Update to April 28, 2013

As we are no longer full-time RVing I have ceased regular blog posting.   :-(
But, I will, from time to time try and insert updates re our now settled life here on the "Pharm".
Catching up since my last post in November...we have had an entirely different winter this year ('12-'13) that our first winter here ('11-'12). This year we have had real, cold and snowy, Michigan winter, which will be a lot better for the cherry crop. Last year's early warming and subsequent freeze practically wiped out the cherries here in Northern Michigan.
I spent a lot of time reading this winter as well as tending to our assortment of bird feeders.

Last fall we added a new member to the Page household.
Nazzie (NASDAQ) our 15 lb. "Tuxedo Cat" was becoming as much a couch potato as me. And so to liven up his life we adopted a kitten from the local humane society

He is also a B&W kitty but mostly black. He came with the moniker "Ty" which we formalized to Tiberius. but still call him Ty.


This is how he looked when Teddy bought him home.





This is how he looks now.
He has now grown to almost adult size and has boundless energy. They bonded immediately and he sure keeps Nazzie on his toes. He loves to sneak up on Nazzie and leap on him for a tussle. He also drives me crazy by endlessly trying to knock things off the end table next to my recliner.





In other news, ......oh, wait, there isn't any other news. Compared to the last several years our life has suddenly become rather routine. We have adapted to it ok but I do miss going to the morning coffee & bull-s..t sessions with "the boys".

And lastly, at this point (in time) I am composing this blog entry from a hospital bed where I have been confined for the past five days with pneumonia. Complicated by my heart problems it has not been a fun thing but I am slowly progressing and looking forward to going back home to "The Farm" where I can sleep all night without someone waking me up every ten minutes to give me a pill or take my temperature.

Update to May 3: 

I was finally released from thr hospital yesterday afternoon after a 10 day stay. My lungs are now clear and free of any infection and my heart doctor is adjusting my meds to better control my atrial fib. 

Time will tell!

Ceviche (suh-VEE-chai)

Last week Teddy and I were watching a program called "Chef's Race" on BBC America. One of the dishes that one of the competing chefs made was a seafood appetizer called Ceviche. Because of our sheltered culinary life neither of us had ever heard of Ceviche. A Google search with my trusty MacBook returned 271,000 hits in 0.28 seconds so apparently a lot of other folks aren't as ignorant as me. "Well," sez I, "being as how I's an intellectual, I gots to try this interesting dish.

I broused many recipes from various places including Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Taiwan, Japan and the USA and, because of it's relative simplicity, I selected this recipe from Chef John Mitzewich for our first trial. You may recall that Chef John is also the author of the inside-out grilled cheese sandwich that I posted on April 21. Here is a link to his video instructions and to the left is a written copy which I transcribed to work from.

Using the above recipe Teddy prepared the ceviche sans the avocado which we did not have (notice how I cleverly delegated the prep to her).
In conclusion, I thought that it was delicious. I had three of the appetizer servings instead of dinner. But, sadly Teddy did not care for it. The good thing is that there are three more servings in the fridge for me to eat tomorrow but the sad thing is she probably won't want to make it again.
But, Hey! I know my way around the kitchen, I can just make it my self...yeah that's it, I'll just make it again myself. As everyone can see from my ample girth, I don't really have much trouble whipping up something to eat.

I ate this...and I'm still alive!

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a strange growth that seemingly overnight appeared on a  weeping willow in our side yard. This is a very large old tree that has been there for years and the growth was about four feet from the ground on a scar from a large limb that had been broken off years ago.

As you can see from these photos it was bright yellow in color
and felt velvety to the touch. I had no idea what it was but my curiosity prompted me to post these picts on Flickr with the request for an identification and within a few hours two persons postulated that it might be the immature stage of the "Chicken of the Woods" fungus which internet research on my part seemed to confirm. And furthermore it was reputed to be an exceptionally tasty mushroom. Teddy, however  was convinced that if I were to eat it that she would be suddenly thrust into instant widowhood and began investigating social security survivor benefits. 






But, sure enough, within a couple of more days it had morphed into this which further convinced me that I had to try it. So armed with a sharp kitchen knife I cut into it and found the inside to be a solid mass with the consistency of soft cheese.

Ever cautious, I diced just a small handful and fried it in butter with a little salt and pepper and...WOW...it was freekin' delicious. 

I went back for more and was able to harvest a couple of pounds which I convinced Teddy to fry...and taste. She saved some for immediate use and froze the rest in small packets.





Now I love mushrooms, I like them on steak, pizza, omelets, soup, and as a pickled garnish in a martini. But the only ones that I have ever been confident enough to hunt and pick myself are morels and puffballs. Otherwise I have always relied on super market hunting to satisfy my taste for them. Now I have another variety for which to hunt. You can be sure that next spring and indeed all next summer, I'll be on the lookout for "Chicken of the Woods"

And, unbelievably, right in the middle of of our "Chicken of the Woods" adventure, Teddy came home from a walk with this large puffball which she also fried and froze. We find this a very convenient way to preserve 'shrooms, as they thaw quickly for an accompaniment to steaks or breakfast eggs.

