Category: Uncategorized

While the clock tics down on our moving date, my heart is finally ticking at the correct pace! Our trip to the hospital in Wausau was a 100% success. The new med slowed my resting heart rate from 105-110 to 70-75 beats a minute. The rhythm was still off, so after around 24 hours of being on the new med, they also put me under and gave me a cardioversion. That is a shock to the heart to reset the rhythm. I only needed 1 shock and was in good rhythm.

So I am feeling way better. It’s so nice to not feel like I have the Flu. First time since April 2nd. My heart muscle was weakened some by all the trouble it was put through the past several months, but they said that given some time, the heart muscles will grow stronger. I will have to give up my hopes of becoming an Olympic athlete and will also have to start keeping my activity level closer to my age, but there really are no restrictions, other than to not lift more than around 40 pounds for the next month or so.

So I guess I will not be doing any of the heavy lifting during the move, but have helped Nora and Grace move a lot of the boxes that are not too heavy. This was the look of the garage this morning, before we made a few trips to the storage locker. I did not take an after, but most of the boxes and bins in the foreground are now in storage and I managed to take everything down off the back wall by the work bench and put all of the things on the shelving unit in boxes and they are in storage too.

Still some more small packing and moving to do and then we wait until August 10th for the big move. I think that is going to be a huge change for us. Going from this house to a camper, while we build the shop/office/apartment. I know I will be very happy to get into the apartment. The girls are looking forward to the camping adventure.

Most of this past week was spent on the Wausau trip, as we left Monday afternoon and got home Thursday night, so I really do not have much more to say. Nora was gracious and sent me some of her photos from the past week so I would have more content for this week.

This is a doe and her fawn that we see quite regularly on our trips to Jacobsville. Nora and Grace were fortunate enough to drive by very shortly after the fawn was born as the mom was still cleaning her little one off when they drove by.

The rest are from Nora’s garden. Things have really grown in the past 2-3 weeks and it looks like we will be able to do some harvesting before we move. Some tomatoes are a week or two from being ready. The green peppers are even closer, that one was showing off by doing a headstand! The beans are just beginning to flower, which means they have 10-15 days. Not bad considering all the wet weather this spring kept the planters out of the fields for several weeks later than they usually roll. 🙂

Well, I guess that does it for this week. We will be here all week and it looks like an absolutely beautiful week, so hopefully we will be able to get in a few adventures to share.

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

It’s official. In 34 days the Dee’s will be starting a new chapter in our lives. We got the news late this past week that our house passed the inspection and all is now a go for the sale.

We are actually well on our way for the move. When it was decided we wold be selling, the job of packing all the different rooms up were divided. Maybe not so fairly, but I was to take care of the woodworking shop and most of the garage, as well as my office and clothes. Nora and Grace would take care of all of the other stuff inside the house.

I started the shop last Sunday and just finished packing it all up this morning. The garage is about halfway done and will take just a few more hours to finish up. Nora started digging into all the junk we (mostly Grace) had collected and stashed away several months ago and is just about done with her end of things. All she has left is to pack up the kitchen stuff and her clothes (both are more of a last minute thing).

Some boxes have already been moved into storage, but there still are quite a few things that need to be put in the storage locker(s). Some we will do in the next few weeks and the rest we will wait until the main move day when we will have some friends helping. We’re not sure what the date of that main moving will be, but the likely candidate is August 10th.

We went out and picked up a 5 x 8 foot utility trailer and my good friends Chris and Sue at the Trailside Lodge are going to let me borrow their larger trailer to move Big Red and possibly the heavier woodworking machinery.

Yesterday I got to take a look at the camper that will be our home for a few weeks while we build the Barn-Dee-minium. It’s going to be cozy, but it actually was more spacious than it looked in the pictures, plus we will have a stand-up tent attached to it to give us extra space when the weather is suitable, which will be almost every day when we are in it. So it will be an experience for sure, but one that will be as fun as we make it and we are all planning to have a lot of fun!

Not much going on with us. We have been too busy with the packing for the move to partake in the usual summer fun like beaches, hikes, swimming and even the strawberry fest in Chassell this past Friday-Saturday. I actually have not even see the usual amounts of roadside stands selling strawberries, so I wonder if it was a short crop this year or perhaps the first main round of picking went to supply the strawberry fest. We did get some strawberries from a friend yesterday and they were delish! I believe when we get settled into our new digs in Jake that we will be expanding upon the garden that is already there. Nora and I have really enjoyed the raised bed gardens we have, so we plan to keep their plants as is and expand with some raised beds. The growing season down there is a full 45-60 days longer than it is up here, due to the protection the big lake gives down there.

