Author Archives: Karen Bolduc

This summer of 2021, we’ve dedicated 2 days per week to come down off the mountain and make the hour drive to Lewiston. There, we’ve been cleaning, clearing, and organizing John’s general contracting shop to prepare for its sale this September. While there last week making my way through a corner of my old office,Continue reading “The Water Flows Again”

As I pull tacks from birch bark chains and coil cranberry strings, de-Christmasing the cabin to clean up for the New Year, I have time to reflect on the stack of cards we received this season. I notice a theme in much of the messaging. “Thank goodness that’s over!” “Well THAT was crazy!” “Hooray, 2021Continue reading “2021: Our New Boyfriend Who Magically Makes Everything Right?”

Yesterday afternoon, after poring over what we thought was a final total of 10 offers for South Auburn Organic Farm, John and I prepared to call our broker and let him know we’d made our choice. Though many offers were well over our asking price, one offer really had our attention: While “only” full asking,Continue reading “Selling the Farm”

When we first moved to our cabin here in Greenwood Maine, our shelter rescue dog Millie, a docile, submissive, full-blood Redtick Coonhound from Alabama, ran free over the nearly 500 acres of mountains we had just acquired – and she was in her glory. This was just as she had done on our 10 acreContinue reading “Millie, Massachusetts, and the Moose”

Ah, the fresh air! The sunlight! The excitement at the prospect of making real forward progress! We are just now crawling out from under our rock and making baby steps as we come out of this [involuntary] protracted period of total regroup, otherwise known as, the coronavirus global pandemic. We are in the fortunate, andContinue reading “Making Lemonade”

“I got a fever! And it can only be cured by…” More donkey! Yep, it’s official. I’m mad about asses!! John is a perhaps a smidge less enthusiastic than I am, but agreed nonetheless! And why not? They’re adorable, strong, good-natured, and best of all for The Coal Burned Spoon’s purposes, make great pack animals!Continue reading “Donkey Fever”

When we speak of the construction of homes and institutions today, the modern environmenally-conscious zeitgeist would have us focus on “reducing the carbon footprint” or eking closer to “net-neutral.” Imagine, for a moment, instead that we demanded answers to questions like “Will the carbon footprint on this building be net-*positive* immediately or will it takeContinue reading “Passivhaus Power!”

John and I recently had an awakening at a meeting with a potential architect last month, in which the architect – a fairly philosophical fellow – suggested that our plan of keeping the treehouses as year-round accommodations defeated the point of a treehouse. He asked how we would keep them warm in the winter andContinue reading “Philosophizing on Seasonal Treehouses”

Any fairly large project that is successful, I think, will credit its success to a strong, competent, cohesive team comprised of top notch team members who each do their piece of the puzzle well. So building our eco-glamping sanctuary team carefully and thoughtfully, is something John and I both take seriously. Before we started thisContinue reading “Civil Engineers and Architects: Building the Team”

It’s hard for me to believe it’s winter up here on the mountain already, when, down on my flatland farm in Auburn, I was precisely 2 days ago harvesting the last of the beets and carrots out of a moist black cold-but-not-frozen soil bed. But it is. Old man winter sweeps through the mountains first,Continue reading “It’s Wintertime! Gravel Road Planning.”