The Elder Glade Home Listing Temporary Page
Elder Glade Land and Home MLS Listing with Ashley Doane
Dear future owner of the Elder Glade Land,
Please allow me to introduce you to a property nestled in the alders, firs and maples, along the Siuslaw National Forest line on the Upper Nestucca River Road. Testament Creek bisects the property as it passes through the land. There’s a salmon spawning area about eight feet from the deck, so you can watch the steelheads run from a comfy spot with your drink.
Testament Creek is home to trout, crawfish, salmon, salamanders, and frogs. There are ducks, and a local great heron that visits his favorite fishing spot under the maple twice a day. The creek splits around an outcropping, creating a private island near the water where I used to sit and write or daydream in the hammock.
The land itself is up against the ridge. It’s unbuildable on three sides, one side is Testament Creek Road, the other two sides, the south and east sides are BLM land and are protected. So you won’t have neighbors on those sides. You will, however, have wolves, coyotes, a cougar, a black bear, many racoons, opossums, squirrels, pack rats, mink, ducks, eagles, bats, elk, lots of elk, and more rodents than you can imagine. The forest is up against the house, so there are critters. There’s no way around it—which is part of the appeal. I recommend a good hunting cat, or a pest control plan.
I’ve lived here for eight years, and it’s brought tremendous joy! Several novels were written in this house, and countless creative projects were born and nurtured on this land. There are mature roses planted throughout, along with grape vines, hazelnut trees, cherries, a fig tree, apple trees, and prolific raspberries. The garden is loaded with perennial herbs, and tree lilies, gladiolas, and strawberries. I’ve been cultivating the wildflower population by re-spreading seeds, so there are also foxgloves, bleeding hearts, forget-me-nots, and columbines all around the property.
There are challenges living this close to the edge of the woods, utilities can be spotty during storms, and the road closures are often a tedious interruption, but the value of the peace and quiet, the stillness of the island and the protection of the forest are unmatched.
My career calls me south, so it breaks my heart to leave a home I love in a state of half-dress (there’s not a single room with a complete paint job—I just couldn’t commit to a color!) but some of those niceties will be for the next folks to decide once you’re in the space and have a chance to witness the seasons through all the giant windows.
Please look after the forest, it will look after you. The storms will come and it can be scary when full trees are washing down the creek just feet from the deck, but it’s a powerful beautiful sight. If you have an interest in beekeeping, I’ll leave the beehives and equipment for you. If you have a love of plants and gardens, I’ll leave a chart where I’ve planted roses and which varieties (they are so lovely in the summer). The hazelnuts should fruit this year, and the cherry trees and fig the year after. The land has shown promise for so many things I just didn’t get a chance to finish.
May you find peace and comfort here where the birds sing, the creek burbles, and the leaves rustle. Here’s an ode to the life I’ve had in this home. May you have such peace as I’ve enjoyed.
Sincerely,
Athena
Please allow me to introduce you to a property nestled in the alders, firs and maples, along the Siuslaw National Forest line on the Upper Nestucca River Road. Testament Creek bisects the property as it passes through the land. There’s a salmon spawning area about eight feet from the deck, so you can watch the steelheads run from a comfy spot with your drink.
Testament Creek is home to trout, crawfish, salmon, salamanders, and frogs. There are ducks, and a local great heron that visits his favorite fishing spot under the maple twice a day. The creek splits around an outcropping, creating a private island near the water where I used to sit and write or daydream in the hammock.
The land itself is up against the ridge. It’s unbuildable on three sides, one side is Testament Creek Road, the other two sides, the south and east sides are BLM land and are protected. So you won’t have neighbors on those sides. You will, however, have wolves, coyotes, a cougar, a black bear, many racoons, opossums, squirrels, pack rats, mink, ducks, eagles, bats, elk, lots of elk, and more rodents than you can imagine. The forest is up against the house, so there are critters. There’s no way around it—which is part of the appeal. I recommend a good hunting cat, or a pest control plan.