Tomorrow Nora and I head to Wausau so that I can be put on the new med that is hoped to fix my heart rate. The medicine is suppose to have a pretty high rate of success, but if it does not work as we want, there are still two other options that have a high degree of success, but are more invasive. One way or another, my current heart issues will be dealt with and life will get back to full speed for this old boy. Gracie will be staying with friends and there will be a person house/dog sitting here. If all goes as good as it can, we could be back home by Wednesday. Otherwise, it would most likely be Thursday.

I am going to do my best to just relax and enjoy the time away from all the packing duties. I am bringing all my plans for the Barn-Dee-minium I have drawn up so far and plan to finish them up while hanging out in the hospital for the dew days. Once back, I will head down to the court house and get the permits for heating/plumbing, electrical and building, as well as set up an appointment with the health department to have the testing done for the septic. The only other item needed before starting the build will be to get a well dug.

So I guess this week will be the calm before the storm of activity to facilitate the move and build. I know I will fully enjoy the latter, I am most worried about the former! I wish I were better at being still!

Good night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

I suspect the most of you reading can remember the scene from Jaws where Chief Brody is tossing the chum into the water to attract the shark that has caused the problems, when all of the sudden it pops it’s head out of the water right in front of him and then disappears. I always liked that scene, because he could have said a whole lot of other things, or said nothing at all at that very moment, but the words he said were almost as big a surprise as the shark, but very much spot on. I have muttered those same words to myself a few times lately and will explain why in a bit.

Quite a bit has happened in the past 2 weeks- since I last wrote. We made it through the Independence Day holiday, I finally got a date to head down to Wausau to get put on a new medication that will hopefully get my heart rate under control so I can finally get back to feeling normal. The biggest happening has to be the fact that we had an offer on the house and we accepted it.

The buyers do not have to get financing so the only contingency was an inspection, including radon test. The inspection was done yesterday and although I have not heard back on the results, I did hang out with the inspector and buyers to answer and questions and there did not appear to be any major issues that the inspector found. The radon test was done from the 4th until yesterday. The results from it will be in this Wednesday. So as long as we pass the radon test and the inspection, then it will be a GO! I am not too worried about the radon, as the house is built on a slab, which had a vapor barrier put down between the ground and concrete.

The closing date is set for August 16th, but we are going to try and be all moved out even earlier, if possible. Nora, Grace and I have all been extra busy with packing things up. Not the essentials, that will happen once we know it is a full go, but most of the other things that we use, just not on a daily basis, have or will be packed up. We have rented a storage unit in Lake Linden and have been moving boxes into it.

Our logistics for moving are quite complicated. Since the house we will be moving into is still occupied and could be for at least several more months, we needed a place to live in. We mulled over several different ideas and settled on living in the upstairs portion of the new shop. It will be roughly 800 square feet and I was planning on putting two bedrooms and a bathroom on the second floor for friends and family anyway, so no extra work will be going into this way of doing things. Plus we will be living right next to the home we will be moving into, so that will be nice when it comes time to move into the house.

We have already gotten permission from the current owners to put up the barn and move into until they find a place. The main issue is the new shop has to be built! I do not want to build a structure on land that we do not own, so will be purchasing that lot first. I also do not want to borrow any money to build the shop, as we will have that money available to us once we sell this home.

So…my plan is this. We wait for the results from the inspection/radon test to come back. If all is good, then the current owners want to have a survey done so that we will have a good legal description of the parcel we are purchasing first. Then sit down with the current owners and a lawyer to have the paperwork done for the purchase. Once that is done, then I hope to get going on the slab foundation with the money we have on hand. Once we sell our place, then we have borrowed a friends camper that we will put on the parcel next to the barn and live in it while the barn is put up. Once the barn is done (hopefully in around 4 weeks from the start), then move into it.

