Pre-Construction Activities

That sign describes what we've been doing for almost 10 years since we purchased our property near Eagle Harbor. It sometimes seemed as if the big dream would never be fulfilled, but we kept the faith, and kept plugging along.

Things are getting exciting now! The pre-construction phase has kicked into high gear during the last 2 weeks. Remember, the basement walls were erected in June of 2007. The basement floor hadn't been poured and the walls hadn't been backfilled, so Steve had to remove some vegetation from inside the basement and from the trench around the exterior of the basement walls. You can see one of the piles created during that process in this shot - near the base of the trees in the foreground. This photo is directed toward the back of the house that will be mostly glass. The bump-out will be the great room.

As you know, we had an unusually late Spring with a rapid meltdown. The excavator thought the dirt inside the basement was a bit spongy and suggested we install some tiles for drainage. So, Steve got a good workout while digging a trench around the interior - about 10-12" deep.

That was a lot of work.

No wonder he was hungry when he came home for dinner!

Memorial Day gave us the opportunity to take a trip to Menards in Marquette - 2 hours away under the best of circumstances. I enjoyed the scenic waterfall at the brief stop we made at the Phillip A. Lynwood Roadside Park.

We spent a record 7-1/2 hours at Menards, but we saved "big money" as advertised.

Our bones were weary, and the sun was setting as we drove back home to Calumet.

Our excavator and a 2-man crew met Steve on our property on Wednesday.

They went right to work using the Bobcat to begin backfilling our basement with sand we had purchased 3 years ago.

You can see the small compactor in that last photo. Here's a side shot of the great room bump-out. Our sand piles are in the background.

The tile was set in place in Steve's trench.

Stone was hauled in.

Stone was dumped in the trench.

Next, went the sheeting.

More dirt on top of that.

Here's a better shot of the sandy backfill. You can see how much has been added.

This shot shows you what's left of our sand piles. It should be enough to finished backfilling the walls when it's time to do that.

That should catch you up on the pre-construction activities. More to come!

All is well in the Keweenaw.

May - Snow to Hail

I really meant to get this post written last night, but I ran out of hours in the day again. Life has been busy. The month of May 2013 started with SNOW and ended with HAIL. I thought I would show you how the month progressed. Here's the view from the kitchen window on May 2.

The snow melted, and the birch tree began to spring back to life by May 16.

By May 24, the same tree looked like this.

Although it still isn't in full leaf, it was creating some shade by May 31.

May 23rd brought us a lengthy visit from Mr. & Mrs. Goldfinch.

Steve first mowed the lawn on May 5th last year, but it wasn't needed until May 28th this year. The dandelions popped up the next day.

Yes, I know the old fence is still there. It will go away--I promise!

Although the last day in May started out warm and beautiful, it ended with a cool thunderstorm with hail.

We were thankful our vehicles survived without dents.

It's now June, and this will be another very busy month for us. We're starting construction on the new house soon. If you'll notice, I started a CONSTRUCTION page in the left column of this blog. I'm planning to describe the construction progress in this regular area of the blog, but I'll also post photos of the progress on the CONSTRUCTION page with brief descriptions (kind of the Reader's Digest Condensed Version). Just click on "CONSTRUCTION - Photo Log" (at the bottom of the list of "Blog Pages") to get to the updates on that page. The excavator was working with Steve on the property this week, so I have some "pre-construction" photos to share with you. I'll try to do that tomorrow.

All is well in the Keweenaw.

More Fort Wilkins

We spent part of our 2012 Memorial Day weekend at Fort Wilkins in Copper Harbor, and I wrote 2 blog posts about our experience. I recently noticed 3 short videos about Fort Wilkins on the website for the Fort Wilkins Natural History Association, and I thought I would share them with you.

If you wish to first refresh your memory as to what I wrote about our visit to Fort Wilkins last year, scroll down the left column of this page, look for "Blog Archive," and click on "2012." Scroll down again, and click on "June." Scroll down again, and click on "Fort Wilkins - Part 1" and "Fort Wilkins - Part 2."

To watch the 3 short videos, click on the links below.

Fort Wilkins - Part I video

Fort Wilkins - Part II video

Fort Wilkins - Part III video

We won't be touring Fort Wilkins this weekend. Steve is finishing up some things on the property today in preparation for the excavator to return on Tuesday.

Let's not forget the meaning behind Memorial Day. For a brief history, click on the following link:

Memorial Day History

Break out your BBQ grills, and have a wonderful weekend!

