More should definitely be said about the condition of the house in those early years as well as some history of the community. The original house was built in the 1890's by Danish immigrants. In those days, Mink Creek was a thriving little community with a store, a post office and four schools. Schools, of course, were small and close because of transportation issues. Four or five families provided the children for each school and the teacher was housed in the home of one of the families. Just north west of our property line, up near the spring was the "Woodpecker" School. Named for the birds who did so much damage to that wooden structure. This school served the children in the Klondike, (an appropriate name given to our neck of the Mink Creek woods). In those days the road ran along the foot of the hill on the west side of our home, and the front door was the opening of the short hall that leads to our current garage. The original house was made from adobe brick and stood two stories tall. As you walked into the front door you had your choice to turn right into the living room, left into our bedroom or go straight up the stairs to the two bedrooms on the upper level.
    In the 1930's a lean to kitchen and bathroom were added on the east side and indoor plumbing was brought into the house. It was years of empty neglect that made it so we did not have these luxuries when we first moved in.
   There were four fireplaces in the home which shared two chimneys. The weight of these structures had caused the floor to sag and sink. We lit a fire in one to take the damp chill off of the room. It smoked and coughed and then a very strange glop fell to the ground followed by first one stream and then another and another of thick, viscous, liquid dripping from the chimney. Further examination proved the substance to be honey and we eventually retrieved the entire honey comb, piece by piece, which was blocking the air flow. There were bats in the house and a snake slithered across the living room. A worm plopped out of the kitchen tap right into a guest's waiting glass. It has taken years to reclaim the place for human occupancy only. Still today, the northwest corner bedroom is affectionately called the "bee and fly" room, because of the abundance of insects that preferred that room to all others. Wasps and box elder bugs have been epidemic. In the fall, they fly in like dark clouds to take up residency here in the Klondike. No doubt, they wonder what I am doing in their home. The bees crawl into bed with you and the box elders hang in clusters around every plum on the tree.  I hate them. They are the plague in my Garden of Eden, but I guess that is also part of having a Mink Creek kind of day.