Potential

Chris’ high school chum, Jeff, trained his motorcycle on the Loveless coordinates last weekend and stopped in for a brief visit. The last time he was here, we were down to concrete slab. He must’ve set the bar high for his return visit.

“I thought you’d be further along,” he cooed in his trademark style that somehow is both cuttingly frank and gentle.

Well, yeah. That’s potential for you.

Consider the future front deck of the weeHouse, which is really more like a treeHouse.

Sure it’s a bit dangerous, with nothing but a few boards strewn across the joists. We do our part to keep dogs and young children away. And when Mike and Chris were hanging gutters in June, I held my breath and prayed for their safety.

But as Jeff discovered, that deck offers the best seat in the house for looking down on Loveless Lake through the canopy of trees.

Is it a deck or pergola? Jeff fearlessly takes to the treeHouse.

I figured we’d have that deck built by now, too. But the monsoons made landscaping a priority. And we know how well THAT job has come together.

The good news is that Chris is now free from the bandages and traction. He’s still got a long way to go to regain strength and motion in his left hand, but he now can tie on a lure and cast a fishing rod.

It’s a start.




Chris looks for the Big One. / Photo: Katie Anderson



Hokey Pokey

How 'bout having friends show up, pretty much on the fly, and bring a picnic lunch to boot? My former next door neighbors in Minneapolis pulled it off on Sunday, bringing some much-needed Love 2 Loveless.

I confess that this whole rain-heat-erosion thing has become a load on my mind. Hard as I try to see the zen of it all … man oh man. Could YOU be at peace if this were the scene at your place?



Logs and bags of rock (for future retaining wall) serve as temporary breaks for water and mud. Left-over lumber from teardown provides a serviceable walkway after rainfall turns the place into a slippery mess.



Doug put in a call early Sunday morning to see if we’d be open for midday visitors. Before we knew it, he was hulking a giant cooler toward Loveless Lake, with wife, Katie, and daughter, Liv, shouldering their own supplies down the hill. They soon produced a lunchtime spread that included a juicy watermelon, a giant sub sandwich and homemade cookies.

And, bless her, Loveless delivered in return.

First we heard, then saw, a loon hanging out on the lake. Then Katie saw a deer walking along the water’s edge before it dashed into the underbrush. We watched as a male eagle swooped down from high above the treeline and gently plucked a fish out of the lake -- what a wingspan! Then we saw the female circle overhead, possibly on her own hunt. THEN we saw a turtle (snapping?) poke its head above water right where we’d been swimming.

And the water? Divine. My colleague Bill McAuliffe has reported on simmering, above-90 water temps in Southern Minnesota, but Loveless has been perfectly cool, and surprisingly clear, given the heat.

Doug enjoyed a good swim, but came ready to work. He hadn’t seen the place since Winter 2010, when he helped us pull the nastiest, most disgustingest mattresses out of the old joint.

This time, he pulled weeds out of the banks of the lake and took his weed whacker to the scruff that has started to overtake the parking area. Most vital, he hung screens on the downstairs walkout porch, knocking off one of those chores I’ve had on my To Do List for weeks.



Doug does a little work on the wildly overgrown lakeshore.





Chipper, Liv and Katie cool off on the banks of Loveless. 

 

Ahh. A dip in the spring-fed (and rain-fed) waters.



Hey, thanks for the reminder. Just like the Hokey Pokey, this is what it’s all about.

ThinkProgress



Progress is a comfortable chair. For some reason, it took us a while to figure that one out. But now we’ve assembled a hodgepodge of acquired Adirondacks to make our time around the melted fire bowl much more enjoyable. We might could even welcome some friends to the moshpit before too long.

On the nesting front, I hung my grandmother’s vintage curtains in the walkout bedroom, which improved our glamping experience immensely. Now we have some hope of sleeping past the 5:30 a.m. sunrise. Not that an early rise on Loveless Lake isn’t totally awesome. The last time we were there the loons woke us up. Loons! And we’ve seen the eagle(s?) on nearly every trip.

Also on the nature front, Chris and Mike spotted a perfectly formed bear track in the mud behind the weeHouse a few weeks back. And on a canoe trip around Loveless last weekend, they ran across a Northern they said was at least 18 pounds. It was dead and floating, but still. They thought it was a sign of good fishin’ days ahead. I haven’t fished since I was a tadpole myself, so every day’s a good fishin’ day as far as I’m concerned.

Otherwise, the rain and record heat have pretty much stymied our progress. We’ve had 22 days at or above 90 degrees so far this summer and have done zippo landscaping work on the mudslide hill. Thank goodness the silt fence hasn’t burst right open.

My friend Ramona suggests I put up a sign that says “2015” to inject a little patience into the process.

I’m warming to the quirky (applied to me and Loveless, that is) observation of Albert Einstein, who said: “The faster you go, the shorter you are.”