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No pun intended, but I can finally say that we are on the home stretch regarding the new home. It started about a year ago, with drawing up the first set of plans. They were 100% freelanced by yours truly. When they were taken to the builder for a review and estimate, the weaknesses of my architectural skills came to light. The main issue being the design of the roof structures. What I thought would be something simple for a truss manufacturer to do turned out to not be true. There were also a few other things I had drawn that caused the idea to be over budget. So Nora and I started looking at designs on the internet and found one we both loved. There were a few changes made to it, but nothing too major.

Ground was officially broken in October, with the foundation completed before deer season. Then things sat for a planned waiting period for the concrete to cure and for the holidays to pass and the crew returned to start the framing soon after the first of the year. If you have been following long, you know that the framing and weathering-in of the place went smoothly and quickly. The progress in the past month or two has been slower, but it was ok with Nora and I, as I had the kitchen cabinets to do and we had lights, plumbing and furniture to pick out.

Well, I can report that the wall of base cabinets that will include the kitchen sink, dishwasher and fridge/freezer is just about done. The cabinet that will have the sink on it needs to have the doors (already made) installed and then all of those cabinets need the finish put on them. However, the finish could almost not be easier. There is a fairly new product out there called Rubio Monocoat that can stain and seal in one simple coating. It can be applied by brush, rag or even things like a squeegee if you are doing a big surface such as a floor. Just apply it, wait a few minutes and wipe any excess off. It cures 80% in 24 hours and takes about a week to fully cure. I have already tested it out on a scrap of the cherry I am using for the cabinets and it was a breeze to apply and looks awesome.

The base cabinets for the wall that has the range on it are built and most of the drawer slides have been mounted, which leaves me to have to build the drawers and then the drawer fronts and door frames and finish them. The uppers will go fairly quickly, as they will just be the cabinet boxes, face frames and doors. Nora has said that we can move into the house once all the base cabinets along the walls are done, so that could very well be next week sometime. Here is a shot of one of the cabinets completed, with just the finish needed. The scrap of wood that I tested th Rubio on is leaning against it on the bottom left.

Grace and Nora have been busy assembling some of the new furniture, things like tables, chairs, etc… Grace is actually doing most of that assembly work because she loves to do it and is also very good at it. Plus Nora has to work during the summer too, so is not around as much. Today, Nora started to empty the big shipping container that we were able to use to store a lot of things that were in the old place and will be going into the new and this Thursday the shipment of the big furniture pieces is arriving and will be installed by the furniture company. So a week from now, we should literally be within spitting distance of the finish line for moving in. There will still be quite a bit of work that will need to be done once we are moved in, but it will be so wonderful to be living in the new digs. We all feel so blessed to have been able to do this project and it really could not have gone much smoother…except for me spending all of last September in the hospital while Nora and Grace pretty much emptied the old house and filled up the shipping container.

If we do get moved into the new place sometime next week, we will not be in it too long before we have to go out of town. We are all going to the Mayo Clinic so that I can have a cardio MEMS put in on August 15th. It’s a device that measures the pressures in my pulmonary artery. They install it much like a stent and is done on an outpatient basis. It will give my cardiologist some great data to help with improving my heart failure. Since it takes less than a half hour to do, our plan is to come home the day I have it put in.

There really has not been too much more going on up here. The weather has been nearly ideal, with highs in the 70’s and some low 80’s and comfortable humidity. This past Thursday we did hit 89 degrees with a dewpoint of 75, but I barely noticed, spending the whole day in the shop!

We have also gotten enough rain to let the grass seed fill in nicely. Here is a shot of the yard behind the shop, taken a few days ago and here is a shot of the front yard of the house, taken this afternoon after I cut it for the first time. Still needs to fill in a bit and the straw needs to decompose, but seeing as though it was planted just a few weeks ago, I could not ask for more.

