you HAVE to be fucking kidding me.

IF only, why dear Lord did you not help me.....I WISH THERE WERE PICS OF THESE INSANE W00KS.

Graying hippie lives in treehouse in urban Miami neighborhood

By KELLI KENNEDY | Associated Press
7:17 AM EDT, August 9, 2007

MIAMI -- This graying hippie makes the nightly, winding climb 18 feet to her cozy bedroom. She wakes to roosters' crows and the scents of dewy soil. Over breakfast, her view is a jungle of towering trees, no hint of concrete civilization.

Shawnee Chasser lives in a treehouse above a secret garden in the middle of Miami. For 15 years, she has lived atop the 1.5-acre nirvana of green trees and farm animals behind a row of houses 10 minutes from downtown.

Neighbors come for potlucks, drum circles and weekly volleyball games. Tenants who rent the extra bedrooms hang out in the open kitchen. It is exactly the peaceful paradise Chasser envisioned when her brother and others built the three-story treehouse months before Hurricane Andrew devastated the area in 1992.

The evergreen tree's thick branches were the only ones visible for miles, said 56-year-old Chasser, who was dressed in a bohemian floral skirt and peasant blouse. A mass of dyed red and purple curls trailed down her back.

Chasser and her daughter sleep at the top of the three-room treehouse, built partly of recycled wooden planks with carved railings. At night they cool themselves on the porch. The branches cradle metal cages where Chasser rehabilitates squirrels and raccoons.

Eleven-year-old daughter Lantana shimmies up the sturdy trunk to play, climbing past windows shaped liked hearts and peace signs. Wooden wind chimes sing in the breeze.

The tree also provides extra income. Chasser has been bombarded with calls after a Craigslist posting that offers two treehouse rooms, each $380 a month. She said many are so taken with the ad, they have sent her checks sight unseen.

About 30 tenants have shared the airy kitchen, outdoor shower and compost toilet with Chasser and her daughter. They're mostly young and typically stay a few months. A young environmental fundraiser now shares the bottom room and a Philadelphia woman starring in a tattoo reality show moved into the other room Thursday.

``They're into this hippie dippie thing and this is where they can hang out and do that for a few months,'' Chasser said.

But even hippies need electricity.

Chasser's tile-floored kitchen has a blender, popcorn maker, oven, stove and refrigerator. Lantana watches TV and does homework on the computer that has wireless Internet. They keep cool with a ceiling fan, but no air conditioner _ a turnoff for some.

``A guy from Boston stayed the first night and he was out of here. He couldn't handle the roosters crowing and the mosquitoes,'' Chasser said.

Jennifer Shyka, a farm girl from Maine, spent four months in the treehouse, thriving in the simplistic communal environment.

``I just think it's a magical place, with the animals and the trees. The way it's set up with the outdoor shower, getting fresh fruit off the trees and vegetables from the garden,'' said 30-year-old Shyka. ``I fell in love with it. I've never seen a place like this in the middle of the city.''

She loved watching neighborhood children walk down a city street to pet the emus, goats, pigs and chickens at the farm, named ``Earth 'n' Us.''

The giving tree fosters a close-knit way of life.

On a recent Sunday, Lantana kicked off her shoes and climbed dangerously high up the rope swing onto the ledge of the highest room. Goldie Locks, the family's golden retriever, rolled in the dirt beneath. Chasser's older daughter Wren Levy, her family and a handful of friends stopped by for the volleyball game. Granddaughter Savannah Sparrow, 3, caught a worm and pleaded for some hay to feed the goats.

Levy showed off the bowls she made from the Calabash tree growing near the house and talked about the drum circles she holds there on full moons. Loved ones' footprints cover the property. Hammocks, pictures from trips to Guatemala and knickknacks like the ``No Pecan Inn'' sign above the shower add a homey feel.

It's a modern Swiss Family Robinson of sorts where everyone pitches in. Chasser's brother, who owns the property and lives in the main house, cares for the animals. Chasser, who runs a landscaping business, cares for the greens. The gumbo-limbo, chinaberry, poinciana and avocado trees are mostly indigenous and require little work.

Chasser and Levy want the giving tree to expand its charity. They host field trips, teaching public school children about the environment and letting them roam the petting zoo.

They are also raising money to build a healing garden for troubled youth, which would include midnight games on their tiny basketball court.

Or just a quiet spot to think.

Much like the Shel Silverstein poem Levy painted years ago on one wall.

``A tree house, a free house, A secret you and me house, A high up in the leafy branches, Cozy as can be house.''