This afternoon Jinny Mae and I went in search of the perfect location to build a cabin. A tiny cabin. A one room cabin. With an outhouse of course. And an infinity pool.

Deciding where to place it proved to be the most challenging part of the building process. We didn’t want to rush into the things and so we stood. For a long time. And absorbed the sun’s warmth. And reveled in the quiet. It was a contender, but decided we might have to return in another month or so when the song birds sing to decide if it was the right spot, for it was almost too quiet.

And so we continued our journey beside a stream where the ice had melted and water gurgled.

In fact, it gurgled so much that it was irresistible and we began looking about because we felt drawn to the spot.

The neighborhood also appealed to us because it had so many interesting landmarks including the hexagonal-pored polypores,

tinder conks (aka hoof fungus) with their pore surfaces exposed,

and even some false tinder conks.

One of the things that surprised us was all the writing on the bark for we found script lichen on many a tree trunk. It felt like we’d stumbled upon volumes of research about the construction process.

When building, the old adage is location, location, location, but it helps when local resources are available–which we found in the form of curtains, aka hairy curtain crust fungus (or so I think).

We also spied multi-fruited pelt lichen that would be suitable to cover the floors.

And then we began to notice the available lumber.

It came in a variety of tree species.

And was already de-barked.

And pre-hewn.

When we saw the infinity pool, we were certain that we’d found the prime location.

And then we spied a pre-built cabin with a new roof top and we imagined a chimney in the center of the structure.

As it turned out, there was no need for us to build a tiny cabin after all, for we found one already constructed and it even included a refrigerator filled with a cache of branches. Fine dining was definitely in our future.

We were excited because we wouldn’t need to do the building ourselves and our dream was realized in a lodge that was well placed as it graced the landscape and took advantage of the local offerings. A cozy cabin indeed.