I have all the plans for the barn done, including getting the engineering done for the manufactured trusses that will support the roof. It is actually going to be a traditional stick framed structure, rather than a post and beam like most pole barns are. I have some friends already lined up to help me with the framing of the walls and setting of the trusses. I am hoping that we can get all of that done in 2-3 days. I don’t have the exact weekend that it will be happening yet, but if anyone is interested in helping, shoot me an e mail and I will keep you in the loop. I suspect that it will most likely be the weekend of August 24th-25th. I do not have much to offer up in exchange for the help. We can feed everyone lunch and dinner and mother nature will be happy to offer up the cleanest air on earth! The more hands we have working the faster things will go and less work that everyone has to do.

Just to give you a quick idea of how the layout will be, I put a piece of sticky note on my computer screen while it was displaying the land on google earth. The home we will be moving into is on the far right, the barn is the red box on the left and the structure near the road in between is an old home left over from the years the quarries were open. We will own that as well. I have given it a quick look over and it seems like a new roof will stabilize it for enough time to rehab it and turn it into a place for guests. Or, it will just fall down someday and we will remove what is left and leave the spot open. Time will tell!

As mentioned, Independence Day came and went very quickly this year. I did not partake in any of the activities, choosing to stay home with the dogs and keep them company in the event any fireworks went off close enough for them to hear. We knew Huck would be fine, but did not know what Bleau’s reaction would be. Turns out he was not scared by them, but did get pretty excited, running around the house and playfully jumping on the couch and bed.

Nora and Grace met up with fiend to watch the fireworks in Lake Linden and then they also went to the bike parade and picnic that they have in Mohawk. Grace did all of the decorating of her bike this year and a last minute addition made it very easy to spot her in the crowd! She also took part in the pie eating contest. She did not win, but had fun just the same.

So, things will either get extremely busy later this week, or come to a screeching halt! It goes without saying which we all would prefer. The buyers of our place are equally excited to move into it, so we are all hoping the news from the inspector comes back good!

Good night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

I figured I had better sit down to write an entry before I forgot how!

My apologies for being absent of late, but we are still pretty busy with preparing for the move. The house was officially listed last week and we have had 3 showings. All of the reviews were positive, most importantly the fact that all three thought the house was at a fair price. So we are just in a waiting game. Keeping the house nearly show-ready and then doing the final spit-polishing before they occur.

I have knocked down the to-do list to just 2 items. One is come interior trim around a window that went into the cabin, but at the time the addition took place. There was a bit of drywall patchwork to do and then prime-paint. I got the drywall work done this week and today Nora and I teamed up for the painting. I hope to make the trim tomorrow and get it hung.

The other task left to do is to is to put the battens up on the siding for the utility room and then get all of that siding painted. My brother came over on Thursday and helped out a TON with getting the “board” part of the board and batten siding up. In fact, other than trim the end of a few of the boards square and give some minor technical advice. He did ALL the work and did a great job too!

I am still not feeling 100% or even close to it, but we do know what is wrong and there are fixes in the works. They require me to travel to Wausau and spend a few days in the hospital, but nothing that should be too dramatic. Hopefully all of that will be able to be done this week and I can get back to living a normal life. It has been a challenging months to say the least. The good news is that I have managed to take off 25 pounds and I have been able to experience what it will be like to be a 90 year old man!

This past week was pretty quiet around here, as Gracie was off at summer camp. It is amazing how things slow down and also quiet down without that little girl around here. Nora and I did take advantage of the situation by having some relaxing dinners out as well as spending some time at the beach doing absolutely nothing but laying in the sun and listening to the waves roll up onto the shore.

Friday morning we picked her up from camp and then later that day we all (including the pups) headed to the beach to enjoy the beautiful day. All of us, including the pups, enjoyed the afternoon. Huck was content to just sit and take in the sun and lake, while Bleau just had to keep busy doing something. Fun to watch, but not very relaxing, but we have gone through it with all of our dogs at this age. He sure loves to dig and tends to pay little attention to where his dug up material goes!

That about covers it for this one. The only other news I have to share is that it is looking very likely that the Keweenaw Snowmobile Club will be building a brand new groomer barn! It will be located across the highway from the Trailside Lodge in Calumet, just to the south of the cemetery, not in it! We are hoping to coordinate a weekend or to for folks to come up and help us get some of the work done. We have not broken ground yet and the lot still needs to be prepped and utilities brought in, but once the slab is in, then we are hoping with a decent sized crew we can get it farmed in one weekend and then weather tight the next. As soon as I know when those weekends might be happening, I will be sure to let you know!

