I have been struggling for weeks to find something to blog
about but have failed miserably. It seems as though it’s all been said and it’s
only the mundane that appears on the horizon each day.
We go about our normal lives; shuttling back and forth between our two places, to take care of each place’s needs. Living lake life is probably a life long dream for many, but the reality for me hasn’t quite met up to the fantasy. For one thing, living in the forest, I had no idea how the woods constantly shed, extremely so in times of high winds, and without daily pickup of downed sticks it becomes impossible to keep neat and tidy. In anything over 20 mph winds, I find I am picking up thin broken branches as long as six feet or more. Thus, our burn pile never truly goes away; it only builds up for the next round.
I have also questioned whether I am truly cut out to be a second home owner. Let’s be realistic: at our ages, even keeping up with the maintenance of our two acre property, shop and house seem like enough especially when you throw in being gone for such long stretches at a time. A case in point is our front stairway; it was always Marc’s intention to replace the temporary steps with Trex to match the rest of the front porch, but was one of those things he never got around to. Well, as the wood rotted, it suddenly became expedient that he do so, so he spent two rounds of five days each in Waupaca building the new staircase and it’s still not finished. It should be nice when it is.
On top of maintenance efforts of having two places, comes the
double costs and the time and boredom factor of always shuttling back and forth
between the two. Yes, it’s a beautiful relatively traffic-free drive on decent
roads, but it’s the better part of nearly three hours each way. Utility costs
are ongoing in both places to some extent whether we use them or not. Our
electric provider in the Northwoods is a co-op and the service standby fee just
to have the benefit of the service is $40/month before even one turn of that
little KWH dial. The fiber optic internet cable even when shut off also has a
standby fee and the propane tank is leased, so it has an annual fee. And of
course, the government never cares where you are so property taxes accrue on
both parcels. Oh, and let’s not forget the homeowner’s insurance!
To add insult to injury, sometimes Nature may step in like she did at the end of June and rip through with a horrendous storm—causing us to spend virtually the rest of the summer doing clean-up duties. I lost track of the times we’ve had bonfires to get rid of all the downed and tree cutting we had to deal with for the frickin’ third summer in a row!
I guess it may be no wonder the blush is off my rose despite just how stunning and lovely this property is. We didn’t get everything done to it this summer we had hoped so I know we’ll likely be here again next summer but that may become a turning point for us where we seriously consider putting it on the market. A lot depends upon how the market goes—it has represented way too much work to not be able to realize a significant gain off our efforts.
Marc has decided to back off remodeling our home kitchen until we sell this so our winter won’t have much excitement going on. I’ve been ordering and gathering new materials and embellishments to continue to do my art for the benefit of the animal shelter. I plan to return soon; Marc will remain here to button up the place and finalize a few things he needs to do so it’ll be October sometime for his return. He does need some good weather to finish the staircase build before it snows.
Until next time…
