~ Our Motivation Behind The Madness ~

The Appalachian Mountains, N.C.

I guess I could really pin-point this "madness of ours" to late winter 2011.  I was reading long forgotten books about Appalachian people living off the land and gouging their existence through epidemics, hard work, and seasonal tragedies. The series is called, "Foxfire."  I'd read them all many years ago, but revisited them thirty years later. I would read excerpts from the book to my husband who loved to hear the stories.  At the time, he was plotting a vacation to Nova Scotia for the two of us.  One day, he turned to me and said, "let's go on a vacation to the South, let's take the Blue Ridge Highway from Shenandoah to the Great Smokey Mountains."  Although I knew he had set his sites on Nova Scotia, something in him had changed over the course of a few months.  From that point on, he was diligent about plotting our two week vacation to the South.  So, I can honestly say, that was truly the beginning of our madness, letting my husband loose on the computer, and my book reading!

Before I knew it, he was looking at real estate in Western North Carolina...........then a call to a realtor in a small town, airline tickets booked, time taken off work.  Once we landed in Georgia and drove into North Carolina, I knew we were both hooked!

During that six day house hunting endeavor, we  looked at a whole lot of homes and land with our realtor.  Some places we looked at on our own.  But the main spur to our madness (and our trip back) was a 1900 Victorian cottage on a creek.  It was the last home we would visit back in March of 2012, a day before flying home from the South, some 1,700 miles away.

I knew the moment we pulled up to the little cottage by the creek, that I wanted that home!  As we stepped out of the car, you could hear the raging creek.........we both looked at one another, the energy we were both feeling merged, then tears of joy.  It would be awhile before we actually bought the place, and it would take another flight out before the cottage on Beaver Creek would become ours.

This blog is a diary/journal.  Stories of our journey to purchase and resurrect a beautiful 112 year old Victorian home, on a creek, up a holler, in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina.  I anticipate years of renovation on the cottage, some major, some not so.  Pictures will be posted, stories told, hardships learned.  It is our last renovation of an older home, our final resting place so to speak. 

Those followers of my previous blog know me as a sheep rancher.  That life is now behind us, our final lambing season in Spring of 2012 was our BEST to date.  The sheep are sold now, they will be gone in 09-2012.  However, a new chapter opens up for us..............and so the stories of the Appalachian mountains, and our love of an old home begins.