Log Cabin

     I have just finished washing the dishes in the double sink.  My dishwasher is 30 years old and doesn't work very well and I have fallen into the habit of washing the dishes by hand.  I like the water scalding hot and fill the second sink with rinse water which is scalding hot too.  As I wash glasses and plates, I put them in the hot rinse water and leave them for few minutes.  I feel that scalding is a good level of clean, not sterile but hot and drying in the rack as they are removed. 
     We had spinach, Swiss cheese and mushrooms in our omelet this morning, a patty of sage sausage, and oat bannocks for breakfast.  I got the recipe for the oat cakes out of  my currant mystery from the library, The Tale of Oat Cake Crag by Susan Wittig Albert.  It's a pastiche on Beatrix Potter.  I haven't read it yet but the oat cakes were stunning!
     Then I sat down to e-mail some people about a log cabin they have advertised.  Now we are happy in our little tract house with the wooden walls and the wood-burning stove.  But I have always wanted a log cabin.  When I was a child of about 4 or 5, my Mother and Step-father moved to south central Kentucky and bought an 8 acre tract of land.  The neighbors put up the cabin for us using logs from the lot and stones from a nearby creek.  I remember it distinctly.  Of all the homes I've lived in, and there are many, this one is the most vivid.  I believe now that living there was not easy.  At first we had no electricity but later we had light bulbs and a radio.  Never any plumbing.  Since I was a child at the time, I apparently made no judgements about that because for me that house was perfect!  There were two big oak trees in the front yard (like Laura's house in The Big Woods_) and from one my step-father hung a long swing.  Just for me.  I spent a lot of time on that swing.  I  played house with acorns and leaves while squirrels chattered at me from the high branches.  To this day I can hardly go for a walk without bringing home acorns in my pockets.  And I collect squirrels!