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July 31-
    I would first like to take this moment to make my annual thanking to Mr. Carrier for his invention of air conditioning.  She's a warm one out there right now. For the most part we actually escaped the heat Friday and over the weekend. Friday got a little warm, with my high for the day at about 86, but Saturday was cloudy and almost cool and even yesterday was cloudy and not hot out. Humid, but not hot. Today we are making up for lost ground, with the thermometer at 97.4 degrees and still climbing. My heat index is at 113 because of a dewpoint of 77. It's like they say; "It may be hot, but at least it's humid!". Ok, I apologize, maybe the heat has me being a little silly right now. But as I sit and type, the temp inside is 76 degrees and the humidity is low, I do not know what, but comfortable. Going from the inside to the outside is almost like a form of punishment right now. The difference is like getting smacked with a stick or something. Once outside I kind of get used to it, but the initial shock is really something. After I finish with this I get to go back outside and actually do some work. I picked up some more supplies for the cabin and need to run them up there and unload them.
    Speaking of the cabin, things have been moving along nicely. We have had some interruptions in the past week or so. Some good and some not so good. Starting with last Sunday the 23rd, we were rolling along nicely on the metal and it looked like we would finish the one side and then be able to move onto the other side when it started raining. It then proceeded to rain the rest of the day. So much so that we really could not even do any work out there. Then Monday we were moving the scaffolding and I happened along a hornets nest. I did not even know it was there and was moving a branch back and forth, trying to break it off so it would not be in the way of the scaffolding and the branch was hitting another branch that contained a hornets nest. Next thing I knew all I heard was buzzing, got stung twice on my arm and once on my head. Thankfully I was only on the first level of the scaffolding and was able to jump down and run for the hills. Nora went to the store and picked up some hornet spray and we took care of the nest, but that burned up a bunch of time Monday night that could have been spent on working.
    The rest of the week was decent for working and we had no interruptions and were able to get the roof about 95% finished by last Thursday. Here is a shot of my friend Ron helping me. He is much less afraid of falling off the 12/12 pitched roof than I am and did all the "high up" work. Speaking of high up, the walls are about 10 feet off the slab, which is actually about 3 feet off the ground around it and the top of the trusses sit over 10 feet above the walls, so by the time you are at the top of the roof, you are close to 25 feet up. That takes some climbing to get to. Thankfully Ron is doing most of the climbing right now, but I am not looking too forward to taking care of the soffits and siding all the way up there! That was the back side of the house, Nora and I were able to get it completely framed in and about 80% sheathed yesterday. Hope to get it done as well as the front gable wall done by the end of the week. Windows and doors are suppose to be in by Friday so we plan to go pick them up as well as a bunch of other stuff like flooring, lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures, etc... and then have the home fully closed in by a week from now. Here is a shot taken last Thursday when the roof was almost done, but the end walls were still open.
    The other interruption in the construction took place this past Friday and Saturday, but was a fun one. Joe from CrashedToys.com came up with his two sons and brought ATV's for all of us to ride. So Friday afternoon after my regular work we jumped on the bikes and headed out to do some exploring. I do not own an ATV and many of the places I ride in the winter are places that are off limits in the summer, so I had to do a bit of thinking about where we could go. We first headed up the snowmobile trail to the build site so I could show them everything going on there. It was funny, in all the years I have lived here, there are some sections of the trail between the house here and the property that I have not been on in the summer. So it was neat to see what they were like without snow on them.
    From the property, we headed west to the lake shore and down to the mouth of the Gratriot River. From there we played around on some logging roads and then on some two tracks and then even onto some smaller trails that just wove their way through the woods. At one point we were on trails I have never been on in my life. I was not too worried about getting lost as I can find my way around by the sun, but it was neat to be in place I have never been before.
    It was starting to get into the evening, I was getting hungry and Joe and the boys were getting thirsty, so we got back onto larger and more familiar trails and headed down to Calumet and then down to Lake Linden. But not before finding a few more puddles for the boys to have fun riding through. The puddles were mainly from all the rain we had about 2 weeks ago. Thankfully we had that rain, or it would have been even dustier riding. For them anyway!
    On Saturday we headed up to Lac La Belle to hook up with Troy the owner of the Lac La Belle Lodge. He knows the ground up there about as well as anyone and is they guy I hook up with when I want to see the back country at the tip of the Keweenaw. He had some family and friends up visiting and many of them came along for the ride too. It was quite the group we had, I think there were a dozen or so ATV's.