I think that about covers it for this one, I will try my best to write next weekend and share with you the progress on the house. Thanks for stopping by and…

Good Night From the Keweenaw..
–JD

I don’t know about you all, but this summer sure seems to be flying by for me. I suppose it’s because of the buy schedule I have, but it seems hard to believe that July is already half over. As I look forward into the second half of the season, I really cannot see it slowing down, perhaps even going faster. It sure seems like it has not been 2 weeks since I last wrote and maybe that is why I am not writing every week right now. The weeks go by so fast, I forget to write. If you are buying that story, I have a bridge I can sell you!

So when I last wrote, we were 2 days shy of Independence Day. That has obviously came and went, so I can share with you the festivities we had in Jake. As has become a tradition, around the midday, we have a parade. Probably the shortest parade in the country, both in participants and in length, but it’s also a lot of fun. This year the parade was led by Mike on the bagpipes and then followed up by some of the kids (and kids at heart) on their bikes. we also had a classic Datsun convertible and an old army jeep. We decorated our golf cart and Grace drove it, while I was the passenger.

After the parade, we have a potluck picnic. Last year the weather was horrible on the 4th, with temps in the 50’s and rain. So the potluck picnic was held inside. This year it was perfect and was held outdoors. The first two were also held outside and on our front lawn and we will be returning to our place for next year and as many more as we can host…weather permitting.

The other main news is of course the continuing house build. The builders are on the home stretch. All of the landscaping has been done, more on that in a bit. Most of the plumbing fixtures have been installed. Here is one of the things I insisted the new place have. Ever since it got fully plumbed, I have been wanting to try it out, but we are still waiting for power to be brought to the house. I could run an extension cord from the temporary power setup to the boiler and fire it up, but will just be patient and wait for the power company folks to do their thing. Actually, we are both waiting on the sub contractor to dig the trench and lay the wire. Then the power company comes and does the connections.

The stone for the fireplace has begun to get installed. It’s a little further along than in this picture, but still has about 80% to be done. It is really looking nice and will really enhance the look of the living room, plus be a wonderful feature when the weather gets cold. We all loved the fireplace we had at the last home and this one has all the same features, but is a bit larger.

Now onto the landscaping. Two weeks ago, the did all all of the landscaping behind the shop, where the new septic field was built. It actually sits directly next to the one for the shop, but they are separate systems. Last week, they did all the landscaping around the house, which included spreading topsoil over the dirt what was there, planting seed and covering it all with straw. At one point, I was really wanting to use sod, but Nora was wanting to avoid the cost and go with seed. So we made a deal, there was a new home built on Bootjack Road last year and they planted seed. We agreed to use their lawn progress as a guide as to which way we should go. Well, much to my surprise, their seed sprouted and filled in quite well and they have a pretty full lawn. So that is why we went with seed. It was really good we did too, because I watered the seed late last week, not even the entire front yard, only about 35% of it and ended up sucking our well dry! It has since recharged, but had we gone with sod, we would have likely lost of a lot of it by not being able to water it.

The watering I did late last week got some of the seeds to sprout, but the rains we got a few days ago was great and has gotten most of the yards around the house to sprout. We have more rain on the way Wednesday and Thursday of this week and that should get the rest going and give enough moisture to allow for some growth too. Even though the seed was planted around 10 days ago, here is a shot of the front yard. As mentioned, the area behind the shop was planted around a week before that around the house and has had more time to get going. Here is a shot of it. The bald spot in the middle is a low area that had some standing water in it. We still have a good amount of topsoil left over, so in late August or early September, I plan to fill in the low spot and plant seed there.

Another thing the crew did as part of the landscaping was to put down some really nice gravel for our driveway at the house. Most of the gravel that you get up here is spoil rock from the copper mining. It makes for a pretty good driveway, especially if it has a lot of “fines” in it. Fines are very small particles that range in size from a kernal of wheat to a grain of sand. They help to lock in the smaller pieces. The gravel we got was pieces all smaller than a marble and mostly fines. It also seems to have a limestone kind of characteristic, by getting well compacted as vehicles drive over it. It also is the color of limestone, so looks pretty nice too.

