Around here, “hollow” is kind of another name for a small valley and it is pronounced, “holler”. You may recall that Loretta Lynn, the coal miner’s daughter, was born “in a cabin on a hill in Butcher Holler”. That hollow is not too far away from our hollow, but it is much bigger than ours. Most “hollers” around here have a twisty, dirt or gravel road going through them with houses and trailers packed in on both sides. Our hollow is our own private mountain hideaway! We own the entire thing, from ridge to ridge! We do have a dirt road that goes up the mountain to the “head” of the hollow, but it is only about a half mile long.
We live down at the “mouth” of the hollow where it opens up and empties into the river. It is not quite as picturesque as it sounds because a state road parallels the river and is between our house and the river. At least it is still a narrow, country, unlined, road. We just got a guardrail a couple of years ago, which we weren’t too happy about. Now we have to climb over the guardrail to get down to the river! (Thankfully they did also leave open a spot that we can drive down from the road to the river, but it is not directly in front of our house.)
Our little private hollow is so insignificant it has never had a name before that I know of. We moved here in 1993 and a few years later we started calling it “Pure Water Holler” among ourselves. We decided to name it “Pure Water” for a couple of reasons.
First, we discovered that one possible translation of our last name could be “pure water”. We have always known the “Water” part, but in the past people have always said it means “Clear Water” or “Loud Water” or “Big Water” or “Genuine Water”. When someone familiar with the mother language of our decendents suggested “Pure Water” we latched right on to that!
I liked the sound of it and I also liked the Biblical connotation of holiness! Hebrews 10:22 says, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.” We have always imagined our hollow as a little slice of heaven here on earth and in the Revelation the Bible speaks of literal pure water in Heaven! “And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” (Rev. 22:1)
The third reason the name “Pure Water Hollow” fits is that we actually have wonderful drinking water from a deep well. When we had it drilled, God not only blessed us with pure drinking water, but also with an overflowing artesian well! I made a small pond in our front yard to catch the overflow from a buried pipe and we also put in an old fashion cistern pump over our well-head, so we can pump water out whenever we want to!
So that explains about “Pure Water” and about “Hollow” leaving the last word : “Homestead". That term has come about just recently. We were completely unaware of how the word "homestead" is frequently used now-a-days until just a couple of years ago when a friend told us that what we were doing and how we were living was called "homesteading". We said, “What do you mean? We bought this property through the bank.” I was vaguely aware of the old homestead laws in the 1800’s about the government giving you the land if you built a cabin and planted some corn on it, and I knew that did not apply to our situation.
Our friend pointed out that we lived in the country, did not watch TV, were growing our own food, had more than 1.5 children, believed in home schooling, and wanted to raise chickens and pigs and cows someday. She said that was called “homesteading”. She explained about the movement and that many people nation wide were striving for the simple life of old time country living, and calling it a homestead. The more we looked into it, the more we were convinced that we did indeed have the homesteading mindset and that we were in the middle of a good old homesteading adventure!
So, we are creating a “Homestead” in “Pure Water Hollow”, among the rugged hills of eastern Kentucky! Living a homesteading, country life style has been new to me, and I have been a rather slow learner. We are definitely still in the novice stage! All in all, however, we are learning and growing and achieving more and more of our dream every day.
Now for a couple of pictures:
This is part of our dirt road that runs pretty much the length of our hollow.
And this is a view of the river that runs in front of our homestead.
3 comments
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Livin'theMontanaDream on September 22, 2006 at 10:27 pm
Well it looks like you have come to the right place here! I really enjoyed reading your first blog entry and can't wait to hear more about you.
Darcy
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meme on September 23, 2006 at 8:20 pm
That was such an interesting story…Hope to see a few pictures of your homestead land soon…Debbie
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Purewater on November 1, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Debbie asked about pictures back here. I added the couple to this post and there is also "A Visit To Pure Water Hollow" that has some pictures. I am hoping to do more soon.
Edited by Purewater on Thursday, November 9, 2006 at 7:19 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment