We're Tired

Hal and I came to a decision about 3 months ago, in a roundabout kind of way. I'm tired of the long drives to Alpena and back (70 miles), he's tired of the numerous trips he's had to take to deal with his dad's cattle in winter and the 35 mile round trips whenever he needs to go to the camp/pole barn. We're both tired of driving long distances to decent restaurants. I'm tired of all the staircases. I know Luna is tired of them, too. In fact she seems to be in pain any time she has to climb them. I know all 4 of us, especially Ziggy, are tired of deer flies and mosquitos which are terrible this year. Ziggy's black coat seems to be a magnet for them, he constantly drops to his haunches (usually right at my feet, tripping me in the process) to protect his butt while he snaps deer flies out of the air. So whenever Hal and I have been in the vicinity of the camp we'd jokingly make the comment often seen on residential billboards, "if we lived here we'd be home now."

At some point the light dawned and we both realized we wouldn't actually mind moving there.

Yes, we've become tired of the swamp. Yet it's still a beautiful place and I know I'll miss it. But I think it's time to go.

So we started a massive clean up project of the house this spring. The county had its biennial cleanup in May so we took advantage and got rid of lots of large things that were just in the way for only $25. And believe it or not, the hot tub was cut up and dumped as well. After the filter freezing 2 winters ago when the breaker failed, it just wasn't worth fixing.

Hal and the Haul

In the meantime Hal had a well dug. It is 140 feet deep and is a flowing artesian well with quite an impressive flow. They finally capped it today after telling us a couple weeks ago they couldn't. Not really sure about this well company now, they seem to keep changing their minds about things and asking for more money. I know they want to keep "working" for us in the near future but Hal is having other thoughts. I wish the water tasted as good as it does here, but alas, it does not.

Hal is in charge of getting the site ready for a new house, the well, the septic, the land leveled, permits, etc. I'm in charge of selling the house.  I've hired a roofer to replace our very leaky roof which I was hoping would be done by mid July but all it does is rain up here and that backs them up. I think I'll be lucky if they're here by August.

I also want to stain the front side of the exterior siding, I did the east wall 3 years ago then ran out of steam. The rain however has been a problem again. I finally finished cleaning the front yesterday after trying last week and needing a better cleaning agent. Now I just need 3 days of dry weather. One to dry out the siding, one for 2 coats and then another to dry before the rain hits again.

Hired a friend with a cleaning business to come tomorrow to dust, polish, in general spruce up the place before the realtor comes next week to take photos. Hope to have the house listed by July 1, even if the roof hasn't been replaced or the siding stained, or the grass hasn't been cut because it's too dang wet! It will be interesting, if not also nerve wracking to see if the house sells fast, or not at all, and then what will we do?