Kate's Korner: Places I've Called Home

Since I've been in one place for a while now (and indoors to boot,) I started going through pictures and thought it would be interesting to see all the places Chassan & I have lived in the past few years (together and separately.) Hope you enjoy it too . . .

Actually, it's been more than a few years since I we lived in the "little red house on the hill."

Mom & Dad moved here when I was 15. I wasn't happy about it then. Later I loved it,
and much later it became my (now X) in-laws home, and still is.

The whole area you see to the left of the road in
this picture is now developed.

The last time I lived with Mom & Dad in the red house was with Dan & Chassan in the late '90's. Since that time we lived in 4 other places before the next set of pictures.
There was Hilda's house (Hilda was the elderly neighbor lady who I took care of for a year,)
the house that Steven built (down the road from Mom & Dad's and just East of Hilda's,)
an Air Stream trailer connected to a shack (on the NW of Mom & Dad's property,)
lastly, in Toquerville, with my friends Donna & John Whitney, after Steven died.

After Mom fell down the stairs in the red house, Steven, Michael & I decided Mom & Dad needed to live on one level.

So, we set about to build them a straw-bale house on the back of their property, and this was the result.

Chassan & I lived here with Mom & Dad for quite a while after the house was finished (or mostly finished.)

Actually, I slept in a trailer (which used to sit in front of the water tap you see here,) and Chassan slept on their couch.

This view is from the front (South facing) porch of the house, across the orchard, looks pretty good at twilight, eh?

After living with--and caring for--Mom & Dad for almost two years (Mom had blood clots during that time which almost resulted in her loosing her right arm, and in many months of recovery,) we decided to build on to the little shack that I had been storing my things in.

Before we built the extension (the new wafer weld on the right side,) this building had served as a storage shed for Mom & Dad, a pottery shop for Dan & me, and a storage/living space for Steven, Chassan and me. It never looked like much from the outside while I was there (the neighbors who bought it have since added an extension to the other side and stuccoed the outside,) but the inside is pretty unique, and built with lots of love.

I helped with every aspect of the revamp and build-on. The wood, on the ceiling and some walls of the living room area, was salvage by Steven off of a roofing job. I varnished every piece. Some of that wood slightly planed became door trim and baseboard.

The french doors to the kitchen were given to me by a neighbor. They were falling apart, so Shane (the builder who also helped with Mom & Dad's straw-bale) planed them carefully and I did crackle paint on them with a copper rub. I really liked the effect.

The bedrooms were tiny! v This was mine.

I wish I had pictures with all of my things in the house. Some of it was designed with specific pieces of Grandma Jensen's furniture in mind, and it all felt and looked great in the house.

This was Chassan's room. He had a bunk bed that went right up to the ladder on the wall, which lead to his loft, where there was a cupboard door into his attic club house. It was pretty cool.

The words on his wall are from a project in a Shakespeare class I took during the time I managed the bookstore at Mohave Community College.

I salvaged all the white metal cabinets and stove in my kitchen. When the house was first done I had a couple of upright, white, metal cabinets from Grandma's on either side of the stove. When I moved, I took out G-ma's cabinets and had our neighbors build the pretty pine cupboards.

My little broom closet in the corner housed my water manifold & instant water heater (as well as mop & broom.)

People thought it was funny that my bathroom was as big as my kitchen but I had planned on having it double as a massage and colonic room.

I salvaged a pink tub, sink and potty (the tub was being used as a horse trough in the neighbors field,) and Shane came up with the pink tile around the tub and in the window sills. My niece, Sarah, loved the pink, and it reminded me of the pink tile in Grandma Sarah's house.

Strange that I don't have any pics of Vince's house in Las Vegas. But, about the time I started feeling a little at home there it was time to leave

Vince, Chassan and I spent a lot of time in Red Rock (the state park just 20 mins from his house,)
rock climbing and hiking. It's beauty was some consolation for the ugliness of Vegas.

