Take the day off... well.. most of it.

We decided to take a break and do a little sightseeing on Saturday evening after work and then got the chance to do more on Sunday. Mom and I have run around a little bit, and Mom even went out and about by herself. She went to a Finnish Music Festival in Covington. I was tired out and had stuff to do at the house so she went and checked it out alone. It is only a few miles down the road. And then of course, David has been sort of housebound with his nurse Cosmo the Magnificent keeping him vigilant company. No one can really get close to David without hearing a low growl coming out of that little beast.

Here is the front facing the road. Geez, I just love it. It is kind of deceptive from the roadside.



Looks like a regular small cottage until and/or if you see the lakeside view.



Check out the scaffolding. Kinda scary looking isn't it. Of course, it would be very difficult without it.

Anyway, Saturday night after work David took us all to a wonderful dinner at Tony's Steak House just outside of L'Anse. It stays light for a long time here so both before and after our 7:00 p.m. dinner we cruised around a bit with Jerry as the tour guide.

We drove around a couple of Henry Ford's work sites. One is Alberta and the other Pequaming. Apparently he loved the U.P. and I guess and was making good use of it. Alberta was given to Michigan Technical University and then it is my understanding that Pequaming has been converted to mostly private use.

We found this field of wild lupines is near Pequaming. This was a small portion of the field. They were so beautiful!

So readers imagine this... we are driving along in Jerry's station wagon through the roads of Pequaming and we are scanning the views on both sides of the car. Jerry and David up front, and then me, Mom, and Dad in the middle seat. David's crutches took up the far back seat. Anyway, we are cruising and then everyone got all excited.. everyone that wears glasses that is... and that means everyone but me. (so far)

"What's that?!" Dad exclaims from the backseat pointing up through the seats to an animal crossing the road in front of us. Jerry slows down, and he and David say, "Oh... it's a porcupine!" The critter then ran to the side of the road so Jerry pulls up next to it. David and Dad who are on the right side of the road roll down their windows to get a closer look. Mom was very excited as well and so she also leaned over to see out of Dad's window from her place in the middle seat... "oh, a porcupine!" she said. Well.. I was sitting behind Jerry and therefore last to see this creature... so I lean forward to see if I can get a glance of it as well and I got quite a shock. I hollered, "That's a skunk not a porcupine!!!"

David and Dad quickly lean way away from their windows hitting the auto roll buttons as fast as they could and Jerry hits the gas and swings back onto the road and we drove away... all getting quite a kick out of that mix up. So kiddies.. here is a tip...

Nature Lesson of the Day

These are different animals! I am pretty sure you do not want to meet either of them up close and personal. The one on the left is a porcupine and the one on the right is a skunk. Additionally, for your trivia info for the day...

At the beginning of recorded history, the Chicago area was inhabited by a number of Algonquian peoples, including the Mascoutens and Miamis. Trade links and seasonal hunting migrations linked these peoples with their neighbors, the Potawatomis to the east, Fox to the north, and the Illinois to the southwest. The name "Chicago" is the French version of the Miami-Illinois word shikaakwa ("wild leek”/"skunk"), named for the plants common along the Chicago River.

Well, enough of that...

On Sunday morning it was raining, Jerry was a tired and Rick and Jim were winding down for the morning. It did not look like much was going to get done that day so Jerry decided to get some shut eye and we decided to hit the road again. I wrangled up David, Mom & Dad, the dogs, and went all went to Bond Falls, Rockland, Old Victoria, and a few other local places.

The first pics are from Bond Falls:

Then after lunch at Henry's Never Inn in Rockland, we went to the Old Victoria restoration site. They had folks walking around in costume, talking about the site that is being restored and raising money for that restoration. We had cinnamon rolls that had just come out of a wood stove oven while there. Just what we needed after ice cream, and lunch!

When we returned from our trip around 4:00 p.m. the rain had stopped. Jerry was back on site, along with Dickie-bird, Rick, and Jim and they had put sheeting and felt on half of the roof and were heading towards the other side... they worked until nearly 9:00 p.m.!!!

I will post more pics tomorrow, the house is really shaping up now that the roof is sort of on.

Can't hardly keep up with Framing!

There are a lot of pictures with this post so be ready! I made them a little smaller to fit easier but you can always click on them to see the details. I will add more stories very soon. Just wanted you to see the amazing progress!

Ladies and Gentlemen
**Start your engines**

Here is the first day beginning and Dad and Cosmo marking out where to begin...

then a couple of shots while they were working

and one while waiting for the rain to stop.

Gee whiz, I am going to have to tell them when to smile. Those photos were obviously taken pre-accident. Here is the end of the first day...



and it explodes from there!

Holy smoke! I can hardly keep up! It seems giant leaps in progress have occurred every time I go out to the job site. David is absolutely beside himself that he is not in there working but he just can not do it yet. When we go out he insists on climbing around with those crutches. The doc said wait a week... and then put pressure on it. He just can't help it and I don't blame him at all it is VERY exciting to see our home growing.






Here he is in the living room with Dad.. note the view from two of the the windows by Dad and the sliding glass door area behind David. There are a matching set of windows in the other corner to the right as well.

It is wonderful watching the house come up around us! Here is the back view ... well, really the side view. You can see the basement (guestroom/office) and the middle floor (living room, kitchen, entryway), and the upstairs beginning of the loft. This side of the loft will be open to living room below and will have three windows... all facing the lake so we can see the lake from our bed.

Here are the stars of the show...


They work cheap too! Just have to feed them once in awhile and gas up their scooters.
We could not have done this without them.
Thanks Dads!

