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.”

My mind is in the gutter

Our primary goal for the overnight (along with setting up the bed) was to hang gutters. We quickly discovered that I'm much more effective as Chris' Lovely Assistant when I'm handing him tools than when I'm helping him do actual work.

We got one gutter piece hung before Chris decided to call in reinforcements. Our friend Mike won't be able to make it to Loveless until later in the week -- and four days of rain are forecast between now and then.

I've become quite the white knuckler these days.

The Thinker

As for the mud slide on the hill, I met a landscaper Saturday morning who said our most expedient solution would be to bring in some black dirt and throw down some grass seed. Argh. There go my plans for a mower-free property!

I’m letting go (temporarily) of my ideal vision of a hillside covered with ferns, wildflowers and native shrubs. At this point, I need to stop the bleeding. After a little research, I found a variety of sedge that’s native to Polk County and thrives in loamy soils like mine. That -- and the idea that I can add native plants and rain gardens later -- seems to be taking the edge off.

For the time being, there's going to be a little more hiring and a lot less sweat equity than I’d banked on. Poor Chris. He's still in a decent amount of pain and will be hobbled up for weeks to come.

Glamping

It took three trips to Menards to find the proper hardware and a healthy measure of cussin’ and sweatin’ before Chris and I finally figured out how to assemble the donated bed. Finally. Our first overnight at Loveless.

“We’re glamping!” said Chris, knocking his bare feet together to dust off the clay.  Glamorous camping. Pretty much.

With all the rain, the concrete floor is covered with red mud. And with no air circulating in the cool walkout basement, it was huuu-mid down there. Getting under those sheets felt like putting on a damp swimsuit.

We debated whether to leave the sheets on (will they get stinky and moldy?) or strip them and bring fresh ones next time.

We decided to leave them on -- and added a dehumidifier to our "to bring" list.

A vintage sleeping bag adds to the rustic decor.

The view from the future screen porch, currently a mosh pit.

Moving dirt

My colleague Dennis Anderson brought a couple tons of Love 2 Loveless last week, in the form of a giant dirt mover he trailered in from a friend’s place nearby.

Dennis spent four hours scooping and smoothing the hillside, and even had the foresight to spoon out some gentle slopes to encourage the rain to run away from the house.

All that work, and all he wanted was some lemonade. It must be an awful lot of fun to drive that thing.

Erosion

The mudslop under the casement window got most of the attention, but the reality is that Loveless is an erosion nightmare these days.

After the earth got scooped up to dig the foundation last year, the frozen ground and snow cover meant it didn’t get tamped down after all the activity. When the snow melted and rain poured, the piles caved in like hot butter through sugar. We sank to our knees during one March visit.

I’m reading up on native plants and trees that will be happy in the shade and clay-rich soil without a whole lot of intervention.

A smattering of determined ferns have pushed through the mud here and there. Last week, I found two spindly Colombines and what I think is a False Solomon’s Seal up by the weeHouse. Something about their tenacity made me feel really hopeful.

False Solomon's Seal, or something else?