The final piece of landscaping they did was to relocate the “red shed”. Previously the shed sat in the back, right corner of our backyard. However, since the new home was built back further away from the road, the red shed was sitting right at the end of the driveway and we really did not care to have it there. So they were able to skid it up onto a trailer and drive it over to the shop, where it was placed near to the shop, but away from the snow clearing zone.

I wish I could say that I am on the home stretch with my contribution to the new house, but I’m not quite there yet. I am working my way closer and closer to it, but still have a good chunk of work to do. I forget where I was when I last showed you pics of the cabinets, but as things stand right now, I have all the face frames done and about half of the drawer boxes built and installed. To give me some credit, in actual time needed to finish the drawer boxes and mount them, I am way past halfway. That being because to build the boxes it only takes around 35-40 minutes. The time needed to figure out their exact dimensions and make sure that those dimensions are correct takes even longer. So I have actually built and installed one drawer for each cabinet and now all I need to do is to go into assembly line mode and use the dimensions for those drawers on the remaining.

I believed that I said these cabinets would have some special features, some of which I have never seen done with kitchen cabinets and others only on high end cabinets. One of the features that I have never seen done is the use of “cloud lifts” on the bottom rail. This detail was something invented by the brothers Greene and was used in a lot of their Greene and Greene furniture. I gotta admit, I almost abandoned the idea. It probably took me half a dozen tries on scrap stock before I finally figured out the best technique and another 3-4 tries before I was in the groove and satisfied with my results. I also have to say, it was such a joy for me to master the making of these features and I really had a lot of fun making them once I was good at it. They are things I will want to include on furniture pieces I make in the future and it will be nice to be able to just whip them out, rather than feel intimidated them. 

The weather up here has been mostly good to magnificent. We seem to be avoiding a lot of the rain that is impacting other areas of the eastern 1/2 of the US, while getting just enough to keep things from drying out. ost other days have us in sunshine and temps in the 70’s to around 80. Friday was one of those days, the temp was around 80, with a bit of a breeze and as I sat in my lounge chair, taking in the big lake, I thought to myself it just does not get any better. I do not say this or share the pic to try and brag or cause jealousy, only to illustrate just how wonderful this place is and to take the opportunity to say just how blessed I am to live here. It really is a dream come true!

We are also at the magical time of the year where the fruits of the Keweenaw become ready for consumption. We have a sweet cherry tree in our front yard and it was mandatory that it not be removed or even hamed in any way while tearing down the old home and building the new. The crew did a great job of seeing to our wishes and it is now rewarding us with some beautiful fruits. I spent a few minutes under it this evening and picked enough to snack on and share with the dogs. Bleau must have remembered what they smell like, because when I got into the house, he was wanting to take them right out of the pocket of my hoodie where I had put them for transport to the apartment!

In a few weeks, it will be time for the blueberries and raspberries and then at the end of August the blackberries. Mother nature really does produce the best candy.

I believe that gets you all caught up for now. Until next time…

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

 

 

I really need to break this cycle of posting every three weeks. I kinda have an excuse for not writing last week. Nora and I traveled to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN because I was scheduled to get restarted on a med for afib and possibly have a caThe culprit is a medication I take to help my heart work better and when I am on the full dose, I feel really good. Probably better than I have felt since my first open heart surgery in 2009. However the med also does not play well with my kidneys, so for the past 5-6 months we have been playing a game of finding the sweet spot where I am taking as much of the med as I can without aggravating my kidneys. In August, I will be headed down to Mayo again so that they can insert a device that will measure the pressure in my pulmonary vein and give them great data to show how my heart function is going.

