About This Blog

A tall bronze and gold sunflower growing inside the fenced lower garden, with the log house and green boulder cascade behind it
The Living Springs Log House from the lower organic garden, the year the sunflowers came up tall. Nine years of building up the soil turned a bare, rocky slope into green, growing gardens all around the house.

Hi, I’m Patricia Mikkelson. Welcome to my corner of the Ozarks.

Since 2017, I’ve lived here at the Living Springs Log House, outside Huntsville, Arkansas. I share the place with my former husband, Robert; India, our Great Pyrenees; and a lively crowd of frogs, bats, deer, swallows, and other creatures and plants who were here long before any of us.

How I Came to Be Here

I’m not ready to let the dream go, though. I’m just ready to hand it on. That’s why I started this blog.

Why I’m Writing

These pages are my stories of nine years on this land: the cave spring I walk to most mornings, the gardens I’ve coaxed out of Bermuda grass, the bats at dusk, and the dreams I still hold for what this place could become.

I’m writing them for people with dreams like ours. Especially, I hope to reach those who might build an animal sanctuary, a vegan community, or a think tank for animal rights here. I’m also writing for homesteaders, multigenerational families, and anyone else who might find a home on this land.

If you’d like to know more about me, you can read more here.

What This Blog Is, and Isn’t

I’m not the owner, the seller, or a real estate agent. Everything here comes from my own experience and observations. It’s one person’s stories and opinions, not official property details, and it isn’t a promise or a statement on Barbara’s behalf. Conditions on any land can change, and my descriptions may be incomplete.

When I share ideas about how the land could be used, such as a sanctuary, sober living, or a shared community, those are possibilities I’m dreaming about, not claims that any particular use is permitted. Please check zoning, licensing, and local rules for your own plans.

For the official facts, including the seller’s disclosures, survey, price, and terms, please rely on the listing agent, the sale documents, your own inspections, and your own trusted advisors. You can also read my full list of disclosures.

Find every article on this blog, sorted by topic, on the Every Article, by Topic page.

How we wrote this together: Patricia Mikkelson, a friend of Barbara Hulley’s and a resident of the Living Springs Log House, asked Claude.ai of Anthropic to help her write this article and so I did!