To read the CURRENT MONTH of the Cloudland Cabin Journal, just click on the link on the left (or you can go here).
Cloudland is the name of our property and log cabin located at the edge of the Upper Buffalo Wilderness Area in Newton County, Arkansas. The property was bought, after a fifteen year search, in December 1992, and the cabin was built during the summer of 1997 (the logs are from NW Montana, built by the Amish). The name "Cloudland" comes from the fact that you are quite often looking down onto a sea of clouds in the valley below in the mornings, and those clouds (or fog banks) often rise up and completely engulf the cabin area, and then you are literally in the clouds. The actual name comes from a picnic area in Colorado between my friends home in Evergreen and Mt. Evans (go to the September 2002 Journal to see a photo of the sign there). The great naturalist John Muir also referred to being "in Cloudland" often in his journals. Cloudland Cabin is home to Tim Ernst, his wife Pamela, and their daughter, Amber. It is also the location of Cloudland.net Publishing - office, processing and warehousing facilities - and now the new Buffalo River Gallery where you can go see fine art canvas prints up close and in person (by appointment only).
The cabin is built on the point of a ridge overlooking the confulence of Whitaker Creek and the nain Buffalo River. The view from the back decks at Cloudland is quite spectacular. To the right, you can see way up the Whitaker Creek Valley, and all the way to the Buffalo Fire Tower beyond, some five and a half miles away. In the wintertime, the sun sets almost directly behind the fire tower for several days, and for a couple of months, you can see the sun setting to the right of it. The view to the south is looking directly up the main Buffalo River Valley, and you can trace the river (normally hidden beneath the trees) as it winds all the way to the Curtis Cemetery hill and then out of sight (about five miles away), passing the entrances to Boen Gulf, Terrapin Branch, Bowers Hollow, and Hubbard Hollow. It is quite an impressive sight. The river is about 700 feet in elevation below. The back of the cabin, with eight windows, faces directly south. There are numerous photos in various picture books that were taken right off of the back decks of the cabin.
You cannot see the cabin from Hawksbill Crag - the buildings you can see from the craig are actually on the other side of the Buffalo River and are about a mile away from Cloudland.
The cabin is pretty much finished, with a main floor, loft and full basement (total about 3,000 square feet). The main floor includes the living and dining areas, and the kitchen, all in one open area (the ceiling peak height is 23 feet); a library and office space where the Cloudland Journal is written and where Pam runs the Cloudland.net Publishing business; a drawing room and doubles as the shipping department for all individual book sales; and finally Amber's room and bathroom. A large log staircase (guarded by a carved wooded bear) leads from the main room up into the 600 square foot loft, which is the master bedroom. Up there is a large, open bedroom area, walk-in cedar-lined closet, full bath, and a small deck off of the east end that overlooks the river and the sunrise. The basement contains the central air system, laundry, water pump, freezer, TV room, guest room, plus a room that holds a sauna, guest bathroom, and storagel for individual book sales. The basement was entirely unplanned, and only happened as I was having the footing for the cabins dug - how could we ever have gotten along without it now is beyond me. A large sunroom was added off the back of the basement that now surrounds the hot tub and contains exercise equipment.
The water system is a drilled well located 800 feet up the ridgeline, and while it is excellent water, there isn't not all that much of it, so water conservatoin is always a priority. We insist that the gentleman pee outside, both to conserve water and to help keep the bathrooms clean! Electricy and phone lines are underground - this cost us dearly, but we think it adds a lot to the experience.
Cloudland Journal. The Journal is organized into monthly sections, starting in May 1998. To locate the different months simply click on the date in the Archives section (or read the Current Journal). As you read through the Journal entries please be advised that these are basically in raw form, not edited - you will find many typos. I'm not writing a novel here. The Journal is simply a written account of what is going on here at Cloudland.
Cloudland Deck Cam. In May 2003 we started posting a morning photo each day that we are here that shows the view from the back deck. The scene can change quite a bit from day to day, although the summertime views are often exactly the same!
We built a brand new facility on the property in the fall of 2007. This 1,600 square foot building houses a state-of-the-art printing facility where we create both traditional photographic prints and stunning gallery-wrapped fine art canvas prints. Part of the new building is a fine art gallery filled with these amazing canvas prints - the gallery is open to the public on certain days of the year when we have an open house, and also by appointment only (neither the gallery nor Cloudland Cabin are open to the public at any other time). The gallery area also serves as a classroom for different types of digital photo workshops we teach throughout the year.
I hope that you enjoy reading through the online version of the Cloudland Journal. Thanks for stopping by...Tim Ernst |
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