Well, maybe not a hundred, but it’s sure felt like it! I’m referring, of course, to our cleanup efforts that have been required from our big storm in late June, which either knocked down or over trees in all five sections of our hilltop forest.
We’ve been chipping away at it slowly and after a month have
seen the vast majority of the cleanup finished. Over 2/3rds for sure. It’s
required lots of chain-sawing, dragging out trees to a central location,
limbing, stacking of wood, then giant bonfires to get rid of it.
Marc’s made a couple trips back and forth to Waupaca for yard care and I have only left the property twice for a quick trip to the local grocery store. It’s been a grind that I hope never has to be repeated.
When Marc’s back gives out from working with the chain saw,
he switches things up by building more of the stairway to the pier. It finally
came together enough with a temporary handrail that we could at least use it to
get up and down. He still needs to finalize a handrail on both sides and
connect it with a landing of some sort to where the pier starts out across the
bog from the last of the solid land. He’s still designing that in his head but
it will add another couple of steps at least; right now, we stand at 33 steps.
Yes, it’s a steep bastard…
We finally warmed up into the 80’s and are thankful we’ve dodged the terrible heatwaves and fires happening elsewhere across the U.S. I can’t say it’s been a particularly fun summer for us; in fact, we’re talking about leaving early—maybe by late September so we can still enjoy some good weather to do some outside maintenance on our home place. Marc also wants to build a small storage shed to replace the one that was original to the property and has now become full of wood rot.
We sold the pontoon boat but are holding off on buying any other kind of boat until at least next summer, but it really comes down to how much longer we feel we may own this property. With the cost of living increasing so rapidly over the past couple of years and values reaching staggering heights for lake-front properties, it’s been tempting to think about putting it on the market, especially with all the sweat equity gain. A lot can happen between now and next year though so for now it’s just a thought. We do really enjoy it tremendously so it will be a hard and considered decision. However, it does add complications to our lives which we’re not sure we need at this point in our older age. We seem to fall farther and farther behind on keeping up with our main house since summers are the only time we can do outside maintenance and yard improvements there. It gets costly going back and forth all the time with both fuel and our time. Whenever we need an item, it always seems to be “at the other place”, so we often have to spend yet more money duplicating things. And finally, sometimes it feels selfish since this is solely for our use and enjoyment yet represents a significant chunk of change that isn’t generating any income. More retirement income would always be a most welcome thing!!
Lots to think about. Right now, we’re only looking ahead as
far as winter, when we’re contemplating finally getting our kitchen completed
in the main house. Marc doesn’t want to or isn’t capable of doing the work
himself, so we’d have to hire it done, which will be a novel idea for us. You’ll
have to stick around to see how that goes, ha!
