Deferred Maintenance

        Our log house on the lake was built in the 1940's and our family has been connected to it since my folks went out on a limb to buy it in 1959.  At that time, it was a vacation cabin with stumps for a foundation, and constructed with whatever building materials could be found.  The road to access the house was a narrow dirt lane with blackberries overhanging it to where you scratched your car to get to it.  My folks sold the house in 1975, and it was out of the family hands for the next 10 years.  However it always held a place in our hearts because my siblings and I spent a lot of our formative years struggling to live without electricity or indoor plumbing.  While my parents commuted over 60 miles each way to work, us kids planted the gardens, canned veggies, did maintenance tasks, and most importantly swam in the lake and played in the woods. 

       My folks saved the house the first time by digging under it and putting in a proper foundation and a daylight basement in 1963. At that time electricity was brought from the road, and the old power plant and kerosene lamps were replaced with bright new lights.  Luxury in those days seemed pretty simple. My folks retired and sold the house in 1975, and deferred maintenance piled up everywhere.

       When my husband and I were able to buy the house in 1985, we saved it a second time when we replaced the failing, sagging, original roof with a completely new one - all the way from the top of the walls to the peak. All our spare time was spent either inside on the house or outside on the property to make it better.

We finally had to get rid of one problem tree that hung over the power line and whose roots had grown through our water lines twice.  Ron spent a couple of weeks splitting all the firewood from the tree, I've been moving the mulch from the branches to all the flower beds.  The mulch pile is down to a fraction of where it started, and the flower beds are looking pretty good.

I used a lot of the mulch to mulch the raspberry patch and cut back my dahlia garden and mulched it too.  

After we finished the massive job of chinking the entire house (for the first time ever!) we stained it all.  We managed to do both jobs without either one of us falling off a ladder, so it's all good. 

In the meantime, we've painted the entire basement - I'm liking the color in the bathrooms - until now, we've painted walls everywhere in some shade of white.  

The built in breakfast nook settee is out to the upholsterers for repair and recovering, but it should be back soon.  Then we can finish the work on the upstairs interior.  We should be ready to offer the house to the vacation rental market by the first of November.

In the meantime, I've been harvesting in the garden - this sunflower is ready, but I may need a ladder to get to it.  

I did harvest one of the smaller ones, some pumpkins, and the last of the cucumbers to make my last jar of dill pickles for the year.

We should still have tomatoes for quite a while as I bring a few in from the greenhouse every day. It definitely has been a busy couple of months.

The Florida Keys

Our friends Jesse and Peggy are visiting from Alabama, so we all decided to take a trip to the keys.  Booking a room in the Keys in "the season" at the last minute is no small task.  We rummaged through lists of rooms that started at $300 a night, hoping to find a hotel that had two rooms left.  We finally went to in  Airbnb.com in hopes we could find a home or apartment that would accommodate both couples.  While we didn't find something right in Key West, we were able to find a mobile home on Summerland Key just off the highway with two bedrooms and one and a half baths for just $150 a night.  We are all pretty flexible, so we decided to book it.

 

We headed out early and were ahead of schedule when we were about half way down the Keys, so we took a break and stopped at a beautiful State Park.  The sea grape leaves are gorgeous, and the park sits on a portion of the water where a ship wreck provides snorkeling.

While it was tempting to change into our suits and take a dip, we decided to wait until we reached our destination, that promised to be right on the water.

We did take time to walk around the park and the gift shop and take a few pictures of the cannons that had been retrieved from Spanish ship wrecks.

Jesse thought the cannon provided a photo op, in spite of Peggy's objections.

Stopped again for lunch,

Ron and I both got the blackened Mahi Mahi with Feta cheese, fresh salsa, and on a bed of rice and beans.  Excellent!

 Took a side trip onto No Name Key where the Key deer hang out looking for handouts. 

2:00 p.m. - check in time at our rental - that's when we found road construction blocking our path to the house.  After a short wait, we were able to continue to the end of the road to our house.

While a bit funky on the outside, we found it to be clean,

comfortable, even cozy, inside.

 

And outside, we found a BBQ grill, fire pit, lots of chairs, a rowboat, canoe, and water on three sides.

We watched a male and female iguana on the rocks along the edge of the water.  Boats in the bay, pelicans, the causeway in the distance - and we're only about 20 miles from Key West.  Heading out for an evening of music and hanging out soon!