This is our log cabin in October of 2001. We finished the primary construction in June of 2001, but made continual improvements on it over the years. In more recent pictures you'll see a walkway connecting the various sets of stairs and other additions to the exterior and back. Jeff's dad put in the stairs and landing pads for us. Our dog Sam, the white shepherd, was the first to 'write' her name in the fresh concrete. Her paw prints greet at the stairs to the front door. It was appropriate because as the cabin went up she claimed it and protected it as her own. We put in the doors and windows ourselves (never again!) and did the trim around the windows. I have a whole new appreciation for people who install windows and doors; it is not as easy as it looks!
	Our back yard. The trees in the distance were the property line. We only mowed a small portion behind the cabin as our true yard. We let the hay grow beyond there and a local farmer would harvest it as needed. For a while we had a couple of hunting beagles that we let run rabbits back there. That was fun, but we were gone too frequently to keep it up.
	Our front yard ... and we mowed it ALL! You can see signs of tiny trees along the driveway. They are quite a bit larger now. They are Bradford Pear trees which are common in this area. They provide beautiful white blooms in the spring. We planted various types of maple trees along the road as well, but they did not survive. The vision of a mixture of yellow, orange and red maple trees along the road in the fall never came to fruition. This picture was taken in October so our 'live Christmas tree' is not yet in the yard.
	We added the garage shortly after moving in. It was an oversized garage/workshop combination with dedicated power outlets for the heavy tools. The footprint of the garage was almost as large as the cabin itself.
	The Living Room. We opted for a combination of log walls and finished walls. It is more traditional to have all the interior walls be logs too, but we preferred the combination. We also left the interior more open than the plans called for; we only framed in two bedrooms instead of three. We used the second bedroom for our office. The bedroom that was not framed in was used for the TV area. What we didn't plan for was that it meant one less closet inside the house; but the oversized garage fixed that problem.
	The TV area. This was the area that was meant to be framed in as a third bedroom. That's the great thing about a log cabin; once the shell is up you can alter the interior however you like. This was the only TV in the cabin.
	The one-butt kitchen and laundry area. It was small, but it served its purpose. When we first moved in we just had the fridge and stove hooked up. We didn't have running water or cabinets. The microwave was still in the box and the dishwasher was not hooked up. All parts of the cabin went up 'paid for'. So until we were ready to spend the cash on finishing the kitchen we lived without one. But, it wasn't a problem. We would put our dishes in a wagon by the front door and magically they would disappear and come back clean. We had that worked out with the laundry too. It was great! Thanks to Jeff's mom and dad for all their help during that time. Their yard was a few hundred yards from ours. Max, the dog, loved that! He would go to the door in the morning, go to Nana and Papa's for breakfast and come home for an afternoon nap. It's a dog's life.
	The Dining Area looking out to the backyard. Just plain functional; nothing special.
	Another view of the front.
	Sam protecting her domain ... from Max.
	Moving day; after four years of having the cabin in Kentucky we decided it was time to try something different. We're on our way to Florida to live on a golf course. Fore!
	We had to dig out to get out. As difficult as this was it was better this day than the day the moving van arrived. It just happened to be a record snowfall. And you saw how long the driveway was. We shoveled until we had a clear enough path to get out. And we didn't stop until we got out of the snow.
	A bittersweet good-bye to our cabin life. We enjoyed our time here. It was a great spot to relax and get away. But, it was time to move on. The core years of Anything Wild, the software consulting business, were run from the cabin. During our time here we also had another home in St. Louis where we did some work for a while. The move to Florida was consolidating all three homes (the cabin, the house in St. Louis and the RV) into one big home on a golf course ... for a while.