Typically I have been heading up after work on Fridays, but this is football season and the band is playing. Kyle plays in the marching band, so I waited until Saturday to head out so that I wouldn't miss out on the half time and post game shows. As an added bonus, the football team won. :) I left Grove City at 6:00 AM Saturday and headed up to Taylor, MI to pick up Tom. On the way to the Shangri La we made a small detour in Mio so that Tom could see his grandfather's old property. It brought back a lot of fond memories for him, and it was pretty cool to hear him tell some of the stories.
When we arrived at Shangri La we had a pretty rude surprise waiting for us. There was a bright pink tag on the door announcing that the electricity had been turned off. With it being Saturday the only number to call was the emergency number, and they weren't able/willing to do anything for us since it wasn't an "emergency". They said that we would have to call the office during regular business hours, and the office wasn't going to be open until Monday. So, getting things straightened out would have to wait until then. An electricity free weekend! No big deal. I'm a camper, right? :) No power meant no lights, but it also meant that the well pump wouldn't run. Fortunately there was still pressure in the holding tank, so we did have some water. It turned out that with rationing we were able to make it last the whole weekend. All it took was a good plan.
The Plan: ration the water, buy beer to drink, cook on the grill, light at night with an oil lamp and candles, no showers, number "one" outside, and number "two" inside and flush with a half bucket of water.
We got ourselves settled in. With rain threatening we weren't planning on tackling anything big. I showed Tom around the house and property, then we grabbed a couple of cans of spray paint. Last fall I waited too long to mark the dead trees for cutting, so when the leaves fell I couldn't tell the dead from the alive trees. We marked quite a few, and on a future trip we'll be cutting down our own firewood.
The rain started not long after. We took a short drive to show Tom around, heading over to Lake Huron and to the boat launch at the mouth of the Ocqueoc River. It was getting dark, so we headed back to the house. Huh...pretty dark inside with no lights. We lit a hurricane lamp and some candles, cracked open a few beers, and played Scrabble. That's right...we played Scrabble by lamp light.
Sunday morning we woke to clear blue skies and a nice breeze. A picture perfect fall day. We headed in to Onaway for coffee and breakfast at the Wood Winds restaurant. We have yet to have a bad meal here, and this meal was no exception. After getting back to the house we picked apples, separating the good from the bad...or the people food from the deer food. We ended up with about a milk crate of each. Once we're up there full time we'll be able to tend the trees, so we should be able to see a better harvest in years to come. I'm looking forward to whatever Shelly plans on making with these!
With that done I fired up the tractor and Tom fired up the weed whacker. It feels pretty good, knowing this will be our last time doing this for the season. :)
With the lawn looking good we got to work on getting the tractor ready for winter. We removed the mowing deck, attached the snow thrower, and installed the chains on the tires. After the work on the mowing deck and carburetor the old girl is really running strong. We had to fight a bit with the snow thrower, until we learned the trick of it. Hopefully I'll be able remember the trick for next year.
After that we headed into the house to rid the kitchen of the old stove. This behemoth is a 70's vintage, chocolate brown, LP fired monster, which anybody in their right mind would be afraid to use.
We had to remove the top oven from the stove just to make it light enough to get it out to the barn. Even then the darn thing was heavy. They don't make them like this anymore...thankfully. It didn't come apart easily, and it won't be going back together.
Fortunately for us we had an overage on stoves. A newer and less scary model was installed in the basement, so we disconnected it and moved it into the kitchen. With its smaller profile it opened up the kitchen a bit. And...we're not afraid to use it. We didn't have the right fittings to get it hooked up, and with it being late on a Sunday nothing was opened. We did try it downstairs before moving it, and all is in good working order. We just need to buy parts and take them with us the next trip up. Then we'll be cooking with gas! Yeah...I know. Sometimes I just can't help myself.
That's pretty much it for this trip up. Other than the work above I spent a lot of time day dreaming and planning on all of the renovations we'll be doing in the coming years. Tom had some really good ideas. We've decided that the first major renovation will be finishing the basement. I'm going to need a home office, and once done we'll have a ton more living space. It was really great having Tom along for this trip. It's been a very long time since we've hung out together, and it felt an awful lot like old times. :)
Just in case you're wondering what the inside of a house in northern Michigan looks like at night with no electricity, here's a picture.
Talk to you all next time! :)
