The First Family

My former next door neighbors and their artistic 7-year-old daughter came for an overnight last weekend to partake in the annual Balsam Lake WinterFest, and it couldn’t have been more fun.

True to their word, they were able to manage the drywall-dust-filled bedroom and the still-under-construction bathroom under the guise of “adventure.” We enjoyed meals and games in the weeHouse and visited like old times in front of a fire.

Chris made a stunning return to the snowshoe race with his ever-popular “Beer Man” costume. Doug helped me figure out multiple equipment malfunctions and was a good sport about finishing … ahem ... dead last.

Bringing up the rear gave us a chance to catch up with our favorite politician, lakeshore activist and snowshoe race volunteer, Carl Holmgren (whom I couldn’t vote for even if I COULD vote in Wisconsin because my address is a just a smidgen outside his district).

While Doug, the Beer Man and I were traipsing through the woods, Katie and Liv were exploring city parks and enjoying the winter spectacle in the countryside.

For this awesome visit, and years of outstanding service and support, they’ve earned the superlative title as the Loveless First Family.

Eat your heart out Obamas.

 

 

Jackie, Liv, Chris

Blast from the past

We're already making plans to ditch work and the Twin Cities for the Balsam Lake WinterFest, where Chris and his costumes are a big hit. It's usually colder than all get-out, but we find a way to partake in the revelry, which includes minnow races, a pond hockey tournament and ice drag racing on the lake.

Chris recently discovered this gem of a photo (courtesy Now and Then Photography) from the first snowshoe "race" in 2013. Participation doubled in year two, even though they didn't have the booya pots going. 

Charter members of the snowshoe race. We all got lovely pieces of pottery as prizes.

Christmas respite

With weekend work shifts, city commitments and travel to Florida to help move my Mom, I haven’t been up to Loveless for seven long weeks.

So when my editor offered me a chance to peel out of work early on Christmas Eve, I rushed home, scooped up the Black One and headed over the St. Croix River and into the woods.

It was a quick overnight, but the rush was worth it. Hours spent staring into middle space and listening to the dog snore. 

Our wake-up call came around 8 a.m. when a fisherman pulled up in front of my place towing a canvas ice house behind a snowmobile. Gotta love the dedication.

Multiple fronts

Future screen porch takes shape.

While Chris tackles the massive bathroom tiling job and the scores of new chores I throw his way, we’ve brought in a couple of local craftsmen to tackle work on the future porch. And my, oh my, it’s looking great.

They installed a corrugated metal roof and underdeck drainage system this summer, and completed this lovely cedar-deck floor a few days before the Alaskan blast from Typhoon Nuri slung us into an early arctic winter.

After four years of tromping through sand, mud and snow to get to our sleeping quarters, this project felt like a huge step toward adulthood and eventual functionality at Loveless.

As our friend Kay said when she saw the new floor: “It’s like you brought the upstairs space downstairs.” Yep, she nailed it. Ah, potential, you pull at my heart and imagination.

Meantime, just to keep things “interesting,” I introduced a shed project into the mix, using the very practical reasoning that it’s high time we stopped tripping over tools and other sundries as we work on drywall in the bedrooms and try to complete the bathroom.

That little pre-fab shed project has turned into a much bigger deal. More on that later. But so far, Chris and I are still on speaking terms.

Way before. Mosh pit in the making.

A reminder of how far we have come.

The underdeck ceiling/gutter project this summer.

Underdeck ceiling complete.

Just dandy on the Gandy

It’s hard not to feel dandy when you’re trotting down a state trail called the Gandy Dancer on a sunny fall morning. The trail runs 98 miles through Minnesota and Wisconsin, and passes just a few miles west of Loveless.

Like so many of the great trails in this part of the country, the Gandy Dancer is built on a former railroad corridor. Its colorful name comes from the crews who laid the railroad tracks using tools made by the Gandy Tool Co., headquartered in Chicago. The term “gandy dancer” is said to be slang for the men who worked the tracks, swinging their tools and moving their feet in harmony, no doubt as a foreman looked on.

If you’re on the Gandy Dancer, it’s an even better bet if you’re in Luck. The town of, that is. A few weeks back, Chris and I partook in the first annual Gandy Dancer Marathon in Luck, Wis., a benefit for the town's fire department and qualifier for the Boston Marathon.

We're no marathoners, mind you, unless you count the metaphorical one we're on as we bring some love 2 Loveless. No, we entered the 5K. I trotted and Chris sprinted, and he came  home with a coffee mug trophy for finishing runner-up in his age group.

He finished No. 2, but he's my No. 1.

Pre-race fuel stop gave Chris the winning edge. Go Gators.

Workmates with a nearby cabin ran the half marathon. Animals

Looking to No. 5

In numerology, the four-year cycle is said to be about “vision, management, priority, effort, determination and breakthrough.” Chris might say that I’ve had a little trouble with that priority thing in my first four years of Loveless ownership. My version: Priorities shift with the seasons.

In the warm months, having a deck railing is a priority, seeing how often we shriek at Chipper to warn him away from the edge of the deck and near-certain death. By winter? Hmm, it’d be nice to have an inside stairwell to get from the toasty sleeping quarters downstairs to the weeHouse kitchen and coffee maker above.

Of course, we have neither. Still, we’ve got a lot of great things going on – the bathroom project, the screened porch project, the shed project, the Saturn deck project.... yes, that priority thing.

Year No. 5, according to the numerology sources consulted for the sole purpose of this blog, provides "opportunities to turn my life around by setting off in a new direction." (Emphasis mine.)

Their advice? A complete change of attitude. 

Uh, I’ll get right on that.

Meantime, here’s a trip down memory lane.

October 2010

 

Still working on covering up that Tyvek house wrap...

The former living room.

Sofas and friends.

The 2010 kitchen was worse in person.

Cluttered, but in a good way.

The old place, view from road.

Walkway to new space makes us all happy.

Shoreline assessors

The stars aligned and I finally lured my friend Laurel up to Loveless on a windy September day, where I put her to work helping me catalog the state of our Loveless shoreline for a county research project.

Laurel is like a cat, working through her many lives. Lucky for us she’s still got a few left.

She worked the stern of the canoe (and took selfies) while I focused on the paperwork. As always, we eventually got going on something that gave us a whopping’ case of the giggles. 

This time it was a “just-get-‘er-done” mentality that had us paddling the canoe backwards, because it seemed like too much work to turn the thing around and crank it forward into the wind. (You probably just had to be there.)

In the end, Laurel headed back to California with a bit of the Wisconsin woods in her iPhone, if not her heart.