After ten years living in the exploding megalopolis of Atlanta, our family returned to our home state of North Carolina and moved into a nineteenth century log cabin in the mountains south of Asheville. With our two children, a Labrador puppy and a black cat, we sought neither a sixties back-to-the-earth experience nor Thoreau's Walden. We wanted only to enhance and simplify what our lives had become. The move brought more joy and adventure than we imagined. It was the best of times despite some bloodshed along the way.