Hemlock Haven Lodge

2010-01-21T06:55:00.000-08:00

Wow....hello Sunshine! Haven't seen you for a while....a long while. We are so excited here in WPA because we are experiencing an all out January thaw! Hallelujah! Haven't been to the camp since fall so we are planning to take advantage of the extended thaw and go up Fri. night do some work on Saturday and home for church on Sunday. Hoping that the lane is navigable as it seems to be either mud or ice this time of year. I hope to post some pictures of our latest improvements to the place when we get back. See ya!

2009-09-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

It occurs to me as I sit at my desk today that true joy is the fulfillment of longing. Receiving or achieving the object or experience one has been dreaming of which is quickly superseded by more longing and the more intense the longing the greater the prize when it is realized. I've always felt sorry for those for whom things come too easily. Where then is the joy of achievement? Today I find myself longing to be at the cabin. I was just there and here I am plotting the next opportunity. To follow up on last weeks entry. We did a little bit of everything that was on our work list and added a couple of projects that were not. We did not finish everything completely but came very close hence the longing to return. I do think that for the first time we felt satisfaction as we drove away knowing that from this point forward real progress will be made or at least progress that you can see and feel. The roof was sealed where needed, the chimney pointed and sealed, the front door was changed out and a good bit of insulation installed in the front room, outside a lot of scrap metal was collected and hauled away and things that needed to be burnt or trashed were. We felt as if we left the forest a greener and more forest friendly place than before.

2009-09-03T07:02:00.000-07:00

Wow! Where did the summer go? I can't believe my last post was pre Memorial Day and now we are looking down the barrel at Labor Day. The summer was a whirlwind of Dan Jr. getting married in June. Dan Sr. having thyroid surgery in July followed by the annual work the the NW Mission Conference then finally a week at the beach in early August which btw was AWESOME! Dan Sr. and Kristen are back in the classrooms teaching already and Dan Jr. is waiting for those sub calls (please say a prayer he gets a permanent teaching job...thanks) Okay so here we are a year after taking on the camp project and we are anticipating an early fall and winter...leaves are already changing in the PA Wilds and the temps at night have been in the low 40's! Last week-end we removed the old behemoth kerosene and coal/wood burners making some much needed space and replaced the coal/wood with a simple wood burning stove (thanks Rob & Renee) which should give us quick heat and some lovely ambiance. We have a load of insulation to take up this week-end and we are planning to seal up the leaking roof, re-work the stove pipe to accomodate the new woodburner, finish the wiring in the front room, install a new breaker box and insulate the front room....whadaya think? Will we do it? We have a long week-end and plan to hit it hard.

2009-05-28T07:55:00.000-07:00

Okay I admit it....I am such a loser when it comes to frequent posting....I will try to do better and start posting more pictures. Update on the cabin---Son Dan and and friend Josh have started the re-wiring project and bracing up the pitched roof from within...we should be able to start insulating and installing the tongue and groove soon...can't wait! DH Dan and I drove up on Sunday afternoon to check out the progress and decided to spend the night and return home on Memorial Day for the family cook-out. We really needed some down time at the cabin but honestly we were kinda overwhelmed by all the work we could see needing to be done and not enough time in the schedule yet to get to it. Also fellow campers up the lane from us were partying in a very big way....lot's of loud music and game celebrating which was okay til the fighting started. This being our first summer up there we are hoping that this was an unusual week-end for these folks! You may remember earlier posts about the Squirrel Wars...well the squirrels have kindly vacated the premises and moved on to a more natural habitat, however as we settled down for the night in our creaky iron bed that we have come to luv we soon detected that we were not alone, snapped on the light and illuminated a large BAT! Hilarity ensued as Dan moved quickly into MacGiver mode and created a Duck Tape on a double duck taped pole removal weapon kinda thingy that didn't work. We finally said phooey let's go to sleep and hope for the best. Our son said a tennis ball in a tube sock will bring a bat down when they try to grab it and get their little talons stuck in the sock....anybody tried this method?....does it work?

2009-05-01T07:14:00.000-07:00

My nephew Phil is graduating from "Fire School" tomorrow. I am so proud of him and his brothers Dave and Mike. They are volunteer firemen in their community. They respond to fires and accidents and drownings year round, day and night no matter what. They also participate in community education programs to promote safety. Dave is also attending school to become an EMT. Good job guys. I love you.