In between Vegas and the next set of pics, we lived with my friends Mem & Ted in SLC for a month and a half while I did a yoga course (it was there that I decided to move to Hawai.)
Then, Chassan and I moved in with Dad, at the apartment he and Mom had moved to near Kathi's. It was just in time for him to get accepted at the VA nursing home, where Uncle Joe lived for several years. My friend Ginny came for a while too and we were able to help him move up to the VA and get settled in, almost exactly a year after Mom's death.
We were in the apartment for about 3 months (Chassan was mostly at Kathi's.)

Then we moved out to Coral Mountain Village, the Whitney's place (20 mins into Utah from Cane Bed, bordering the back side of Zion Nat. Park.) I had owned an acre there at one point, and had helped a lot with the place over the years.

C.M.V. is made up entirely of many small buildings. Some were built on site and some were old shacks and graineries that folks gave to them to haul away. Chassan & I stayed in the little building you see above, for about 4 months before we went to Hawaii.

There are many separate apartment/bedrooms, a small kitchen building and a bathroom/laundry building.
They've done an amazing job of fixing them up, and making it enchanting and cozy.

Donna is an amazing gardener. She created it all in the unfriendly desert sand!

I helped Donna with her garden and Flower Essence business while we were there.
Here's her web site: http://coralmountaingardens.com/

Donna and John always treated me like a daughter (she attended Chassan's birth.) They said we could live there if Hawaii didn't work out (and even gave me a little building which I fixed up before I left.)
It was hard to leave. I had always felt at home there and really connected with the land and animals
(as well as the Whitney's) during that last stay.

After moving to La'akea, the desert seemed so harsh and uninhabitable I could hardly believe I'd been there for sooo many years. (Ethan calls it "post Armageddon beautiful," but I still get home sick for the red rock and the Whitney's.)

I became a trial member after one month as a work-exchanger. I thought I would call La'akea home for a really long time (it only turned out to be home for about a year and a half.)

My friend Marta (from Brazil) painted these signs.

We called this "Banana Lane," it leads up to the"Meadow Space." There are hundreds of banana trees, of several varieties, on the 23acres, (they are delicious and nothing like bananas I grew up with.)

The little building is called the "Purple Pooper." It is the only non-composting (i.e. flushing) toilet on the land (only used for special guests and colonics.)

The Pavillion is where Marimba concerts and dances are held as well as weekly Hula classes
and many other events and workshops, and ...

. . . it was where I did my yoga and meditation every morning and sometimes slept.

The pond is across the Meadow Space from the P.P. I have fond memories of work-parties to clear off the strange plants that grow on it's surface.

This path lead from the M.S. to the Quonset Meadow and Main House. Beautiful antherium bloom there, thimble berries grow and a young Ohea (native tree) forest lives to the left of this shot.

This is the composting potty closest to the Main House.

The leaves of some of the plants nearby could be used as T.P. (and often are.)

This Meadow actually has 3 Quonset huts in it. One, just to the left of this shot (called the "Dolphin Hut,") was where Chassan & I slept.

This was our front porch.

We made it nice and cozy inside . . .

. . . but it was always damp and moldy. That got old after a while (but I still miss it.)

This is a shot of the Main House through the kitchen-garden gate. It's where we spent most of our time when we weren't working on the land. Inside there is a big yoga room/library/ marimba studio, an office where we kept our laptops, and a big upstairs (with a Lanai,) used for meetings and sometimes dorms for visitors. Solar showers were on the outside.

And this is the Main House porch from the other direction. We ate out here and had morning
check-in's with everyone on the property.

This lava flow, from Kilawea, was just a few miles from La'akea.

So is this lawn, where folks meet every Sunday to share food, visit, chant and play music. You can't see from this picture, but the ocean spreads out as far as you can see across from the lawn (to the left of the shot.)