Rolling right along... at 25 mph

Mom and Dad got her just fine and love it! Their cabin is great... here is Mom by the pink cabin. Check out the view!


and Dad was outfitted with an atv. Looks like Captain America... red white and blue!

and they started framing the day after they arrived!


There was one glitch in the scenario... a hitch in the giddy-up... a wrench in the monkey works or is that a monkey wrench in the works... or a monkey in the wrench works.

Anyway. David wrecked his scooter... and himself.

It was at the end of the day on Monday.. the second day of framing... and David and I were visiting my parents at their cabin. We had a very nice visit and vanilla ice cream and cantelopes and then thought we would zip over to our place about 1/2 mile away to talk to one of the crew members who was staying at the property.

David went first.. of course.. zipping as he said 25 mph down the road, standing up, thoroughly enjoying himself. I came along behind him with Cosmo the Magnificent in the front. We had left Delta at home because she is a bit big for Mom and Dad's cabin.

Anyway... David went past our neighbors... 25 mph... standing and waving and smiling that smile... and then I went past. Probably about the time I turned my head to waive and smile at the neighbors he was up the road in front of me and a pregnant deer decided to commit suicide. She jumped in front of him. He had time to say... "shit" and then blammo.

The State Trooper said the accident scene was over 100 feet long and David was skidding on the pavement for at least 55 of those... you can tell that by the blue streak from his jeans left on the asphalt. You can see it on the right side of the photo here:

By the way... that is only a small section of the skid mark he left. He went head first and ended up half off the road with his head ... helmeted head... over in the ditch and legs still in the road.

What is terrifying.. as if that was not enough... is the patterns left on the road for the Trooper to follow. It tells quite a story.

David hit the deer, and then you can see tire skid marks and weird wobbles in the road and then a chunk taken out of the asphalt and then nothing at all for a little bit. That means airborne activity for both David and the atv. Then impact because his blue jean skid mark started and periodically next to the blue jean skid marks... all the way down the road running parallel to those marks... were chunks out of asphalt where atv was cartwheeling and bouncing next to him while he was sliding down the road like Evel Knievel.


The picture above is where he ended up. You see the blue streak end in a dark grey patch on the side of the road.. well look about 4 feet to the left and you see asphalt chunks. The atv bounced there and then once beyond where David stopped in the background. You can see how close it was. He said it was in slow motion he was on his back skidding and could see the atv in the up in the air coming down at him and then boom it would bounce next to him and go up again. As I mentioned, he stopped in there in gravel.. but the atv bounces and skidded on it's side once more then rolled up again on its 4 wheels. Facing an odd direction and purring like a kitten. That was where I saw it when I came upon the scene. By the way... on the right side you can see a yellow road sign. That is across from our driveway... we were very close to home.

Now lets back up a minute. Remember, I am behind him and because of a small rise in road and because I was waiving at neighbors I did not see this happen. Thank goodness.

But then as I cruised along first I thought... 'what is all that stuff up in the road?' Then I said 'oh.. a deer' and I then I noted it was laying there quivering in the road.. 'oh its hurt... dang I am going to have to kill it.. that sucks. I don't wanna do that but it is suffering' and then 'There is the atv way down the road.. oh.. its empty.. David must be going to help the deer. Good, I won't have to.'.... then 'where is David?' and thats when I saw him laying in the road. This seemed to be a long process but it was a matter of a couple seconds.

I stopped my atv, knew we needed help so I did not even get off. I turned it around and rode quickly back to the neighbor's house who were all still in their front yard. I yelled I needed help as David had gone off the bike and they scrambled. (One of the neighbors is the fire chief) Later they said they heard the crash but thought it was a backfire and then saw me going by. When I came back they immediately knew what had happened. Anyway, after hollering to them I went back, got off my bike, took off my helmet, walked over to David... who was staring straight up into the sky with his mad scientist glasses all cockeyed and blood in one eye and told him... "Well... you got your first deer" and smiled at him.

I gently checked him out, he thought his leg was broken (it was) and we waited for help... keeping him talking as much as possible. Friends, family, etc were there in moments... medical stuff around here is all volunteer including the ambulance crew... we ended up getting him loaded and to the hospital in L'Anse. All the volunteers were there as well as the local Michigan State Trooper. David was very clear during all this... he made sure to let the Trooper know he was going ... 25 mph. I made sure she knew he had his helmet on... we had met this trooper once before... really like her... anyway. We are VERY lucky. He is very sore but he only ended up with a broken ankle. His jeans, boots, heavy thermal shirt kept his skin from being rubbed off so he has some road rash but they are more like rug burns. And of course his helmet... has a big bash in the back of it.

He feels so bad because he is not able to get out there and work and my folks are here to help... but the doc told him basically if one was going to get a fracture this would be the kind to get. He may be able to start light duty in a couple days. Dad told him while he was laying there that that was one heck of a way to get out of working!

Happy Days! Did you guess right?

Well it is happy days... especially when you get emails like this:

"Got married in my red tennis shoes under a Magnolia tree on Low Gap road. My husband and I smiled and cried as we said our vows. Took five minutes.
Happy days!

On our way to FB.

Love you guys!"

What great news! My sister Brooke and her beau Jeff ran off and eloped!

Isn't that wonderful and romantic! I wondered how many of you guessed correctly. Of course, obviously it was not a huge surprise... we knew something was bubbling and we could not be happier. First of all Brooke is happy, the kids are happy, and Jeff is a wonderful man.

In case you did not get what the heck this picture was about...
they are 'two peas in a pod'. Geez.

So now with great pomp and circumstances...
I would like to introduce
for the first time anywhere
(almost) ...

Mr. and Mrs. Wisenheimer!!!!

heh. No just kidding. That's not them....
Here they are looking pretty pleased with themselves
and eachother....

Jeff and Brooke Wiedenfeld