The Smoking Monks chair. Here, you can see the original cushions my mother made.

In the fall of 1979, my parents purchased a camp just a few miles into the Adirondack State Park (I’ve written about this before—see my entry, “Facing What Haunts You” on my wedding blog: https://journeytothecenteroftheearthwedding.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/facing-what-haunts-you/).

We found newspaper in the walls dating back to the Civil War, so we knew that the house, at the time, was a little over 200 years old. There were also several small structures on the property: an outhouse, a barn, and a woodshed. There was the magical presence of the stream and a potable spring a mile up the road, and there was also the magical presence of something else—lots and lots of antiques, old books, and artifacts of bygone eras.

It was those artifacts Read the rest of this entry →