So Nora and I drove down on Saturday, arrived in time for dinner. Then went back to the hotel and I went to sleep soon after, as I needed to be at the hospital by 6 am. I got checked into a room, had a visit from my nurses and a doctor, they drew blood and about 30 minutes later, the doctor came back and told us the news about my kidneys. So we waited while they worked on the discharge paperwork, which kinda cracked me up, seeing as though all I did was have my blood drawn, but rules is rules I guess. Nora and I got back on the road at around 1 pm central time and arrived back in Jake by around 9 pm eastern time. 

So I was too pooped from all the traveling to write Sunday and even pretty tired Monday, so I figured I would just put it off until today. So here I am!

Not a whole lot of excitement has happened since I last wrote. The day after my last entry I celebrated another trip around the sun. My tally is now 57. I’m getting up there! I remember how 57 seemed like such an old age, probably until I was working through my early 50’s and then each year I get older, the age does not feel that old. Anyone else feel that way? I can tell you that my aches and pains are more noticeable, but one of the meds I am on also enhances that. My heart stuff also impacts my physical abilities quite a bit. I and SO thankful that I have not had to do an ounce of work at the new house. I really am not sure what I would have even been able to do if I had tried. I am building the kitchen cabinets, but more on that in a bit.

Two weeks ago, Nora and Grace were in Eagle River for the week so that Grace could attend a figure skating camp. This camp is pretty cool, coaches from not just around the US, but around the world come to instruct the skaters. This time around, Grace started working on a move in which she does 1 1/2 revolutions during a jump. To aid in the learning process and keep the skaters from falling and hitting the ice, they put the skater in a harness. That gives the skater a lot more confidence performing the jump, until they no longer need the harness.

When Grace was not skating, her and her friends were having a lot of fun hanging out at the campground they stay at, playing games, bike riding and swimming, lots of swimming. They are burning the candle at both ends, but are also young enough to be able to pull it off. Although it does not take Grace long to crash out on the drive back to Jake.

While the girls were gone, we had a pretty crazy thing happen. I had gone to the grocery store and picked up some things. One of them was a glass jar of monterey jack cheese. The jar had a steel lid that holds the vacuum seal to keep the cheese from spoiling. I had put the jar on the counter in the kitchen, thinking I would have it later. I then went down into the shop to do some work and when I came back up, the jar and lid were sitting on the floor in the bedroom. The lid was off the jar and the jar was empty! I could not believe my eyes! I knew Bleau was the culprit, as he has pulled other things off the counter to feast on them. But how did he get the lid off! I am 100 percent sure that I had not taken the lid off and there were some bite marks on the lid, but still, getting those lids off can be a challenge for even species with an opposable thumb! I feel like I should set up some cameras and recreate the scene to see if he an pull it off again!

So as mentioned, I have been working on the cabinets just about every day now. The going is pretty slow, as my poor heart/body just cannot work like it used to be able to. It’s a little crazy to think that I was able to do so much work on the addition in Mohawk, even after two open heart surgeries and a couple of “regular” heart surgeries. However, those days are gone. I can still do the cabine work, but can only last a few hours most days, before I feel like I have just completed a triathlon. Most evenings, every joint and muscle in my body seems to ache and the deeper and deeper into the evening I go, the harder it becomes to just walk to the bathroom!

Now, not feel sorry for me. Even though the work is much harder than it used to be and I really hurt by the end of the day, I am still enjoying the process of making the cabinets. As things sit right now, I have all the boxes for the base cases done that will be along the walls done and almost all of the face frames on them done. The bottom rails still need to be done for each unit and I will be starting them up tomorrow. Typically that job would be an hour or two process, but these bottom rails will have some special details to them, so they will take a bit longe. Once I finish them, then I need to make the doors and drawers, mount them, put a finish coat on everything and they will be ready.

