Check out this pioneer home built in a tree stump, ca. 1910:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leedman/2318692269/in/set-72157604073472543
Now thats very cool. I wonder what happened to it?
This is very, very neat!
Another interesting model might be the log cabin skyscraper I saw off the Alcan in either BC or the Yukon- might have been White Horse back in 77 or so. I believe it was 5 stories- Sorry couldn’t find a pic-
Thanks for posting it!
This old wagon would also make a great model…
Ray,
As a young child we lived on a ranch in Humboldt County (Redwood country) and had a lot of these huge old Redwood stumps on the place similar to the on on the left in your picture only big.
Several of them had rotted out on the inside and were grown over with wild rose and huckleberry bushes. There was room inside for a dozen or more kids to play, but the coolest thing was being able to climb up to the top with the help of the old spring board notches and pick huckleberries.
Thanks for jarring the memories.
Rick
Rick, I lived up there too for a couple years! In 1964 we lived near a place called Freshwater. Our small, rented house was way out in the sticks, past some small farms. Across the narrow dirt driveway was a huge stump about ten feet across, with a new tree growing out of the middle of it. At the end of the driveway was dense, wild redwood forest.
We had a blackberry patch that was taller than our house, and several times wider. We used to lay planks on it to reach the best berries, high up on the patch. They were as big as a man’s thumb! Down by the creek you could find salmonberries, too.
I remember when we first moved in, it was after dark and the power wasn’t turned on yet so we had to use lanterns. We all thought the interior walls were painted green. The next morning, we found out they were green from all the mildew! That’s what happens with a constantly damp climate.
That year they had a huge flood, what they call a “thousand year flood”. Several times the bridge to our house was covered by the floodwaters, along with the surrounding farmland. Normally this bridge was forty feet or so above a tiny creek.
Our elementary school had four rooms, only two of which were classrooms. They had three grades together in each classroom. Out in front of the school yard was the original one-room, red schoolhouse complete with bell. My dad was ordained that year and for a time he used the old schoolhouse as a church.
We lived there about a year, then moved to Arcata. We lived in the “suburbs” but still had forest just down the street, and all the kids played in the woods. Lots of those big old stumps there, and the remains of an ancient log cabin. We used to find huckleberries there too.
Times were kind of tough back then, and before school my dad would often take us down to the bay before dawn, to collect the scraps of logs that had drifted away from the pulp mill. There were lots of thin log slices all along the shore. Later we’d split it and he’d sell it for firewood.
I’ve often thought about going up there someday but I hear it’s all overrun with hippies, “greens” and pot farms these days.