Cabin Thoughts, Part 2

Mineral King, pencil, framed approximately 14 x 18″, $400 plus tax.

I looked up “cabin” on my Mac. The dictionary on my computer has fairly useless definitions as far as our discussion is concerned.

Cabin may refer to:

  • Beach cabin, a small wooden hut on a beach

  • Log cabin, a house built from logs

  • Cottage, a small house

  • Chalet, a wooden mountain house with a sloping roof

  • Small, remote, mansion (Western Canada)

  • Small, free-standing structures that serve as individual lodging spaces of a motel

Forget that. Where’s my real Webster’s dictionary?? Mine was published in 2004 rather than 1935. Oh good grief, look at this:

A small, simple, one-story house.

Willow Window, pencil. Is this a cabin? Nope, it is a bungalow. But it is a small, simple, one-story house. How do I know? Because I used to live there.
Kitchen Corner, pencil, framed, $150. Is this a cabin? Yep. How do I know? I live there in the summer. But wait! It has 2 stories!

A few folks checked in with their thoughts on what a cabin is. One suggested “primitive”; another said a place to get away from every day life; a third (and someone else I talked to in person) suggests that a cabin is a state of mind, “non-fancy” is a good description, and someone else added in a description of an ideal cabin. She used the word “spare”, which could mean an extra home or it could mean without clutter. (I’ve seen some pretty cluttered cabins, and I have lived in a cabin when it was my only place of residence.)

Come back tomorrow for more thoughts on cabins and cabin life; clearly, there is no clear definition of cabin, but there are many ideas about it. Clearly.

Cabin Thoughts

A classic Mineral King cabin. (sold oil painting)

In 1986 I married into a Mineral King cabin. I’d always wanted either a cabin or a beach house. Here in Tulare County, cabins are more available and accessible than beach houses. It has worked out well, even to the point that my art business is called Cabin Art. (Or Cabinart. . . for a Typo-Psycho, I am awfully ambivalent about the spelling of this invented word.)

But what exactly is a cabin? A dear old friend and I began discussing this, and I was surprised that I am unable to define the word. Some cabin neighbors along with Off Trail Guy and I had a discussion about the definition of “cabin”, and the word “woods” came up several times in both discussions.

My hiking buddy suggested I try Webster. I was so caught off guard that I said something truly clueless:  “What is that? Some internet thing?” We all got a big laugh when I realized she meant Noah Webster and the Merriam-Webster dictionary, not some World Wide Web gizmo.

We had an old dictionary at the cabin, so I looked up “cabin”. The 3rd definition said, “A small, rude hut”.

Clearly the word “rude” has changed in meaning since the dictionary was published in 1935. I looked up “rude” and saw “Poorly constructed”.

Alrighty, then. A cabin is a small, poorly constructed hut.

My Very Wise Dad always told us it is better to laugh than to cry. I might even fall down laughing at this definition, especially when folks mention their Shaver Lake or Tahoe cabins.

Let’s talk more about this tomorrow.

How do you define “cabin”? (Don’t spoil things by looking it up first – just speak from your gut or your heart.)

Wood Stove, Pies, and Friendship in Mineral King

(Today’s post is about cabin life in Mineral King rather than hiking. If this is boring to you, tune in again next Friday.)

In a former life, I was a baker. Pies were the specialty of the outfit where I was employed. It was a long time ago. Now I only bake pies for special occasions, and it amazes me that one pie makes the same huge mess as 8 or 12 pies do.

For 27 years there has been no oven at my cabin. Last fall, Trail Guy and Cowboy Bert remedied the situation.

We have some once-a-year neighbors in Mineral King, and over the course of the last 28 years, they have become cherished visitors to the cabin next door. Our friendships have progressed to the point where they are now comfortable hanging around in our back yard! Last year I knew they were coming, so I baked them a pie.

This year, I baked them 2 pies in a wood stove oven!

It was a big project. My dear friend PC peeled and sliced the fruit, I rolled out the crusts, and Michael operated the stove. Honestly, it took all three of us.

We had to rotate them very carefully and thoughtfully. It sounded something like this:

“Don’t open the oven yet. There is one in the back right corner and one in the front left. Pull the front one out and set it on the stove. Then rotate the back right to see if it is getting dark. If it is darker than the front one, take it out. Put the former front one in the back right, but make sure the darkest part is toward the front of the oven.  Okay, GO!”

“Did you reset the timer? How many 10 minuteses has it been? Do you think we can pull them if the crusts look brown?”

The apple pie took 50 minutes and the peach pie took 40. I think both needed more time, but the peach pie got sort of burned-ish anyway. No one complained. All were complimentary. I don’t much like pie (unless a thing is ice cream or dark chocolate, it is rarely worth the calories to me), but I certainly enjoyed the project  process.

It was Cathy, my bona fide Mineral King Expert friend who thought that inverted colanders would be good cooling racks. She was right, of course.

P.S. Homemade pies in a wood burning oven are good campaign props, don’t you think? If you live in the Everett school district, vote for Ted Wenta!