Time To Leave The Northeast

Burr, low 20's last night, it is time to get back to Ariel. Our last blog entry was in April when we were spending a few days in Panama City on our way back to the United States. We are returning to Central America this coming week. We will fly from the US to San Jose, Costa Rica and spend a few days in Costa Rica before continuing on by bus to Panama.

We do not update the blog while we are not cruising but here is a brief recap of our time back home. We were able to quickly get settled into what I call our cabin. It is actually a small house which began it's life as a hunting cabin in 1935. It is comfortable but in need of much repair, too much in our opinion so we plan to raze it at some point in the future. Our primary desire as always when we are back is to visit with family and friends and that we did. We made several trips to Ohio and one to Michigan to see our kids and grandchildren and we had frequent guest at our home. This is a huge benefit of having a home again.

We returned with an ambitious plan for improvements to our property. It was extremely overgrown from years of neglect and brush and tree removal was an all summer ongoing activity. Just a couple weeks ago we rented a wood chipper and fed it our massive piles of brush.

Linda got a good start on replanting the areas we cleared and also getting her perennial flower gardens going. She just recently seeded a large area with wildflowers so we are looking forward to seeing results next spring, that is if the turkeys and crows leave any seeds.

Raspberries

I started a fruit and vegetable garden. We planted 30 raspberry canes and 6 blueberry bushes. We actually harvested a few raspberries this season. We put in a few vegetable plants, sort of as an afterthought, and had a good supply of tomatoes and a few other vegetables all summer and fall.

We continued to refurbish our machine shed. We completed one exterior wall last year and just finally finished the remaining three. This 16 x 20 shed was sagging badly and had sunk as much as eight inches due to rot. Somewhere along the way dirt was pushed up against the exterior walls. Now the walls are like new. Next year we will tackle putting on a new roof.

Saving An Old Shed

Last year Norm's mother decided to move into a new senior housing complex which was being built with a planned opening in the fall of this year. Caring for her home, particularly the landscaping was getting to be just too much. We knew that returning this year we would have a lot to do to get her house ready to sell and to eventually get her moved. For starters much of our furniture was still stored in her garage. We began by finding space in our cabin and shed for it. It looks strange but we found a home for everything. Getting her place ready to list was easy since she has always taken exceptional care of it. A bigger challenge for her was downsizing as she has lived in her home for 40 years. Her property sold right away so that was a huge relief. Due to the mild winter the apartments were completed about a month early so she was able to move in September and so we set her moving day for September 15 and she closed on the sale of her home the following week. Her new place is great and she is very happy with it.

We absolutely love spending summers in our little country get away. We are trying to co-exist with all the wild animals. The most challenging by far are the deer. They love to eat just about anything green. Linda selects plants which are deer resistant, but we have learned this does not mean deer proof. We have fenced in some areas which seems works best but isn't necessarily the way we want to leave it. We have had several bear visits this year. We had one stop in while our grandchildren were visiting so that was perfect. They typically look around for something to eat and not finding anything move on.

On to new adventures with Ariel.