Little Cabin On The Trail

I was about six years old and a bit feisty. Some things never change. My mama was fussing at me-so I decided to run away. Mama saw me packing a suitcase and asked what I was doing. "I'm running away," I told her. She informed me that it was probably for the best since she was so mean and all. She only had one condition: I was not allowed to take anything that she or my daddy had bought for me. We went through my Hello Kitty suitcase together and removed all such items-which left me with nothing, not even a suitcase. Mama cleared her throat and said, "Those shoes . . . we bought them . . . and the socks . . . and the shorts . . . and the shirt . . . oh, and those panties." Butt-naked, with my hand on my hip, I grabbed the lip gloss I had purchased with my own money and marched right out the door. I hopped on my bike, which was a gift from my godparents, and rode down the street to our music minister and his wife's house. I told them how my mama had taken away everything I owned but my lip gloss and my bicycle. I asked them if I could live with them. --Emily Bray, 38 years old, Memory Project Participant Little Cabin on the Trail inspires folks to assign great value to their seemingly insignificant memories and encourages them to use those memories to become their family storytellers. Personal stories give everyone permission to pause and consider that there really is a bigger picture, an eternal picture, where past, present, and future generations are linked, not only through their blood, but through their stories. Little Cabin on the Trail will certainly entertain readers with its view into one very ordinary family's life; but more importantly, it will help them to realize that they, too, have stories just begging to be told--better stories . . . because they are theirs.

This Old House meets Wayne’s World in this zany guide to designing and building tiny homes Derek Diedricksen has always had a love for small, modest houses ever since his father gave him the book Tiny Tiny Houses by Lester Walker for his tenth birthday. Combining his artistic abilities, wild imagination, and his passion for small houses, he self-published Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts, and Whatever the Heck Else we could Squeeze in Here in 2009. This book is a collection of Diedricksen’s creative/imaginative sketches for building small houses, shacks, cottages, and forts. The sketches are accompanied with hand-written commentary, both instructive and comical. Derek’s main purpose is to get your creative juices flowing and encourage you to get off the couch and use your hands. Believing that specific building plans squash creativity, he avoids too many detailed instructions, giving you the chance to put your own creative spin on your very own small abode (even if it is just in your imagination).

The Cabin at the Trail's End tells such a drama in the lives of the Bainbraidge family of Oregon City in 1843, recording with wit and frontier wisdom the heartache and joy, the betrayal and triumph that charts their daily lives.

Observation by author of birds, animals, plants and trees in Minnesota.

What do you do when you are "a little tattered, a little worn around the edges?" Forty years of marriage, caregiver for the last few–dementia is a cruel disease– and when your husband dies and there is big hole in your life what do you do? You pack up and go to an old log cabin sitting on a cliff in the middle of nowhere. As you have done all your life. Except now you are alone. In the middle of the Canadian Shield. In the silence of the surrounding bush the days of summer are journaled. There are expected challenges and a few unexpected surprises. Told with an awareness of the absurd and an eye to the funny the healing process progresses. Just for the hell of it a few stories and poems are thrown in. It's all about remembering what was, accepting what is, and rediscovering the beauty [and fragility] of our wilderness.