tray.  They are beautiful and bring back memories of the 50’s for both of us.

Don’t they look marvelous on our mantel?

On our hikes we were treated to summer flowers that had ripened into beautiful fall colors.

Back at the cabin, Dan put up our “Graybill” sign over the front door.  Tonia’s father made this sign for Dan fifty years ago.  It has hung over many of his houses through the years, including our Whidbey Island home.

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He hung the deer antlers that he gave me for a cabinwarming gift.  I have been searching for antlers like these for years!

He installed our cabin security system:

And he hung the Echo Lake picture in our bedroom.  His parents bought this picture with Green Stamps in 1957 when he was a child.  He remembers the trip the family took from Stillwater to Tulsa where the Green Stamp redemption store was (i.e., where you cashed in your books of Green Stamps).  

The Echo Lake picture was in our bedroom on Whidbey Island.  Every morning as I awoke, I would gaze at this serene lake. 

Less than 2 miles from our cabin, we discovered the Pine-Strawberry Trail.  We can walk to it from our cabin on a shortcut we found later.  It is one of the most spectacular hikes ever….and it is right in our backyard!  

Here’s a view of our little town of Pine as we hiked, nestled in the valley below us.

In less than five minutes we can push our living room furniture to the side of the room, roll up the rug, and we have a wonderful dance floor!

We are taking our time to decorate and complete furnishings our cabin.  We want it to be not only beautiful, but we are also choosing items that are unique and functional.  

Here are more photos of our little cabin in the mountains.  It is now a home….

Grandpa Burt, who I was very close to and was like a father to me, commissioned this owl rock art for me, because he knew of my love for owls.  It has a place of honor at our cabin on the front porch. 

Photos as we enter our home…..

We hung these precious Hummel needlepoint pictures in our kitchen.  Mom Graybill spent hours making them over thirty years ago.  I imagine that as she stitched this little boy and girl, she reminisced about Dan and Kathy and when they were young children.

Do you see the little cowboy and cowgirl salt and pepper shaker in the photo above?  That was my cabin-warming gift to Dan.  He really likes them--they are so 1950s.  

 

I sewed the quilt on our bed that is in the picture below.  I also knitted the orange blanket in the corner of the picture .  The top blanket in the corner was knitted and crocheted by Grandma Shook’s aunt in the 1880’s.  Grandma Shook was a dear friend of mine that I met when I was a young woman.  She rejoiced when Rachelle was born and loved playing with her.  

I cared for Grandma Shook until her death in 1979.  She had been a cook during the gold rush in Alaska in the early 1900’s.  She had a happy marriage, but never had any children.  I was like a granddaughter to her.  

Grandma Shook lived a good long life and died at 97 years old.  She gave me several things that she had treasured, and that Dan and I now treasure.  Many are in our curio cabinet.  I still miss her.

This Hummel picture on the wall of our bathroom was in Dan’s childhood home in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Our extra bedroom will be a staging room for our many activities.  We are calling it our “activity rom.” The ping pong table will live here, when we aren’t playing ping pong in the living room.

We hung pictures of our children when they were youngsters in our activity room.  Don’t tell them, but this is how we still see them. 

We included a picture of Marina and Stella when they were little girls.  They lived on my property when they were born and as toddlers for years.  Hardly a day passed when I didn’t see them, hold them, and and play with them.

We have an amazing loft—it is huge but somehow cozy too.  There is plenty of head room.  It will be a combination reading/TV/ relaxing/grandkid room.  We love sitting up here together just looking out our window, and talking.  We often eat our dinner in this special room.

Here the view down into our living room from the loft.

After hiking all morning in our beautiful public lands, we sit on our front porch and marvel at our life and how fortunate we are.  We sit back and prop our feet on the 150 pound log that we hauled out of the forest.  

Some afternoons we work on projects together.  Sometimes Dan builds his model 1970’s truck with a trailer that is hauling old junkers, while I  work on the new blanket I am knitting for Cabana de Montana.

Then late in the afternoon EVERY single day the elk visit us!  

Nighttime at our cabin: 

This place fits us—we have come down where we belong.

“Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight…”