True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge
to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others
at whatever cost. Arthur Ashe (1943-1993)

2009-05-01T06:19:00.000-07:00

Happy May Day! Today is one of those dreary days in a string of rain and gray skies...sigh...but every morning now the scene outside my windows as I stand there with a steaming cup of coffee is greener and the blossoms are incredibly beautiful. The rain seems to slightly shroud the beauty so it doesn't hurt our eyes or our souls with it's magnificence. It makes me very reflective...can you tell?...after a long hard winter when we begin to doubt that anything will ever come to life and bud and grow again, there it is...the wonder of creation, right in front of our eyes! I often wondered why Moses could not look at the face of God without being destroyed. I think now that it is for the same reason the rain shrouds Creation's beauty lest we be completely transfigured and transported from every day experience and can no longer function in the mundane. By the time the rain ends many blossoms will be on the ground and those still hanging on will be slightly wilted and then it will be safe to look again. Happy May Day!

2009-04-21T06:36:00.000-07:00

Spring fever has hit us like a ton of bricks! Drove up to the cabin Saturday evening to watch the meteor shower from the hill overlooking the Ranch. We thought it would be the best location because the Ranch has open hills for the horses to graze and little to no light to interfere with the starlight. It was a little cool but we snuggled up with blankets on our beach chairs so that we could recline to enjoy the show and to our amazement we saw four yes 4 meteors! Well not the spectacle we were hoping for but it was the only clear night on the weather calendar during the meteor showers from April 16 til the 22nd the best night predicted to be the 22nd but clouds and work precluded the possibility of being up there then. However the weather was dry and mild and it was the first time since we bought the place that we went up just for fun and no work! It was a brief stay as we had our future daughter-in-law's bridal shower Sat. morning and Dan wanted to work on his outdoor fireplace at home while the weather was nice but still a very nice respite from the work week and a sneak peak into fun times ahead this summer!

2009-03-03T07:11:00.000-08:00

Oh my goodness! It's been sooooo long since we've posted. A quick explanation...first of the all the weather, UGH! Dan and I went up Valentine's Day week-end thinking, great there had been a thaw earlier that week...at home all was melted and relatively dry however we drove into a whiteout as we got nearer to the cabin and the lane had melted just enough to uncover the thick layer of ice under the snow but we forged ahead anyway only to become lodged sideways in the lower lane...okay no panic even though I was looking over the hill ahead of us and thinking the trees are not going to catch us (family joke) but Dan being the genius he is managed to inch us out of danger and point us downward in the lane again....so we made the twelve mile trip back to town and bought the last two bags of rock salt left in the world! Okay twelve mile drive back to the precarious position we had earlier gotten ourselves out of armed with salt and unbelievably we were able to get ourselves into our little lane and park in front of the cabin! Next project...we brought along the propane fireplace that was intended to relieve all our heating issues, hooked it up, made sure all was safely connected to the small propane tank that we borrowed from our barbecue grill just to make sure it was going to work and viola! FIRE! Yea! did some tiding up from our last destruction project, settled down in front of the cozy fire and watched the thermometer rise to 44 degrees just before the gas ran out after just three short hours! So we realize that untill we get the place completely insulated nothing is going to warm us. Does any of this tell you how much we love this cabin! I swore I would not go back until we had spring temps of 70 degrees...guess what...it's going up to 50 something this week-end and yes we are going...can't wait. Hope to have some pics to add to the next post and hopefully they will show some improvements.

Snow Days

2009-01-21T07:12:00.000-08:00

We have been in the deep freeze for about two weeks now with knee deep snow lots of ice and at least one school snow day (yea!) Remember snow days? A gift from heaven! The phone rings or you get the word from the local radio station, you peek out the window to verify and yes! there it is a snowy quilt, blanketing everything familiar and still the snow comes down so soft, so quiet, the hush is deafening and the smallest light is reflected and magnified a million times like diamonds on the snowy quilt. It's a feeling so complete and so sweet it's hard to drink in, so you tip toe back to your bed and slip your cold feet between the flannel sheets and thank the Creator for the gift of snow! Later the hunt begins for the boots, the mittens, the snow saucers, snow pants, scarves, shovels, brooms, scrapers, hot chocolate, toll house cookie recipe, crock pot for soup, is that all the bird seed we have left? and don't let that dog in after she's rolled in the snow for an hour! Ahh, light a fire and snuggle. God Bless January! The other side of the picture is we haven't been able to get to the cabin, don't know how much snow is on the roof or if we still have a roof but trust that all is well and imagine the beautiful scene it must be among the hemlocks and I'm sure the squirrels are enjoying the fact that we can't invade "their" space until the thaw! grrr, hurry March!