All is well in the Keweenaw.

Home

Our hearts are here.

All is well in the Keweenaw.

Good Friends

If you're reading this, you're either a relative or a friend. 

We're thankful for good relatives, and we're thankful for good friends. We have been blessed with both.

All is well in the Keweenaw.

July in the Keweenaw?

We noticed a local real estate listing the other day, and we had to laugh.

Is this July in the Keweenaw?

The real estate agent obviously needs to reset the date on his camera (or he uses the British system of writing dates).

On the other hand, this is a photo I snapped of our deck this afternoon.

Can you see those icy pellets between the boards? We knew it was raining today, but we didn't see those falling from the sky!

We do have better weather in the forecast.

All is well in the Keweenaw.

North Country Dreamland

I think I gave you the impression in my last post that every last bit of our snow is gone. It's not! There's still a pile of snow between our fence and the garage next door. We have remnants of dirty snow piles around town, and we still couldn't drive down the driveway on our property today.

However, we're reasonably certain that new flakes won't be falling for at least 4 or 5 months!




A photographer in Marquette (Shawn Malone) took some amazing time lapse photos of the U.P. sky and compiled them into a video (North Country Dreamland). It's gorgeous. This is her description of her video.

"Video locations include Isle Royale National Park, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Headlands Intl Dark Sky Park, North Country Trail, Hiawatha National Forest, Marquette, MI, Copper Harbor, MI, Eagle Harbor, MI and Au Train, MI. 

It took a year to shoot and a bit of tenacity and persistence to get this into a form of coherent electrified cosmic goodness. 

Night sky-scapes include multiple northern lights scenes, meteor showers, nebulae, planets, including Venus and Jupiter setting from Spring 2012, constellations, the milky way, comet Pan-Starrs, night-scapes over both Lake Superior and Lake Michigan."

The video is almost 7 minutes long, but it's well worth the time to watch. Our Eagle Harbor Lighthouse is featured twice. Be sure to look for the Sandhill Crane, too.

Click on the link highlighted in yellow below to take you to Vimeo. (Be sure to click on the arrow in the lower left corner of the video to make it start!)

North Country Dreamland

All is well in the Keweenaw!

Going, Going, Gone - We Think!

The last 3 weeks have been crazy around here! I had a birthday (now halfway to 104), Steve had a birthday (now halfway to 120), we installed a sub pump in our Calumet basement, Steve made a 5-day trip to lower Michigan, we worked on construction "stuff," and I had a bad spell of migraines while trying to make some decisions on new chairs and blinds for our church.

We were concerned about the Saginaw area last month, as the frequent rains were bringing flooding to the region. Then, the U.P. underwent a rapid meltdown causing wet basements all over our area and a few flooded rivers and lakes. The locals tell us they have never seen anything like it before. The installation of a sub pump sounded like an excellent idea, as we don't want my mom to ever have a problem with this basement after she moves in. We heard the sub pump running a lot for about a week, so it was a wise decision.

To illustrate the meltdown, here's the backyard on April 23:

 

Ten days later on May 2:

Four days later on May 6:

Keep in mind, that's a fairly accurate picture of the snow depth on April 23rd. The piles created from shoveling and roof raking were much higher. In fact, the pile right in back of the house was still almost at the roof line on that date. Another amazing thing to consider is that we had additional 7" of snow during that 2-week timespan. Thus, we lost a lot of snow, and we lost it quickly!

Further proof - May 2:

May 6:

Yes, the fence project will get finished this year.

Here's Steve cleaning up Cocoa's winter "business" (revealed after the snow melted) on May 10. She looks embarrassed. (She should be!)

This was the snow remaining in the backyard that same day.

When we awoke the next morning on Saturday, the 11th, we saw this.

It melted by that afternoon, but the image was repeated on Sunday morning, as we had another inch or so. Again, it melted by Sunday afternoon. I checked the weather forecast for the next 2 weeks, and I think that will be the end of it for the season. Temperatures don't look favorable for more flakes, so I doubt I'll get any more shots of "roof eyelashes" for a while.

We've had lots of activity at the bird feeders lately. Along with a large assortment of sparrows and starlings and a woodpecker, we've had many visits from the Junco clan.

Mr. Robin finally put in his first appearance on May 1st. He showed up on April 1st last year.

We especially enjoyed our Purple Finch.

Well, that should catch you up on the Keweenaw climate. Our snow is gone - we think!

All is well in the Keweenaw.