The Four Seasons

The title of this entry has nothing to do with the accommodations.  We haven't gotten THAT much done on the place.  :)  Weather wise, we had a bit of a surreal weekend.  When we left Columbus, Ohio it was 82 and sunny.  When we arrived at Shangri La?  Thirty-eight, windy, and raining.  And, that was just the beginning.

Shelly stayed back in Ohio this trip, and I was accompanied by our oldest son.  Mike and I left Ohio at around noon on Friday, way earlier than originally planned.  I had been checking the weather radar, and storms were rolling in along our entire route.  I wanted to hit the road ASAP so that we wouldn't be driving through the storms after dark.  That worked out, and we arrived at Shangri La at 7:30 PM.  We watched a bit of TV to wind down from the drive.  Mike brought his DVD's, so we started in on season five of Smallville.

On Saturday we woke to a surprise...a near blizzard, with high winds that had the snow blowing sideways.  Our first priority was to get the toilet working.  At the end of our last trip up the toilet was blocked up, and no amount of plunging would get it going.  We had believed that one of our nephews may have flushed something down it, and that it was stopping it up.  I pulled the toilet and checked for a blockage, but found nothing.  Rather than mess around any more with this 20 year old relic of a throne, I decided to hit the Ace Hardware for a full replacement.  I got about 10 miles from the house and ran into this.

I'll remind you here that we started this trip at 82 degrees and sunny.  This pic was actually taken on the way back from the hardware store, after the plow trucks had cleared the road.  On the way there was about 4 inches of slush and ice on the road, and it was grabbing pretty good at the tires.  At one point it grabbed a bit too much, and it slowly dragged me off into the ditch.  Fortunately it was a gradual slope and not a dropoff.  I had a hard time stopping the Explorer on the frozen and snow/slush covered ground, but finally stopped it a few inches shy of a road sign.  I put it in reverse, but was getting nowhere.  I locked it into 4 low and tried again, and this time I was moving.  I got up some momentum, spun the wheel to square myself in the ditch, and backed up the embankment and back onto the road.  Still needed that toilet, so I continued on into Rogers City.

Finally making it to Ace I picked up the new thrown and a new mop.  Aside from replacing the toilet, my plan for Saturday was to dive back in on the basement, with the hope of getting the floors swept and mopped.  This was going to require some organization as well, as there's still quite a bit of "stuff" laying about in the basement.  The trip back home was far less eventful, and the toilet install went smoothly as well.  I guess this officially kicks off the eventual bathroom renovation.  :)

On to the basement, I began clearing sections so that I could sweep and mop.  The floor was pretty dirty from before we took ownership, and was made far worse when the sump pump failed and the basement flooded back in November.  I was able to get the basement dried out back then, but the cleanup...well, that's where I was now finding myself.  Not much more to describe about the work.  There's just no way that I can find to expound upon the intricacies of organizing, sweeping and mopping.  Instead, here are some pics of the finished product.

That pretty much took us to dinner time on Saturday.  Mike and I headed into Onaway, and had dinner at what is becoming one of our new favorite local haunts...Manzana's Deli.  Baked five cheese stuffed ravioli for me, and a buffalo chicken wrap for Mike.  Afterward we headed back to the house, and took in a few more episodes of Smallville before bedtime.

Sunday morning started out much nicer than Saturday.  Not a cloud in the sky, and a prediction for temps in the 50's.  My hope of trying out my repairs to the mowing deck was looking more likely.  I spent the morning tying up a few loose ends in the basement, waiting for the weather to warm up and the grass to dry out.  After lunch I set about removing the snow thrower and installing the mowing deck.  I had to fight a bit with the mowing deck, but once I figured out the trick of it it went on pretty easily.  I have to say, I was extremely pleased with the performance of the mowing deck following the repairs.  I got about 80% of the grass cut when I noticed that the tractor was pulling to the left.  The left front tire was flat, and with large cracks in it I knew there was no hope at all of just airing up the tire.  The tires were showing their wear, especially having sat outside for nearly two years, but we were hoping we'd get another season out of them.  No such luck.  I snapped some pics of the tires to capture the sizes, and I'll be looking for replacements.

That pretty much finished up the work day.  I went in, made some dinner, and Mike and I relaxed for the remainder of the evening.  We hit the road for home Monday morning, with a pretty good trailer load of junk for the dumpster at work.

Mike and I kept commenting on how surreal the weather was throughout the weekend.  We leave summer behind in Ohio on Friday.  We have blizzard like conditions on Saturday.  We have spring/fall like temps on Sunday.  Michigan weather certainly isn't boring.

Saturday

Sunday

Saturday

Sunday

Saturday

Sunday

Mike and I are actually thinking of heading back up this coming weekend.  I'd like to bring the tractor back to Ohio to work on replacing the tires, and maybe do some other fine tuning.  As for projects, most of the doors in the house don't fit into their frames worth a darn...sticking and rubbing when opening and closing.  Time for FUN WITH BELT SANDERS!  

We'll see what the week brings.