what is it …

[kellan_the_tabby]

Not that there WAS anywhere to turn around, both sides stacked up with rocks like that. I can drive the van over a lot but she’s no four wheel drive jeep.

… with me & weird abandoned buildings.

I’ll get to that, though.

I keep looking for new places to spend the day. Shoulda turned around as soon as I saw how bad the road got, though.

I finally found a place with no rocks in the way & nearly got myself into another sort of trouble.

But I stopped before I got myself stuck — see, I CAN learn! — & turns out it was a pretty decent place to spend the day.

I did my usual stuff — took a bunch of product pictures, made the big piece I posted about yesterday, hung out with the boys — & when everything else was done & the sun was getting low, went for a walk.

Seriously. What is it with me finding abandoned structures in these woods.

This one’s just an old, old log home though. I wonder how long it’s been there? It’s not a hogan — it was almost certainly built by white colonizers.

It was pretty big, for what it was. Sturdily built.

Loiosh had to explore it, of course. But he didn’t want to go inside, just walked around the tumbledown walls.

The sun was about to set so we all headed back — but I found a bit of treasure on the way. Check this out!

A piece of pipe — nice thick walls, just that short length. No idea what it’s from, or if it’s related to the cabin — it was at least a hundred feet away.

I’ll make something out of it, though.

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This was posted originally to my Patreon, a little over a week ago.

If you want to see these posts sooner, & not incidentally help support me & my cats in our travels & such, the way to do that is to sign up as one of my Patrons for as little as a buck a month.

I’d REALLY like that.

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originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

Comments

[corvi]

You go to the coolest places.

[kellan_the_tabby]

I don't even _mean_ to!

[siliconshaman]

Given the state of the logs, that has to have been abandoned for at least a hundred years, maybe as much as a hundred fifty (depending on local conditions) and nobody would put that much effort into a temporary structure meant to be disused after a few years, so it probably was in use for about as much before being left. So built mid-to-late 19th century, maybe early 20th.

[kellan_the_tabby]

Given the dry, not much here rots; which I suspect would put it as even older than that.

[siliconshaman]

Agreed, you could double the estimate of it's age given dry conditions.

[kellan_the_tabby]

Hmm, a quick look at the recent history of the area tells me that parts of Cibola National Forest were reserved in the late 1800s, but since Cibola National Forest covers various patches of land all over New Mexico (& parts of Texas & Oklahoma), that doesn't say much about when that particular chunk of land went to the government ... but I strongly suspect it's been a while.

[damont]

For all that it's had long exposure to the weather, that abandoned cabin is in remarkably good shape.

(I've been keeping up with the Townsends video series on building an early 18th century Midwestern homestead, which started with a cabin not quite a year ago.)

[kellan_the_tabby]

oooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, that sounds FUN

[damont]

The first video in this particular series has the crew visiting historic and reproduction cabins in PA and NJ, and ends at the build site in Indiana where they've felled the first logs for the project.

[kellan_the_tabby]

Oooooooh, totally bookmarking that to watch when I've got the bandwidth (both digital & mental, alas)!

[damont]

Oooo, and they even put together a playlist of their homestead (and related) videos for when you have the time and spoons...

[kellan_the_tabby]

ohhhh yeah, I am d00med but maybe I'll get a cabin out of it