I’ve lived here for eight years, and it’s brought tremendous joy! Several novels were written in this house, and countless creative projects were born and nurtured on this land. There are mature roses planted throughout, along with grape vines, hazelnut trees, cherries, a fig tree, apple trees, and prolific raspberries. The garden is loaded with perennial herbs, and tree lilies, gladiolas, and strawberries. I’ve been cultivating the wildflower population by re-spreading seeds, so there are also foxgloves, bleeding hearts, forget-me-nots, and columbines all around the property.
There are challenges living this close to the edge of the woods, utilities can be spotty during storms, and the road closures are often a tedious interruption, but the value of the peace and quiet, the stillness of the island and the protection of the forest are unmatched.
My career calls me south, so it breaks my heart to leave a home I love in a state of half-dress (there’s not a single room with a complete paint job—I just couldn’t commit to a color!) but some of those niceties will be for the next folks to decide once you’re in the space and have a chance to witness the seasons through all the giant windows.
Please look after the forest, it will look after you. The storms will come and it can be scary when full trees are washing down the creek just feet from the deck, but it’s a powerful beautiful sight. If you have an interest in beekeeping, I’ll leave the beehives and equipment for you. If you have a love of plants and gardens, I’ll leave a chart where I’ve planted roses and which varieties (they are so lovely in the summer). The hazelnuts should fruit this year, and the cherry trees and fig the year after. The land has shown promise for so many things I just didn’t get a chance to finish.
May you find peace and comfort here where the birds sing, the creek burbles, and the leaves rustle. Here’s an ode to the life I’ve had in this home. May you have such peace as I’ve enjoyed.
Sincerely,
Athena
Ode to the Elder Glade Land:
I saw this land in a dream years before I met it in person. It was made to hold me while I work. It was made to heal me when I was broken. It was made to free my wilding self so I could join my characters in a heart-thundering race through the ferns.
This land sings, it weeps, it groans, it serenades. It falls in love. I don’t know how to wake up without the lullaby of its sounds anymore. Its heartbeat is as reassuring as the slumber of a nearby lover. When I am off the land for more than a few days, there are no orienting notes. The sun and shadows forget to tell time. North and South become meaningless directions and not freckles or marks of time and space. Here, at least, South is a light, a view to the ridge, a hum of deep earthen boulders on the property edge. North is the mossy side of my roof, and the face of the sugar maple. West is the direction the water flows and easterly is where the salmon swim in to invite me to play in the creek. All other directions orient to those markers. Without them, I wouldn’t know how to tend the beehives, or when to turn the garden beds. When the full moon shines through the eastern stand, it’s time to release old injuries, and when the new moon makes a hole in the night between the alder and the fir, it’s time to put seeds in the ground. Polaris always shows the way home. Always.
Outside this land, time is just a word. Breath is just a clock. Outside this land, I need GPS to navigate, because even the bees don’t know where to go once they leave my mountain.
The creek roars. It burbles. It chatters happily during spawning season, and rages through the winter storms. Then, in the heat of summer, it offers cool refreshment and entices me to linger, dip my toes, and tell it my stories.
The trees gossip. My god, do they gossip. The maples are the worst conspirators. Recently, in the last few years, they have included me in the jokes, and on more than one occasion, they have colluded to hide me from hunters or passersby with questionable intentions. On those occasions, they then chattered about it to one another for weeks, as there was little else to talk about at the time.
The elk visit regularly. The birds swing by daily; an eagle, a mated pair of blue jays, a single great heron, and several golden finches, hummingbirds, swifts, woodpeckers and so on. Evening bats keep my nights on the deck free of mosquitos. So you see, I am never actually alone. Oh, and there are flowers, berries, mushrooms, maple syrup, wild mint, and a thousand delicacies to nibble on as I walk the trails. If I walk toward the sound of white water, then cross the foothills toward the scent of moss, I can pick food and wander through timelines filled with history, lost worlds and forgotten love stories. By the time I get home, my lips are berry stained, my pockets stuffed with pretty tumbled stones and interesting pieces of lichen, and my basket is overflowing with flowers, fungi, and frogs. Then I take a nap in the hammock and wake up to dance my way through a few chapters.