I’ve pondered the thought of not doing the special details on the bottom rails and using either pocket screws or dominos to join all four sides of the drawers together, but I am going to be living (and seeing) these drawers for the rest of my life and I know I would really regret not using dovetail joints at each corner. I also would really regret not having the special detail on those bottom rails. Once these cabinets are done, I still will need to build 5 upper cabinets for the walls and 6 more bases for the island, but really need to get the bases along the walls done so that the counter top folks can come and get their measurements and fabricate the tops. I don’t have any pics of the cases as they sit right now, but here is an “action” shot of my friend helping me surface the cherry boards to thickness before I cut them up into the face frame parts. I’m pretty confident that the next time I write, the cases and face frames will be all done and will be sure to take pics then.

Over at the house, the progress has slowed a bit as well. It’s the heart of building season up here and the contractor has to spread his workers out to the varying jobs they have. I totally get that and am fine with that. We are getting so close at the house that sending a whole workforce would be too many bodies anyway. I can’t remember where we even stood the last time I wrote, but I know for sure that the stairs were completed since then, the backer board for the fireplace brick has been installed, all of the interior doors have been hung and about 90 of the trim is done.

Really, all that is left is for the trim to be finished, the stone to go up on the fireplace, some electrical work needs to be done and electricity still needs to be brought to the house. Last week, they did landscaping over the new septic field and tank, with grass seed planted and straw put over it. The landscaping around the house still needs to be done, but that will be a one day job for them. After that, I guess they will be waiting for the cabinets to get installed so that the appliances can go in and after that, it will be move in day(s)!

Nora, Grace and I are all very excited, but not antsy to get moved in. There are just so many things that will be better for us all once we get over there. Also, we all feel so blessed to be able to make this dream come true. I can’t imagine what I will do with all my free time once it is all done! Well…maybe I can!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

 

Well shucks, it seems like I did not keep my promise of writing the next day after the last entry! Truth be told, Grace had a down day at school Wednesday and on Thursday, I really had to cut our grass. Friday was the last day of school and Grace also had a piano recital in the evening. Saturday the dog ate my work and Sunday I ended up watching a movie with Grace. So that is how 5 days slips away from me like the flap of a butterfly’s wings!

Anyhoo, in the last entry, I had spoke about and shown to you the changes made in the front yard of the new home. That last picture, was taken a couple of weeks ago and more work has been done since then, so here is the current state of affairs. No sign of the old place at all and boy do we love it! Some topsoil still needs to be spread out over it and then sod will be placed and we will have a wonderful, new, front yard! There may even be a tree or two planted, we’ll see.

Not only was there landscaping done to the front yard of the new house, but a bunch of work was done to the land behind the shop. I don’t have a before shot, which I wish I really had, but there were two sheds that were in the state of falling down as well as several dead and nearly dead pine trees. There was also a few small maples and brush in the spot. The cleared the entire area in one morning with the use of the bulldozer in the back right of the photo. The next day they hauled in the sand for the septic, got it in place and then the washed stone and piping for the septic. In the far back on the right hand side is the brush pile that was created by all the bulldozing, we will burn that when the first snow arrives in around 4 months.

The septic still needs to be inspected, then more rock, landscape fabric and topsoil put on it. The new house also will need it’s own tank, so that will be need to be put in before the waste system is considered operational. The stinky stuff will also need to be pumped from the tank to the field, which will require electricity, which has yet to be brought over to the new home, but I have been told that should be happening any day now.

On the inside, they are chipping away at the final things that need to be done. The guys painted the rest of the trim that Nora, Grace and I had initially said we would do, but then ran into issues and had to give the job to the crew. That trim has to wait for the interior doors to arrive before it can be installed and while there is no official word on the door order, I suspect that it too is in the “any day” category, as it was ordered almost two months ago and we were told 5-6 weeks for delivery.

Also among the items on the inside that have been done include all the tile work in the master and guest baths. The fixtures still need to be installed in all of the bathrooms and I think they are just waiting for the septic and perhaps the electric to be done before they finish the plumbing fixtures. I am really looking forward to my showers in the master bath, the system has a 2 foot wide by two food deep rain shower head, plus six body sprays, plus a wand. We ran extra large supply lines to that shower and if the pressure is still not to our liking, we will be able to put a booster pump to increase the pressure to what is desirable.