    Saturday morning we awoke to some light rain falling. It looked like the rains would end by about the time we headed out on the trails, so that would actually work out perfect. The rain would dampen the trails and help keep the dust down, but stop in time for the ride. We actually unloaded the ATV's in the rain, but by the time we headed out it had stopped. The only problem with the rain was that it did not reach much past Lac La Belle, because we did not have to travel too much down the trail to get into the dust. If you have ever been on an ATV on a dusty trail, you know what it must have been like with 12 of them kicking up the dust. For those that have not had that experience, just imagine the dustiest scenario you can and you will be all set!
    Dust or no dust, it was a great trip and the weather just about perfect. Temps in the 70's and a mix of clouds and some sun. Best part was to see some beautiful spots in the Keweenaw and have a good time with friends. Our first stop of the day was at Hoar Lake. There was actually a group of folks there from Wisconsin camping and all I could think of when we all pulled up was "boy, nothing like the peace and quiet and solitude of the tip of the Keweenaw!". But the folks were not bothered by our brief intrusion. Those nasty biting flies were still out and swarming the camp area pretty bad and I have no idea how those folks could stand being out there with them. Those were actually the only biting flies we saw the entire trip, so this latest round of them must be on the way out.
    The next stop was at the big lake at a spot called Fish Cove. This section of the Keweenaw's shoreline is very rugged and also very beautiful. No hardwoods grow right along the shoreline. Probably because the soil (what soil there is) is too poor to support them. It is mostly a mix of Jack Pine and some Red and White Pine and lots and lots of rocks. The view to the west is very beautiful with the Bear Bluffs in the foreground and Mt's Houghton and Bohemia in the background. To the east, the look gives you a good idea of just how rugged the shoreline is in this area. In most areas, the land ends and there is an 8-12 foot drop to the lake. There are a few small rocky beaches scattered in, but nothing that you would really even call a beach, more like a 20 x 20 foot patch where there is no cliff to the water. Further up the shoreline to the east is a beach at Keystone Bay. That was our next destination, although for some reason I did not take any pictures while at Keystone. I did take a shot of us getting there. To get there you need to cross a beaver dam. For most of the summer the water is low enough to cross. In the spring I have heard about jacked up trucks sitting almost completely under 6-8 feet of water trying to cross. When we got to the dam the water was actually very low- as low as I have ever seen it. Still though Troy's daughter was riding a little 80 cc ATV, which stood about 18" off the ground at it's highest point, so Troy asked his son Zack if he would try the right hand side to see if the water there was any shallower. It did not take long for Zack to give Troy his answer. Several of the ATV's had winches on them and we used one of them to pull Zack and his ATV out of that hole and Troy just put his daughter Megan's mini ATV into the back of his Rhino and they crossed the beaver pond that way.
    After Keystone, we made for our last destination of the day, High Rock Bay. It is right at the very tip of the Keweenaw and the bay is actually formed on the south end by Keweenaw Point, the furthest east point at the tip of the Keweenaw. From High Rock you can see Manitou Island and the Gull Rock Lighthouse about 2 miles off shore. There is quite a strong current that flows between the tip of the Keweenaw and Manitou Island and it was interesting to watch the waves crash to shore in oblique angles because of the current. After the point we headed back to the lodge. On one of the brief pit stops, Zack's ATV would not start without some coaxing and the rest of the group road ahead, while about 6 of US worked on his ride. We got it going, but then missed a turn that the rest of the group ahead took. We waited for about 15 minutes and then just decided to head back the way we knew how and eventually came upon the rest of the group waiting for us about 5 miles from the lodge. All returned safe and sound, although very dirty!  All but Troy and his brother that got to lead the way the whole day.  It was a fun ride and a nice break from the work of building the cabin.
    As mentioned, Nora and I got back to work on Sunday and just about finished the one end wall. Today was just too hot to go up there during the afternoon. I still needed to get my electrical permit so I can start that work, so we decided to kill two birds with one stone and get the permit and let Burt have a swim at the beach in Eagle River. The wind was actually from the west southwest, so being right at the lake shore there in Eagle River was no break from the heat as the winds were not really on shore. The only break from the hot temps and high humidity was to jump in the lake and that is what just about everyone down the beach from us was doing. Good ol' Burt wasted no time in cooling off in the big lake either and had I not had to go into the courthouse to get my permit, I might have gone for a dip too, but did not want to drip all over the courthouse later!