In between there was a long summer where Chassan stayed with his Dad and the Eaton's in SLC, and I traveled with Ethan. There were many beautiful places we stayed,
most of which, sadly, I don't have pics of.

In the fall, we spent a month in California helping our friend's with their organic gardens and greenhouses (we also spent a month out there this fall.)

Our friend's house and gardens are on a peak in the forests of N. Cal. . .

. . . with huge valleys between peaks.

At night, the valleys filled up with fog and it felt like we were on an Island with an ocean of fog surrounding us.

We were very close to some of the last old-growth, redwood forests. The woods around us were filled these huge stumps left, ages ago, by loggers. They felt like corpses of giants, but were also enchanting. This one looked like a massive boar's head to me.

We returned to La'akea in early Nov., where we stayed for several months.

After Ethan & I left La'akea, we camped at several places on the West/dry side of the Big Island.
(Chassan was spending the school year with the Eaton's--near his Dad--by that time.)

This was the first place we camped (and went back to several times.)

It's along the most western shore line near the towns of Hawi and Kapa'au, in Kohala, where Dad was on his mission exactly 60 years earlier. I loved it there!

The Light House can be a bit eerie when the fog rolls in. This is an old military outpost and there is tons of rusted machinery around. We even found some human teeth that we turned in
to the police, they had belonged to a native Hawaiian child.

We could watch whales spouting and breaching every day from our camp.
Can you see the puff of water out there?

We also spent a lot of time at Ho'okena Beach
(more time than technically allowed, but the big local Hawaiian guy who ran the beach liked us.)

Ho'okena is one of 2 beaches where the little Spinner Dolphins come to swim regularly. If you go out early enough (and are brave enough) you can swim with them (if they want you to.)

The dolphins are as magical and intelligent as New Ager's say. They love to play dress up with the big leaves from the trees on the beach if you bring them out into the bay for them.

Ho'okena was also called "the beach of mnifestation" because so many people had experiences there of exactly what they needed showing up in miraculous ways.

About the time I was getting really tired of not having a fridge and stove and running water, a couple camping on the beach asked Ethan and I to come stay on some of their property that was just sitting empty.

Their property turned out to be just 3 miles from La'akea in a subdivision.

If it weren't for the rain forest it would have looked like a trailer court, the lots were so small.

But, it had a propane stove and fridge and running water . . .

. . . and even a little screen in hut (we did the screening.)

I liked living there, but I don't think Chassan would have (no Internet or cell reception plus damp and moldy.)

My friends, Mem & Ted, stayed with us there for a while after they sold their house in SLC. They were thinking of moving to Hawaii.

Again we spent the summer traveling and working at different events in beautiful places.

We camped and hiked here in Wyoming for a month this summer.

We probably hiked 10 miles or so a day. . .

. . . up through beautiful meadows . . .

. . . aspen groves . . .

. . . and pine forests.

Both summers we camped in Ethan's friend's back yard, in Eugene, OR.

The house has 8 different apartments attached, and we ended up renting one staring this August.
Ethan's son Micco and Chassan live here with us.

There is a community garden and huge raspberry patch in front. But it is also right in town, with health food stores close by, and the boys are enrolled at S. Eugene High (which rates 52nd in the country for High Schools.)

The house borders city green space with a meadow and woods right out our back door.

During the summer I often took the children from the community to the big swing in the woods, maybe a hundred yards from our back door.

The place is really tiny. Two bedrooms to share between 4 people, a kitchenette and tiny bathroom (that's it for common space) with a composting potty (which was meant for 1 or 2 people.)

It's been a way to step back into normal life (tho challenging.)
And we're glad to be moving soon.

Last summer Ethan & I house sat for our friend, Elizabeth. She really appreciated all the work we did around the place and how immaculate we left it (plus she likes us.) She is a traveling nurse and a Buhdist who leads tours to India and Tibet.

We will be renting Elizabeth's house (for at least a year) while she travels.