Caer:
(Pronounced care) Old Welsh: Caer is a placename element in Welsh meaning "stronghold", "fortress", or "citadel".
David:
(Pronounced da-veed) Hebrew: Pertaining to the house of David, meaning beloved.
Caer David is our refuge, our mountain escape, our getaway. It is our home away from home.
For years, Sir Knight and I have longed for a sanctuary in the mountainous meadows of my childhood. A place to go if the world fell apart. A place to go when we needed to relax and recharge. A place where we would be surrounded by solitude and kinship, seclusion and fellowship. Caer David is the fulfillment of that long-held desire.
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| The sign is over the front door |
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| Wood cookstove - Cabin Tender |
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| Food storage bin (divided into five sections) |
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| An 8 foot kitchen table with benches! |
The Caer is beautiful in it's simplicity. It is rustic and refined - practical and romantic. The boards are from our early 1900's barn, many cribbed on by the horses I rode as a child. Most of the metal roofing (repurposed as interior siding) also came from a nearby barn. The beams separating the kitchen from the adjoining rooms were salvaged from a homesteaders dairy barn by Sir Knight, the kids and I. The kitchen cupboards were built by a dear family friend. In fact, every square inch of the Caer was built with loving hands by faith-filled people.
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| The living room |
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| The field phone |
My parents live in a cottage, called The Refuge, to the north of the Caer. Although there is no phone at the Caer, we are connected to The Refuge via Gulf War era field phones. We pick up the handset in our cottage and the field phone in my parent's cottage rings - and vise versa! The Caer is heated by a wood cookstove in the kitchen, and has all the basic necessities - even a washer and dryer! There is a bedroom downstairs for Sir knight and I and a bunk room (not yet finished) upstairs for the children - and an occasional cousin!
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| Barn board wall |
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| Looking from the living room into the kitchen |
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| A Procom heater provides back-up heat |
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| The bathroom |
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| Look in the mirror! |
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| Our bedroom |
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| One of the salvaged beams |
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| Metal (from the old barn) on the wall of the stairway |
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| The bunk room |
There are still so many things to do at Caer David - but we'll take it one step at a time. At some point we would like to add a solar array, as well as re-develop an existing spring. We'd like to clear some trees to enhance the gorgeous views and put in a gun range. For now, we will delight ourselves with the cozy atmosphere of the Caer, the sound of the creek gurgling down the hill and the fellowship of our favorite people in the world.
This is Caer David - the house that God built.