    It will be back to swinging a hammer the rest of this week. I have golf tomorrow afternoon, but will head up there tomorrow evening. Things are going pretty well so far and we are still about on track to be able to move in sometime in the autumn.  It may be late autumn or early, I really cannot say for sure, but outside of some major problem(s) I think we will be in before the snow gets too deep up there!
Good night from the Keweenaw..
-JD-

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July 23-
    Wow, I can't believe that it's Sunday already and the weekend is almost over! Not only is the weekend over but we are quickly approaching the end of July. Now that is hard to believe!
     We have been very busy this week and weekend out at the cabin. On Thursday we worked on putting the trusses in place. We had Darcy from Peninsula Products working the crane again. Darcy helped with the trusses on the pole barn. It is neat to watch him work the crane and gingerly put each truss is place. My job was to guide the trusses and I know that could have been a train wreck if Darcy wasn't as good as an operator as he is. The wind was blowing some and that made it difficult at times to keep the trusses going in the right direction! By 5 o'clock the last truss was in place and it was on to the next project, putting up the hurricane brackets. We had planned to have a friend, Ron help with the roof so as soon as Ron was finished with his day job he headed over. After about an hour of setting up scaffolding everyone was ready to get the show on the road. The guys worked on the sheathing until dark and were able to get more than 1/2 of the one side done. The work on Saturday took a little longer as the "piggy" backs needed to be put on the top of the trusses. It actually slowed up the process more than was expected. But, at the end of the day, everyone worked hard and there was alot to show for their work. Sunday morning Ron was out to the property by 7 am working. John had his normal Sunday work to do so after that was finished he met Ron and work began. By 10 am the one side was ready for the metal roof. I really lucked out on Friday and Saturday as there really wasn't anything that I could do. So I enjoyed having a two day vacation from the property! When I showed up on Sunday with some supplies the vacation was over-the guys put me to work! I was glad to help as I was feeling some guilt that John was working so hard and I wasn't. Anyhow, we got about 1/2 of the metal up and it started to sprinkle. So since rain and a metal roof aren't the best combination we called it quits for the rest of the day. After supper John and I plan to move 1/2 of the scaffolding over to the other side of the cabin so that it will be ready for Monday. Ron and John plan to work in the evenings this week to finish the roof. That will be a huge relief for John to have that done. Even with the one side of the cabin closed in it really is exciting to see how things are coming together. We really are excited about living up there and can't wait to live in a house that we built! That is when all the hard work will be worth it!
     Well, I think that is all for now. John and I took Burt on a hike this afternoon and had a good time "deciding" who would write the journal. I told him that the only reason I didn't want to do it was because I had no material to write about. That normally gets me off the hook but not this time. During our conversation we realized that due to building there really is nothing new going on, except building. And in past year's July really is the slower month with not alot of new things to share with you all. So we will apologize in advance for journals with not alot of new news! Although, John is planning on going four-wheeling next weekend with Joe from CrashedToys and Troy from the LacLaBelle Lodge so I'm sure he will have alot of pictures to share with you.
Good night from the Keweenaw..
-Nora -
July 18-
    Busy, busy, busy. I do have a good excuse for not writing in the past 9 days. I also have something to show for all of the hard work. To be honest, it has been so long that I needed to re-read the previous journal to see what I said because I had forgotten where I left on on things! Nora and I have been heading up to the property every day for the past 9 days, but if you have been checking the property cam, you can see the fruits of all of our labor. We got the loft up, the knee walls up, the beams for the overhanging roof on the front done, all the wall sheathing done and the housewrap on. We are now officially ready for the trusses and as luck would have it, they arrived yesterday. They are only 150 lbs each, but are pretty bulky, so we are going to have a boom truck help us lift them into place. I am also going to have Al help Nora and I set the trusses, so we needed to coordinate when everyone will be available. Al and I have golf this afternoon and the boom truck cannot come in the late evening. Tomorrow Al has something going on in the afternoon, so Thursday will be truss setting day for us. The plan is to then finish the rest of the roof over the weekend. I will also be getting help with that from a friend who does roofing. The windows and doors are ordered and should be here in about 2 weeks, so hopefully in about 2 weeks the place will be all buttoned up.
    I only have two pictures to share with you. The camera's batteries went dead and I was so caught up in the building process as well as my regular work duties that I forgot to charge them. In any case, here is a shot of me working on the loft flooring and here is a shot taken last Thursday, when we were done framing the knee walls. The batteries are charged and in the cam and I plan to take some shots before we put the trusses up so that the cabin construction album will be able to display the progress at regular intervals of the build.