The third item that they have been working on is the fireplace. It was installed several weeks ago, but since then, they have build the framework for the chimney and while this photo does not show it, the framing is completely done and they also have put up the cement board that the stone will adhere to. 

On my side of the work need to be done before we can move in, aka the kitchen cabinets, I have about 85 percent of the pieces for the cabinet boxes made. That amounted to around 16-18 pieces of plywood being cut into the pieces needed. I did assemble the cabinet that will be going to the right of the range and brought it over to the house. The guys then wrestled the range into it’s spot right next to that one cabinet and then I was able to take a measurement of the remaining space to the left of the range and to the right of a doorway to make sure everything fit once the cabinets were done. I may do a little work yet this evening and will not likely be doing much work tomorrow, but will get back at it for the rest of the week and with a little luck, I should have all the cases assembled by the start of next week, then will come the face frames, doors and drawers, finish and then donezo!

We still not have any kind of firm move-in date. Nora is thinking sometime in August and I am a little more optimistic and am thinking the middle to end of July. Only time will tell and we are very excited for the move-in day to come, but it is not eating at any of us. We all are fairly comfortable in our current living quarters and once we move in, these quarters will make for a top notch spot for friends and family to stay while they visit us!

So I think that about covers it for this one. The bugs are still pretty bad, primarily the mosquitos and ticks. That despite the fact that up until today, we have had very little rainfall. I suppose there was still enough moisture around from the cold and wet spring we had to keep them from dying off. The woods and grass also has remained green throughout the dry spell. It has been raining all day today. Not heavily, but it will likely insure that the bugs and the grass do not change from their current state.

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

Howdy strangers! It’s me, almost live and in the flesh! I’m sorry that it’s been so long since I last wrote. I am pleased to say that my absence was not due to health issues, but rather a very busy daily schedule. We are nearing the completion of the new house and tasks relating to that occupy a large portion of my day. Then, by the time the evening rolls around, I find myself just too pooped to do anything else but relax with the family. I must admit that I am also pretty worn out as I type this, so I have a feeling that this will be a two-part entry, with me writing part two tomorrow.

So the last time I wrote, we were still struggling to get any kind of late spring or early summer weather going. The trees were still void of leaves and even the grass was struggling to turn green. Heck, I was even talking about driving past snow still in the woods on my way to and from Marquette. Well, the nice weather finally kicked in around 10-14 days ago and has not let up. The grass turned it’s deep green color of spring around two weeks ago and I did the first cutting of it a week ago. The trees also began to burst their buds around 10 days ago and are now just about 100 percent filled out.

The other event that happens around this time of the year has taken place and that is the bugs are out. At first it was the blackflies, followed by the mosquitos. The blackflies have seemed to die off for the most part, but the mosquitos are as bad as I can remember in my 24 years of living here. You really almost can’t spend more than a few seconds outside before being attacked by a swarm of them. They are so prevalent that, it’s impossible to go from the outdoors to the indoors without bringing several with you.  They are even a problem in the midday sun, which usually is not the case. 

We actually have been very dry for the past 2-3 weeks, so it is surprising to me that they are still so numerous. I really do not know why they are such an issue now, but I do hope that they will die off soon. We don’t have much rain in the forecast for the next 10 days, so hopefully their breeding spots will be going away. Obviously mosquitos and summer in the UP go hand in hand, but what is going on right now is quite unusual by everyone’s standards.

In a way, it’s actually advantageous that the bugs have been so bad that it deters me from wanting to be outside. That has made being inside the shop, working all day on the kitchen cabinets, even more enjoyable. Around 3 weeks ago, the material for the cabinet boxes, as well as for the doors and drawers arrived at our local lumberyard. So I had to wait for the weather to get nice and for the roads to be dry to go and get everything. That day came, so I went down and loaded up the truck with the materials and headed home.

