It might take a couple years for our budget to allow it, but I’ve been contemplating for a year now the idea of a weekend cabin out by Clear Creek monastery. I’d just need a half acre. When the time is right, will put out feelers out there to see if someone would part with a little bit of land. Closer to the abbey the better. It’s okay if it’s very wooded and rocky. Would just to need to be next to or near a road. Anyone out there reading this, would you take $2K for a half acre, or even smaller? I’m thinking to put a small barn on it from Home Depot or Lowes, or a barn builder closer to CC. There’s one such company on the north side of Hwy 412 east of T-town as you take what the monks call the “north route.”
$2K for the land. $3K for the barn. Maybe $500 to outfit it. Can’t beat a weekend getaway cabin, nestled in the beautiful Okie lower foothills of the Ozarks, an hour from Tulsa, and just a jog from dozens of traditional Catholic monks celebrating daily Traditional Latin Mass, and the Divine Office sung in Gregorian chant.
Can’t imagine anything more idyllic and simultaneously practical. $5500.
A weekend getaway. Camp base to hunt and fish (with permissions of CC land owners - like the monks). Hermitage for a spiritual retreat. Guys hangout. Family home-away-from-home. A bug out place in the event of the Great Chastisement (you never know). The opportunities abound.
This all started with more frequent visits to the monastery for the Catholic Manshow campout, 2018 Workday, a quick half day retreat of sorts last Advent, and the 2019 Workday. I think I blogged about most of those visits. My inspiration was also watching a couple YouTube channels (beats the heck out Netflix these days with its increasing amounts of PC shows and ones that appeal more to our fallen natures) of men building/living in cabins in the deep woods. Check out My Self Reliance and TA Outdoors. This all just rekindled an old dream of a cabin, and one near CC, coupled with a recent gain in livelihood that would make such ventures prudent.
So on any winter evening I may be seen perched on my Okie armchair sipping hot cocoa (flavored with stevia) watching these channels, dreaming of the day soon I pull the trigger on this project. I’d need to first find the land. Plenty of trees, alive or fallen to the ground, would be a plus for firewood.
A nice view of some pasture land or distant hills would be nice. Also a bit of a creek for running water would be another plus. I’d think I could find a Catholic living within 5-10 minutes of the monastery with a bit of land they’d part with. Would have to think of the best method of procuring such land.
The other task is finding a Home Depot or Lowes that would deliver and assemble the barn on the land, given it’s a hilly, rocky area, far from the city. Maybe one in Tahlequah or Muskogee. Or the next time I’m out there check and see if there’s a closer business that sells barns. The kind you see on the side of the highway, including little sheds with a front porch designed like a mini-cottage.
You can plan something like this too. I’m thinking a barn, 12’x15’, with a couple windows. Maybe a loft, built-in kitchen bench. No electricity or running water. Bring water, cooler, propane for a propane stove, some batteries. A small wood-burning stove. A couple of beds doubling like couches,
with a multi-functional table between them. Cast iron skillets hanging over a Coleman stove. Plus an outdoor kitchen with grill, firepit, covered wood stash, and makeshift outddoor latrine. May make a compost toilet, like I had made several for use by the group when attending a traditional Catholic pilgrimage (SSPX) once upon a time in the Philippines. Much more sanitary than a hole.
Let me know in the comments what you think? Any other things you’d add to the project? Live in Oklahoma and would like to use the future cabin too?