    The framing work has been fun, but my arm muscles will be happy to move on to the finish work! It will also be nice to be able to work inside a fully sheltered house as well. I plan to put a little window AC in there and if it's hot I will be able to keep cool while working inside. This weekend was pretty brutal working out there. We did not even work during the midday as it was just too hot with temps in the mid 90's and dewpoints in the 70's. We headed out early in the morning and worked from about 7 am until 11 am and then back out at about 6 and worked until about 9:30.
    We had quite the storm up here Sunday morning. The first wave hit at about 4 am and shook the house a bit. The second came at about 5:30 and lasted for about 3 hours. All told we picked up 3.76" of rain at our house (2.5" from 6 to 7 am). Along with the nearly 4" of rain we had some hail and lightning like I have never seen before in my life. There were so many flashes that it looked like about 10 police cars were outside the house with their lights flashing. Plus, the light show did not just last about 5 minutes, but lasted for over an hour. No serious flooding issues resulted and we needed the rain really bad. Everything was turning brown and all the creeks were drying up. The heavier rains did not hit all areas though. They seemed to fall from around South Range north to just south of Mohawk. Anyway, the grass is greening back up again and the fire risk has lowered too. I suppose in a week or so the mosquitos might boom, but well see.
    On Sunday Nora, Burt and I headed to the beach for a bit of an afternoon soak in the big lake, but when we got there and jumped out of the car, we were swarmed by those nasty biting flies. Others call them beach flies or fish flies as they are mainly on the beaches or even out on the big lake. I have heard about folks out 10 miles in Lake Superior dealing with them. Don't know how they get way out there, but they are nasty and nothing short of thick clothes will protect you from them. They will bite through socks and thin clothes. The strange thing is that they usually come out the second week of June and last about a week. I know to avoid the beaches of the big lake around my birthday because of them. I have never experienced them in July, so I don't know if this was a second hatch or maybe a different species. In any case, I am going to avoid the big lakes beaches for another week or so. We were up by Lac La Belle on Sunday anyway, so we stopped by the Lodge up there and let Burt swim at their beach. No flies there as they really do not seem to impact the inland lakes.  Strange bug.
    It's hard to believe that in 2 weeks, July will be over and August will be here. The last month of summer up here and one month away from when some of the best weather starts. I can say that this summer has not been too bad. Late last week and into the weekend was hot, but we were cooler and less humid yesterday and will be that way today and then after one day of warmth and humidity tomorrow back to comfortable temps by Thursday and that could last almost a week. The strawberry season has come to a close, but the raspberries are starting to ripen and some of the blueberries are also starting to ripen. I don't think we will be making any jam this year as we still have a cupboard full of strawberry, raspberry, blackberry and blueberry jams, but I will not be shy about putting the fresh berries on my morning cereal or with some ice cream.
    Well, I suppose that gets you caught up for another one, looks like Nora lucked out of writing another one. With a little luck, the next journal will have some shots of a roof on the cabin!
Good night from the Keweenaw..
-JD -
July 9-
    Upon further review...we have a reversal in the design of the roofing. You know, it is a good thing that I spend so much time thinking about how things are going to be built with this cabin because as I lay in bed thinking about things last Friday, I caught the fact the new design would still not allow the stairs to work. The cavity that the attic trusses creates would allow the stairs to go up with all the headroom needed, but I would also have to keep the entire run of stairs in that cavity and that would cause the stairs to block the top of the doorway to the bedroom on the first floor!  The initial plans were for the stairs to start along the outside wall and run parallel with it for a few steps, then make a 90 degree turn and run perpendicular to the wall and finish the climb to the loft. By starting the stairs along the wall, we would be high enough by the time we encountered the doorway to the bedroom that all would be ok, but we initially ran into the headroom problems discussed in the previous journal. So it was decided to just simplify everything and go with the knee wall after all. That will give us the headroom along the outside wall and allow the stairs to climb enough to clear the doorway to the bedroom on the first floor.
