Cottage and Yard

I started this blog back in the fall of 2006. I wrote several posts and then got stuck. I have started writing numerous other posts off line to be uploaded when finished, but alas have not completed any of them mostly because I am a perfectionist. I write a post and then rewrite, add, delete, and rewrite again. I don’t know why. The first four which I managed to complete are certainly not perfect and they really need not be. I am not required to meet any standard of perfection in their content or quality. I am not being paid to produce a masterful piece of prose. I am doing it for my own personal enjoyment, so why make a job out of it.

I will just write about whatever I want and welcome your comments. I will be typing in my posts directly to WordPro without revision or a check of the grammar or punctuation, otherwise I’ll never do it. If I find a glaring error after the post is posted I’ll try to get back to it and make a correction.

One of my New Year resolutions was to get back to posting in January. Today is the 30′th. One resolution kept. Now I’ll start working on the rest.

As I mentioned in an earlier post we moved here to the North Woods, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, in the spring of 2004. The house, or the cottage as I call it, and the yard had been neglected and in need of a lot of clean-up, paint-up, and fix-up.

While these chores are not my first choice of things to do they nonetheless must be done. I would much rather be gardening.

I had no garden the first summer but started one in the summer of 2005 and expanded it in 2006 and again it is being expanded for the 2007 season. I’ll provide more details as time permits.

Originally posted: January 30th, 2007.

This blog is going to be about the adventures and misadventures, dealing with the projects and activities of this not so typical pair of homeowners during these two and a half years since we moved to this rural location. Our problem is our numerous varied interests and future project plans include many more than we will ever have the time, the money, or currently the expertise to accomplish…but, hey, that has never (well almost never) stopped us before. And on those few occasions when we did get stopped, it was only after having given it our best shot at least twice.

So to start off: Why not call this the House and Land blog?
Well, the house is really rather small by today’s standards. It has no guest suite, no office or den, and no exercise room. That’s why I think of it more as a cottage. Land implies acreage in the country with rolling meadows, wooded hillsides, and perhaps a stream. Our single, flat acre hardly seems to fit that description. It is really, to me, just a larger than average yard.

So with a smaller than average house and a larger than average yard… the Cottage and Yard blog it is!

I’m not sure exactly what this blog will entail, but, for sure, it will concern home repair and remodeling inside and out, as well as anything that happens out in the yard. In addition, I will include anything that I feel would be of interest with regard to any other activities or projects that we try.

This is the fifth house we have owned, and the seventh in which we have lived in the past 35+ years.

We even did a few very short stints in a half dozen apartments sprinkled into the mix. Some people enjoy, even thrive, while living in an apartment complex.
I still can’t figure out how they can do it for more than a few months without going nuts. I mean, for me, people are fine, at a respectable distance, but not overhead underfoot and on all sides of you.
My wife could live in an apartment, I think, alone or with someone other than me but not with me. I would drive her nuts.
I need room to move, space to work, storage for my junk, and a place to do the things I want need to do. So here we are!

Originally Posted: October 17th, 2006