There is a notable impact on my relationships with my characters, and the saturation of my spiritual connection to the stories when I am baked on asphalt plains, or crammed into population, or stored safely behind hermetically sealed glass panels. That’s not to say it can’t be done, that I’m unable—only that it has a cost. The hours spend in traffic cannot pay for the blissful engagement of story arcs meeting their destined conclusions on the page.
The point is, I came out here to work. I left the city so I could learn to hear again. I found a cottage and settled into a slower rhythm so that I could think, feel, breathe. It can be inconvenient sometimes. Yes, there have been times when I was utterly terrified or pushed to my breaking point with unmet challenges of remote living and isolation. But there has not yet been a day when I haven’t stared out the window and felt a wash of deep love and appreciation for the land I’m sitting on, and the peace it brings my life.
And it’s only been because of that peace that I have been able to reconnect to my voice, and tell these stories.
Will I ever leave it? When the time is right. When the correct situation calls and the garden gate blows open to a new direction. Until then, the song is alive in this space, so this is where I work.
This land sings, it weeps, it groans, it serenades. It falls in love. I don’t know how to wake up without the lullaby of its sounds anymore. Its heartbeat is as reassuring as the slumber of a nearby lover. When I am off the land for more than a few days, there are no orienting notes. The sun and shadows forget to tell time. North and South become meaningless directions and not freckles or marks of time and space. Here, at least, South is a light, a view to the ridge, a hum of deep earthen boulders on the property edge. North is the mossy side of my roof, and the face of the sugar maple. West is the direction the water flows and easterly is where the salmon swim in to invite me to play in the creek. All other directions orient to those markers. Without them, I wouldn’t know how to tend the beehives, or when to turn the garden beds. When the full moon shines through the eastern stand, it’s time to release old injuries, and when the new moon makes a hole in the night between the alder and the fir, it’s time to put seeds in the ground. Polaris always shows the way home. Always.
Outside this land, time is just a word. Breath is just a clock. Outside this land, I need GPS to navigate, because even the bees don’t know where to go once they leave my mountain.
The creek roars. It burbles. It chatters happily during spawning season, and rages through the winter storms. Then, in the heat of summer, it offers cool refreshment and entices me to linger, dip my toes, and tell it my stories.
The trees gossip. My god, do they gossip. The maples are the worst conspirators. Recently, in the last few years, they have included me in the jokes, and on more than one occasion, they have colluded to hide me from hunters or passersby with questionable intentions. On those occasions, they then chattered about it to one another for weeks, as there was little else to talk about at the time.
The elk visit regularly. The birds swing by daily; an eagle, a mated pair of blue jays, a single great heron, and several golden finches, hummingbirds, swifts, woodpeckers and so on. Evening bats keep my nights on the deck free of mosquitos. So you see, I am never actually alone. Oh, and there are flowers, berries, mushrooms, maple syrup, wild mint, and a thousand delicacies to nibble on as I walk the trails. If I walk toward the sound of white water, then cross the foothills toward the scent of moss, I can pick food and wander through timelines filled with history, lost worlds and forgotten love stories. By the time I get home, my lips are berry stained, my pockets stuffed with pretty tumbled stones and interesting pieces of lichen, and my basket is overflowing with flowers, fungi, and frogs. Then I take a nap in the hammock and wake up to dance my way through a few chapters.
There is a notable impact on my relationships with my characters, and the saturation of my spiritual connection to the stories when I am baked on asphalt plains, or crammed into population, or stored safely behind hermetically sealed glass panels. That’s not to say it can’t be done, that I’m unable—only that it has a cost. The hours spend in traffic cannot pay for the blissful engagement of story arcs meeting their destined conclusions on the page.
The point is, I came out here to work. I left the city so I could learn to hear again. I found a cottage and settled into a slower rhythm so that I could think, feel, breathe. It can be inconvenient sometimes. Yes, there have been times when I was utterly terrified or pushed to my breaking point with unmet challenges of remote living and isolation. But there has not yet been a day when I haven’t stared out the window and felt a wash of deep love and appreciation for the land I’m sitting on, and the peace it brings my life.
And it’s only been because of that peace that I have been able to reconnect to my voice, and tell these stories.
Will I ever leave it? When the time is right. When the correct situation calls and the garden gate blows open to a new direction. Until then, the song is alive in this space, so this is where I work.