Journals from the Mill
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I have a new email address just for this site if you would like to message me, I would be happy to hear from you.
I hope to be updating soon and will post more poetry and some short stories, thank you for your support and the wonderful messages many of you have left.
About the Mill
Daniel and I have lived at the mill for 3 years now. There is no running water, only the heat from a kerosene heater that Daniel traded a bass guitar for. no luxuries except for this computer, that we currently can't pay for.
The mill was built between 1867-68, I found a date written on the back of an old wallboard upstairs, Feb. 28, 1868. The writing was done in black ink or paint perhaps, in a heavy German looking script. I saved the board.
It’s three stories above ground and a basement built of hand chiseled limestone blocks. I don't go down there. The huge beams are oak and poplar, all the inside boards were torn out at some point and only the frame and siding remain in a lot of the place. We have tried to put walls up where we could, but that is a slow and laborious job to try and do, a piece at a time.
There are holes everywhere. One on the first floor where the great millstone fell through and then many smaller holes cut through wherever needed to run the wooden chutes that carried grain or flour from one floor to another.
At one time it was a great old mill, full of activity and sound and the hard work of men for over 100 years. Now is holds only Daniel and me, a few cats a little dog and the endless rushing sound of the creek just a yard from the back of the building. Truly a lonely, empty place to live out one’s life. The entire situation is terribly long and confusing, so to make a long story short here it is.
I had one thousand dollars, we needed a place to live, I found an ad in the local paper for the mill," for sale by owner", the owner was willing to work with us, no credit checking, no in our business sort of thing. He is a good and kind person to be dealing with, under the present circumstances. Viola' we are here to stay, so it seems.
We tried to move to a duplex once, it was nice, warm, had water and a bath tub etc. But we had to come back home in a month because we didn't have the money for rent, and the money I had hoped for, never came.
The mill has a way of getting under my skin. I keep having a re-occurring nightmare where I get sick, or fall through one of the myriad holes and need an ambulance to come and get me. LOL
I'd end up in the paper like some pitiful old "cat lady" or something. Yuppies all over town would be taking the credit for rescuing me from myself.
Headlines would read, "Lonely Recluse Saved From Condemned Building".
No, the mill hasn't been condemned, but it could be.