Good night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

My apologies for not writing last week, but had a little medical thingy Friday morning, the 31st, that sent me to the emergency department. The trip was warranted, but was nothing too serious and they were able to send me home later that day. None the less, I have really be struggling to re-gain my energy level and also have had my hands full getting the house ready to show. So just ran out of time and energy last Sunday.

I have not been the only one working at getting the house ready for sale, in fact, I have probably done the least of our family. Nora and Grace have really stepped up their game and picked up the slack that I have created with my lack of energy. We are probably 95% of the way there, which is a good thing, as the realtor will be coming on Tuesday to take pictures of things and have us sign the contract with him to represent us as the sellers agent. So the house should be officially listed by the end of the week.

I have this feeling that once the house gets listed, things are going to move very quickly. These hunches are not always 100% spot on, but do seem to come true more times than not.

When it comes time to move, it is going to me a monumental task, that is for sure. We were living here like it was our forever home, so did not worry too much about getting rid of things. Thankfully, just getting things in order to be ready to show and sell has caused us to take care of a lot of that extra “stuff”. For the most part, I think that most of what we are now left with is things that will be making the move with us. Most of the loose, decorative, items have been been packed, but we still have all the major items like clothes, furniture…my woodworking shop! We have decided that we are most likely going to hire a moving company to do the majority of the work. It will be enough just to get things packed so that they can be transported.

We still do not know if we will be fortunate enough to be able to move straight from there to the Jake home, or if there will be some kind of a “halfway house” needed. Either way we will be prepared for what ever it takes, but should would prefer the former than the latter.

So that is what has been keeping the Dee’s pretty busy the past few weeks. Gracie’s last day of 4th grade was this past Friday. Nora is full time, but when school is not in session, her boss lets her have more flexible hours. Such as going in extra early on nice days so that she can get out early. She also have some time off banked and uses it from time to time during the summer to make a long weekend or take off for something special. I am not sure if I will be able to do much in the way of summer forecasts this season. It really all depends on how quickly things happen with selling our house.

Last Saturday was a nice day and we took a bit of time for R/R and headed down to Jake to let the dogs romp on the beach. Bleau has not yet gotten in the water. He is much more cautious than Huck and Millie ever were, but that is good. It’s takes a little stress off of having to keep him out of trouble. I must say that he has really gone a long way to rid himself of his last few bad habits. His barking when excited is much more controlled and he nearly always comes to us the first time we ask (treats help with that one!).

He is still a puppy, so there are some It’s also clear that he is highly intelligent and has a very caring demeanor. He will be making a great therapy dog for sure. For the next few months, he will be enjoying summer break with his family and doing lots of hanging out at the beach with his “people” and trying to catch the soap balloons that Gracie blows for him.

Poor Hucky is really starting to slow down. At first, I thought that he was mourning the loss of Millie, but now we can see that his rear wheels are just not able to move around like they did when he was a young buck. That does not mean he cannot get around. He just needs help jumping in to the truck, or onto the bed and also limits his running for times he wants to show Bleau that he is still the boss around here!

Not much else going on. The woods have finally filled out completely. What a difference that has made around here. Not just in how things look, but how the woods feel and how much more lifted our spirits are. It seems like the filling out took longer this season and the bare woods were really starting to get to Nora and I. It must be the pending snow that causes the bareness of the woods to be more tolerable in the autumn than in the spring. In any case, there is now green everywhere we look!

The weather has also turned much more summer-like. We hit 80 for the first time all season on Friday and yesterday topped out at 85. The humidity was very low, so it was a delightful warmth and cooled off perfectly to fall asleep to with the windows open. The other night I could not sleep, so at about 2 am, I went out onto the screened-in porch and the woods were just jumping with the sounds of night creatures. Frogs mostly, but there were a few birds calling and the occasional howl of some coyotes. It was so relaxing, that it did not take more than about 20 minutes for my eyelids to grow heavy and for me to hit the hay and get to sleep for a few hours before waking up for the day.

The final order of business is to announce that last Sunday, June 2nd, the Laurium Glacier melted in the early afternoon. I checked on Friday and it was getting close. Saturday there was still some snow and by Sunday morning, just a scant bit. By Sunday afternoon, all the snow was gone. I still need to go through the list and determine the winner, but will be sure to do this ASAP.

I am also going to try my best to write every week, but with all the things we have going or will have going, I cannot make any promises. I can promise that once the move is over and we are settled in, I will have a lot more time to dedicate to the site. So hang in there!

Goof night from the Keweenaw..
–JD