We’re gonna need a bigger boat.

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