The day the lawyers put my name on the deed I lit out to the acreage to chip in a toehold and get to know the place.

I spent about a week under a tarp and a bug net with a pioneer kit - a shovel and an axe - building a lashed timber lean-to to keep firewood and my tools under. I dug a stone-lined fire pit and humped a cast iron cooking grate up. I found a break in the stone wall just large enough to fit the truck through and chopped out a parking space just big enough to squeeze it off the road. I blazed a trail up to the campsite while I humped jerrycans full of water and the beginnings of a stockpile of canned goods.

There's a spring-fed stream running just about down the middle of the property. Glacial deposition, and seasonal snowmelt, have littered it with granite cobblestones and boulders. I've been working a little at a time to clear the stream bed of anything small enough to move with the strength of my arms and a pry bar, lining the banks with the stone to encourage a fast, clean flow to discourage mosquitos and give me a good idea of where to build a spring box uphill so I can at least have seasonal running water. Moving the rocks is something that can be done with whatever energy I have left at the end of the day, when the light has gone too far to safely run a chainsaw but I still have energy and motivation.

My brother's coming up at the end of the month to help me clear the campsite, lay down a pier foundation, and haul as much lumber as we can so I can get a jump on the timberframe.

I have arrangements with a local timber guy to come take a look and stake out a driveway and a 5 acre clearing centered around the camp/homesite.

I woke up this morning with a lot of strange feelings. Big ones. Unfamiliar shapes, HERE BYE DRAGOYNS on the map. I didn't know quite what to make of them, so I probed them carefully over my coffee.

When I realized they were happiness and optimism, I burst into tears.