2009-01-05T07:35:00.000-08:00

The beautiful sign that now heads the top of this page will soon adorn our front door at the lodge and was designed and carved by our two wonderful children for a delightful Christmas gift. My hubby also painted a wonderful sign which we will post a pic of soon. The kids were out at my brother-in-laws Christmas Tree Farm working away while their Dad was in the basement painting, each intent on surprising the other with their gift of art for the cabin! Great minds truly do think alike!

2009-01-03T17:32:00.000-08:00

The work has begun...

2009-01-03T17:28:00.000-08:00

2009-01-03T17:25:00.000-08:00

2009-01-03T17:23:00.000-08:00

Our lovely outhouse whom we will refer to as "Aunt Mary."

2009-01-03T17:18:00.000-08:00

Our Golden Retriever, Maggie, was in her glory romping and exploring the Allegheny National Forest. She seemed a bit dismayed at what was going on inside the cabin though. We began tearing out all of the old paneling to make way for the new wiring and tongue and groove.

This is what we refer to as the squirrel's dining table. The remnants of their feasts are found on this stump which protrudes from our deck.
And here we have their stash...nuts of every variety and pine cones. They won't be very happy with us after this last weekend. We tore out the attic and burned their squirrel condo full of food. Our fear after this battle is where will they turn their focus next? Our mattresses? Well...it's a little too late for that. When we began the process of cleaning and rotating mattresses we were assaulted by the sound of walnuts falling through bedsprings. Perhaps they'll set their sites on our couch and armchairs? I guess we must wait until our next venture north to find out what havoc awaits us...

Obviously, the squirrels have had their hayday in our attic. Today was the first battle of the squirrel wars.

2009-01-03T17:13:00.000-08:00

For Christmas this year we did something rather unusual. We bought a half tractor trailor load of knotty pine tongue and groove for paneling the interior of our cabin.

Too Long

2008-12-12T09:01:00.000-08:00

Our last visit to the lodge was Nov. 15th....too long, but long enough for us to forget how cold it was. We are still working on getting a good source of heat in the cabin. Right now we have a Colwood stove in the room we refer to as the "bunk room" and in the main room there is a kerosene stove and a brick fireplace, neither one of which is working....yet. Not one of these heat sources has what you would call "ambiance;" the Colwood is a beast of a thing with a door that opens from the top to feed the fire. Our experience with it so far is that it smokes to high heaven and releases sparks every time you open the door to feed it and really does nothing to heat that large space! The brick fireplace in the main room has been abused, adapted and neglected so much over the last 32 years in an effort to make it "more efficient" that it is an ugly eyesore that is unusable as it stands right now so our best hope right now is to get the kerosene furnace up and running so it's at least warm enough to work on everything else. Our plan is to remove all the ugly remants of the last "energy crisis" attempts from the fireplace and have an open firebox and solid chimney again. The former owners added an insert to the original firebox, then closed up the opening with bricks around it. Then they decided it still wasn't throwing enough heat so they added a woodburner to the front of the fireplace and hacked through the wall above the mantle to install the stove pipe, then at some point they removed the woodburner and covered the opening for the stove pipe with an old aluminum cooking pot. It's really quite lovely! Western PA chic for sure! So between the holidays and the cold and the early snows it's been several weeks since we've been to our haven and despite the lack of warmth and other creature comforts we are craving a weekend in the PA Wilds!

2008-11-20T08:52:00.000-08:00

Welcome To Hemlock Haven Lodge! We are very new to this blogging thing but have been enjoying other blogs where folks are sharing their camp and cabin experiences and wanted to join in the fun! So please be patient with us while we learn. A little bit about our cabin....it is the realization of a dream for our family, we all have had different experiences with mountain cabins in the past but all have had the same dream...to own our own! And now it is a reality! For me (Debbie) it was the memory of Castle Lodge, owned by my grandparents and located in ANF (Allegheny National Forest) with deep genealogical roots but on National Forest land that was called back by the Gov. and had to be demolished in the 80's if I remember correctly....but Castle Lodge was the place where the family gathered week-ends and summers and where I learned to love God's creation so deeply it makes me cry to smell soil moistened by an ancient spring, to see thick ferns and princess pine and teaberry growing on the forest floor. For my husband(Dan) it was hunting trips with his dad and brother, uncles and assorted friends in a variety of settings from the ridiculous to the sublime! And for our daughter and son (now young adults) it was being toted around the woods on endless excursions looking for the perfect location and occasionally have the blessing of staying in a friends log cabin for a week-end now and then.