Trifter

Treetops before the garden was developed.

TREETOPS

             We found Treetops in October of 1995. We had lived in Coos Bay for two years, living in a little trailer that had a living room built on the side.  Having gone to too many yard sales, our little home situated on Old Wagon Road was bulging at the seams with people, pets, and stuff, and since we had just painted the bedroom a warm creamy peach, of course, it was then we decided it was time to look for a house and to settle down in a home of our own.

             The minute we walked in, the small cottage perched on the hillside spoke loudly and clearly, it had to be ours. The property consisted of a house, a ramshackle old barn, and what had been a gun shop, and a “coach house.” The coach house was said to have been used by the stagecoach drivers who ran from the Charleston area beach all the way through on the “Old Wagon Road” to Roseburg some 80 or so miles away. Shinglehouse Slough Road, back then was part of the Old Wagon Road.  It was in the Libby area of Coos Bay, named after an Indian girl, married to a well established businessman, who named the area after his wife.

             So what it needed a new foundation, and so what if the septic tank had been put in by pioneers from Arkansas, and so what the fourteen outlets in the bedroom shared the same circuit as all two outlets in the living room, and half of those in the kitchen?

             The outbuildings were a whole other story. The barn was about to fall over, and was built above two stock sheds which were perched precariously on the side of the hill. The gun shop which had been built onto the coach house was in fairly good condition except for a few leaks here and there. The coach house was a huge tall enclosed car port type of structure with three little rooms built on the side where it was purported to have been where the coach drivers slept over in the early days, and later in the early 1940s these little rooms were rented out to bachelor loggers and coal miners who needed a place to live while working in the area. The loft above was a wonder in itself. It was filled with trappings from bygone years; everything that had ever been brought onto the property it seemed like, had never left.  It was all still there – somewhere.

             Garbage had been buried under the garden area, an old rusted out hulk of a 1935 sedan sat precariously down the hill amongst the brush.  There was a bottle dump by the “coach-house” and the whole lawn was underlined with corrugated sheet metal to keep down the blackberries. But, the peaceful warm, welcoming vibes were right, the price was right, and the view off the back deck was tranquil and soothing, and the bedroom had just been painted a creamy warm peach. It had to be ours.

To be continued

Alder Trees at the bottom of the garden in the “Back Forty” feet that is!