    That means that we will end up framing the loft joists after all and Nora and I headed up there today to get started on that. Up until today, the weather has cooperated extremely well with the build process. Almost no rain outs and the one time we really could use the rain (to help slow the concrete cure) we got it. Today did not cooperate as well as I would have liked. I was hoping to get up there first thing this morning, but it started raining and kept up off and on all morning. The rain stopped around midday and the radar was clear to the west of us, so after lunch we headed up. We got started with things up there and it started to rain again. It rained for about 45 minutes and then stopped again, so we got going again. I have work that I have to do for my customers on Sunday so we had to leave before getting all the floor joists up, but we developed a pretty good system today, so I think we should be able to wrap up the floor joist work in less than an hour tomorrow and get onto sheathing the floor and building the knee walls. We only need to build knee walls on the two sides as those are the only two walls that the trusses will be sitting on. The two end walls will just need balloon framing under the trusses to give us something to attach the outside and inside walls to. So I think we might be able to get the knee walls up tomorrow as well. The only thing is I want to mock up the stairs first, just so that I can see for sure that my figuring out on paper for the proper height for the knee walls is correct. I am not going to actually build the stairs, just use some plywood to make faux stringers and attach them to the walls and check for all the proper clearances. Making that faux stair stringer may take up some time, so perhaps the knee walls will have to wait until after golf Tuesday.
    In any case the knee walls should be done by midweek sometime and we can move on to doing some of the electrical work as well as making the siding and paneling. I hope to get the drawings for the trusses and approve them tomorrow or Tuesday and then it will be around 2 weeks before they arrive, so we have a little over two weeks to do other projects before we can put the roof on and button up the cabin. Then the weather will not really play a role in working on it, which will be nice. There will still be some weather dependent items like doing the siding and staining/sealing it, but I am certainly not worried about getting enough suitable weather for that in the months of August and September!
    Speaking of the weather, I mentioned above how it has been great for building, but not so great for the lawn or other plants. Up until today, we had only picked up around .20" of rain in the past 4 weeks. Today's rain doubled that, but that is still less than 1/2" in the past 4 weeks. Sure seems like every summer we go through quite a protracted period of dry weather. Last week we dug holes for the footings for the deck and roof overhang on the front of the cabin. They had to be 42" deep and the first 36-38" of soil we dug through was bone dry. It was not until I got to the last 4-6" of soil was it moist enough to stick to itself. Nora has been watering her flowers and some of her garden plants, but we are leaving the lawn alone. It will green up once it starts to rain again. The up side is that we have not had to cut it for about 2 weeks or more.
    The dry weather has also caused the fire danger up here to go very high. The fireworks display at the park caused a little grass fire where they were shooting them off from. They have fire trucks right there and were able to put the fires out quickly. On Thursday we were coming home from having dinner with Nora's brother and family at the Dreamland Hotel and saw smoke rising from the hills to the west of Lake Linden. It was in the same general spot that the fire burned last July (the one the hounds and I found and called in). So rather than go home Nora and I headed up to see if we could find it and report it. I had a harder time finding this one, in fact the fire crews got to it first and were able to put it out quickly. Not sure how it started and it actually burned some stuff junked out there, but the good news is that it was put out quickly by the LLFD.
    We have been having some warm weather up here too. Last Thursday, Friday and yesterday were all in the 80's, but the nice thing was that the humidity was low. I can really tolerate the warmer temps a whole lot more when the humidity is low that's for sure. This past week I was not uncomfortable, I at first thought that I was becoming more tolerant of the heat, but then realized it was not that humid! Late yesterday we got some humidity in and I did not want to spend too much time outside, so my tolerance has not changed! Thankfully the humidity did not last long. The dewpoint is back down into the 40's and it is actually a bit chilly out there right now, with temps only in the mid 50's. Jacket weather in July.
    I really cannot believe that tomorrow will be the 10th of July already and by the end of the week July will be half over. I think July is my least favorite month as it is usually the hottest month and it seems like the cooler days of autumn are so far away. Usually June has some cool days and we are just getting into the hotter weather, so I still have some patience for the heat. By August, I know we are pretty much at the final month for real summer weather up here. So I can tolerate the heat a bit more by seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. So the way I see it is in 3 weeks and one day, July will be over. August can still have lots of hot weather, but the light at the end of the tunnel will be visible and I will be getting excited for my second favorite season of the year- Autumn. This one will be an exciting one as we should be living up at the property for at least part of it.
    I guess that gets you caught up. Sorry no pictures, but Nora has taken some and I will do all I can to try and get her to sit down and write one and include her pictures.
Good night from the Keweenaw..
-JD -
July 4-
    Happy Birthday America! and happy 4th of July to all of you. As usual, I was hoping to write sooner, but I have been keeping myself busy and just ran out of steam at the end of the days. I actually am home alone. Nora is with Burt and some family at the beach. I have work that needs to be done today, so I had to stay home to take care of that. That work is all done and so I decided to take advantage of some quiet time to get out a journal.