The materials were loaded into the truck by the workers at the lumberyard, but the thought of unloading all of it and bringing it into the shop by hand did not sound like anything fun. So I employed the services of Big Red to do most of the heavy lifting. A friend and I slid the plywood from the back of the truck onto the forks of Big Red, I then carefully got the forks and the sheet goods right next to my assembly table and we just had to slide them off onto that table. I only started breaking down the sheets into the varying parts for the cabinets, but with my tracksaw and some nifty aftermarket guides, the going has been smooth, accurate and quite speedy. I only have two more sheets to breakdown and then can move onto the assembly of the cases.

One of the reasons why the sheet goods sat in the shop for around 2 weeks before I started breaking them down is that I wanted to work the bugs out of the process by building and assembling a “prototype”. I was glad that I did, as there were a few bugs to work out and I was able to work through them without stressing over the fact that I was using material slated to be used for the final product.

Another reason why it took the two weeks to get going on the actual cabinets themselves is that I had the opportunity to use our contractors mini-excavator to clean up the spot the old house sat on. The main goal was to take the chunks of the concrete from the old foundation and use them as rip-rap in front of my friends cabin. The cabin sits right next to the lake. Erosion over the years has caused most of the land that was between the cabin and the lake to disappear. A few years back he had a secondary foundation built underneath it and that has survived the past few storm seasons, but this last season did see the lake erode some of the land on the other end of the cabin. So we loaded the concrete pieces onto a trailer, brought them over to his place and then used the mini to put them into place. Our work will not completely stop the water from getting to the cabin, but it will absorb a ton of the destructive energy the waves have as they reach the shoreline.

So we were able to kill two birds with one stone, er, maybe it’s chunks of concrete. He got some free protection from future storms and we got rid of the chunks of concrete for free! Here is a shot of how things looked when I was done moving the concrete and filling in the site of the old home a bit. The site of the old home has been filled in even more by the contractor using their bulldozer and I will share pic of that with you tomorrow.

The third reason why there was the two week delay is because I spent three days on a trip to the Mayo Clinic last week. Not one due to anything new, just a 6 month checkup with my cardiologist. I drove down on Wednesday, had tests on Thursday and Friday, a consultation on Friday and then returned back home late on Friday. Looks like I will be headed there at the end of this month so that they can get me restarted on a med and then another trip soon after so that they can insert a device that will measure the pressures in my pulmonary vein to give them a more accurate reading on my hearts pumping function.

As mentioned, the woods have turned their beautiful green for the summer. Even though the mosquitos are currently holding domain over the woods, their reign will come to an end and we will be able to get into the woods and enjoy the beauty of the UP hardwoods. Gracie and I did try to take a bike ride over memorial day weekend, but my bike was acting up and we nearly got eaten alive! The issue with my bike has been fixed and Friday will be the last day of school for Grace, so I have a feeling we will be taking to the woods in not too long.

In addition to the woods greening up, the weather has become quite suitable for beach going. Here is a shot of Grace, my brother and his dog enjoying White City beach during the memorial day weekend. With the warm up happening, the creatures of the woods are also out and about. We have not had any sightings of creatures other than a few deer, but my brother did have a visit from a black bear recently. 

The other thing the warmer weather has brought is the snowbirds. They came back one by one, but for the most part, Jacobsville is at it’s full summer population, which is about double that (or more) of the winter population. To celebrate the return of all of our neighbors, a Memorial Day picnic was held at the community center. It is so wonderful to live in a small, close knit community like we do. Everyone is friends with each other and we are all willing to help each other out when needed. Between the beauty of the area and the close knit community of it’s people, Jacobsville really is a slice of paradise.

Good Night from the Keweenaw… and talk to you tomorrow.

–John