    If you are one to check out the construction cam at the property, you are probably wondering when we will start working again. Actually, we have been doing some work. Early last week Nora and I finished up the interior walls- well, all but one. There is a 2 x 4 partition wall that we will put up after the loft and roof are done. Speaking of the loft and roof, we have encountered our first significant hurdle in building this structure. Last Thursday I was looking over the plans, getting ready to put up the loft and get ready for the roofing. I had someone help me with the design of the cabin, basically cross the t's and dot the i's. Anyway, the truss setup for the roof that he had indicated we would use was not possible for this building and so they had to be redesigned. We ended up with a smaller slope to the bottom chord of the roof truss, which is basically the ceiling rafters. That smaller slope then caused some problems with the stairs by not leaving us enough headroom. So some redesign was in order. One idea and the quick fix would have been to just build some knee walls, which are just some short walls on top of the walls we already have. It would have cost a couple of hundred bucks and an afternoon to do that. However, it would have also made the walls much taller and changed the look of the cabin to one that I did not want. So I tried thinking about a different way to achieve things without changing the look of the cabin. I did not have any luck so on Thursday I headed up to the lumber yard where I got the first design and estimate on the trusses to see if they could help. Thankfully the designer up there knew a lot more about building homes and what is available than I and he was able to throw out several suggestions (including the knee wall idea that I came up with and discarded).
    The new design incorporated new trusses, so we sent the new design to the truss manufacturer. I was hoping to get the new quote from the truss company Friday, but they were not in. Saturday morning I headed up and nothing still. I went up yesterday and still nothing from the truss company. So I came home and called them to see what was up. Turns out that they had some questions and they were waiting for the  person that was helping me at the lumber yard to call them and he was out until tomorrow. So I was able to work some with the engineer at the truss company, but still could not answer all the questions, so tomorrow I will head up to the lumber yard and get with the truss company and get all hammered out. Then it will be about 2 weeks before we get the trusses.
    So the short of all of this babbling is that not much progress will go on in front of the web cam, but there will be progress made. I will be able to get on making the siding and the interior tongue and groove paneling so that when we reach that part of the build all those materials will be waiting for us. Plus, I may check with the building inspector to see if he will let me start some of the electrical rough-in before he has checked off on the framing rough in. If we get the OK to do that, then I will also try and get some wiring done. Plus I have decided to have Al and another friend who does roofing help me with the roof. I figure we should be able to get almost all of it done in one day. That is set the trusses, put on the sheathing, the tar paper and then the metal roof. So I don't think we will be falling behind in the timetable I penciled in. In fact we may stay a week or two ahead of average, but you will not be able to tell from the webcam as not too much will happen in front of it until one day the roof is suddenly up!
    I don't know about the rest of you, but having this holiday on a Tuesday sure has messed up my schedule. To mess things up even more Nora has the entire week off and so I am having a hard time trying to figure out what day it is and what I should be doing! I think things will get back to a little bit of normal life tomorrow with a regular work day. On Sunday Nora, Burt and I took to the beach. It was a warm and fairly humid day and we had a west wind, so that meant the northshore would be a good place to go. This time of the year is probably the most challenging time to find a beach with no one on it. I know of a few that many of the locals do not even know about yet, let alone tourists and they always get the call this time of the year. Temps in town were in the mid 80's, but down by the lake they were in the low 70's- mother natures air conditioning. Really a great part about living up here in the summer.
    It was a perfect afternoon at the beach. Burt had fun fetching sticks and crashing through the waves and Nora and I had a great time watching him and relaxing at the beach. This really is a great place we live in. To be able to hop in the car and drive for less than 15 minutes at be at the nicest beaches in the Midwest and have them all to ourselves. Can't beat that! The only bad part about it all is having to leave. Before we left, Burt and I had a little father and son time and made some more memories.
    Nora, her brother and family and I all went to the fireworks last night and it is always neat to see the village so packed with people. The entire village park is filled with folks and I am amazed at how well everyone behaves themselves. In other areas they would need a few dozen police patrolling the park, but up here I think we had 3 and they pretty much just sat there and people watched. The parade was this morning, but we opted to take advantage of a nice cool morning at the property to do some clearing for the where the water line will go. We got that done and I also changed the blades on the jointer to ready it for helping to make the siding and paneling and then we came home so I could do my weather work and Burt and Nora could go to the beach. They are actually home now, so I think I will sign off for now and go join them in what ever they are doing. I hope it is a nap!
 Good night from the Keweenaw..
-JD -
 
 

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