Catchin' Up or How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Since we quit fulltime RVing and settled in here at "The Farm" I haven't kept up on the blog. It was initially started so that our friends and family could keep up with us in our RV travels and that isn't necessary anymore. However, I do still plan to occasionally post a blog as to our comings and goings.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

This was our second summer here on "The Farm" and since we are now finished with remodeling the old farmhouse we were able to kick-back and enjoy ourselves at a more leisurely pace. This was easy for me considering my Type B personality but not for Teddy who, as others can attest, is a perfect archetype of the classic Type A. She mostly filled her days tending her flower gardens and volunteering at a local thrift shop. I spent a lot of time with my photography and exploring the internet on my MacBook Pro. Also being an avid reader I have read over fifty books thus far this year. I decided to read all of Elmore Leonard's books as well as Robert B. Parker's with an occasional other author thrown in for variety. Teddy also reads but not at such a furious pace as me. We both read on our iPads and find it to be more pleasurable than reading printed books. In July we signed up for a series of Shakespeare seminars reading A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was held weekly over five weeks at Interlochen. Teddy was somewhat reluctant to attend at first but in the end we both enjoyed it immensely.

Traverse City is the home of the National Writers Series, a nonprofit organization that brings in prominent authors for an evening with the author at Traverse City's historic "City Opera House". The evening features  the author speaking and then participating in a lengthly on stage interview followed by a question & answer session. Earlier in the summer we bought advance tickets to two of these events and just last week we attended the first, "An Evening With Lee Child."  With his series of action adventure novels featuring a tough retired Marine named Jack Reacher,  Lee Child is one of my favorite writers. We also have tickets to an upcoming program in November, "An Evening With Michael Connelly." I am doubly excited by this program as it is to be hosted by Bryan Gruley, another of our favorite writers who will introduce and interview Connelly and moderate the Q&A session.

In other news, on 9/11/12 we accidentally purchased the bright red 2010 Toyota Prius shown here. I say accidentally because we were on a grocery shopping trip to Traverse City and had no intention of buying a car. However, I had dropped Teddy off at the "Women's Resource Center" where she sometimes volunteers for a couple of hours when in TC and was driving past an automobile dealership when I spotted the Prius. I pulled in to look at the window sticker and was surprised to see that it had only 23000 miles. Of course a salesman came out and......well......you know the rest of the story.

Linda, our faithful 2009 Yaris Sedan, is now sitting out in front of the house with a for sale sign on her.

And that takes us up to the 2012 first day of fall autumnal equinox.

Oh, I almost forgot. In keeping with my early adopter mentality as everyone who knows me can attest, I of course am now the proud owner of an iPhone 5.  You knew I would!

Bye for now.     ;-)

Update 9/26:
The Yaris has found a new home. She was adopted by a little old retired English teacher. They took to each other right away and I'm sure that she will be happy with her new master.

The Inside-out Grilled Cheese Sandwich

This crispy, crunchy, cheesy masterpiece is the ultimate grilled cheese sandwich.

You know how once in a while you run across a slice of pizza where some of the cheese has dripped over the edge and caramelized onto the bottom of the crust? 

You know how when you bite into that delicious deformity you think to yourself, "why can't the whole thing be like this?"

Well, it can. 

For this to work properly,

1. I love Teddy's homemade bread but for this use only, nutritionally insignificant white bread. 
2. Use a nice sharp cheddar cheese. 
3. Be sure to use a quality non-stick pan over medium to medium-low heat. 

For how to make this wonderful grilled cheese sandwich go to:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlTCkNkfmRY

This has changed forever how I look at a grilled cheese sandwich! 

The only modification that I make is to add onion.

On Wednesday & Thursday mornings, Teddy volunteers at a local thrift store and I'm on my own for breakfast...............So.....last Thursday...

...Buoyed up by my success in making

the inside-out sandwich, I decided

 to experiment with what I call

 "Inside-out cooking".

In a flash of inspiration I made 

an inside-out cheese omelet

 shown here.

If I do say so myself, it turned out nicely. I proceeded to make a regular omelet but after I folded it I added shredded cheddar to the outsides and caramelized it the same way as for the grilled cheese. That plus a cup of hot black coffee, toast and the morning paper crossword made for a very nice breakfast.

Nulla vit melior quam bona.


.

Recent Advances in Science 2012

4/1/12  •  AF News

New farming option for fruit growers in NW Michigan 
by Pearl Gray

Traverse City, Michigan  ––  Early settlers in Michigan discovered that due to Lake Michigan’s moderating effect on temperatures along the western side of the state that conditions were excellent for the growing of fruit crops including cherries, apples, peaches and plums. The Grand Traverse Bay area proved to be exceptionally good due to the double peninsulas jutting out into the bay which gave the added benefit of water on both sides Through the years mostly driven by profitability, most growers ultimately specialized in cherries and Traverse City became known as the “Cherry Capitol of the World” with a week long festival to celebrate the annual harvest.  A major affect of this specialization, however, has been an economy that is dependent on the success of the annual crop. A boom in good years can be offset by a late frost destroying a major part of the crop in a subsequent year. 

This reporter recently interviewed Dr. F. G. Bascomb, at a producing cherry farm in Michigan's Leelanau County. He is a spokesperson for the Midwest Economic Futures Co-op (MEFCO) and had some exciting news for the fruit growers in this region. Dr. Bascomb announced that he and Mr. Duns Scotus the owner of a cherry farm here in Leelanau County, Michigan, along with several other growers from the region were recently invited to tour Michigan State University's fruit marketing research laboratory in East Lansing. The facility was established in 1994, to research and develop alternative crops to alleviate Western Michigan’s economic dependence on the cherry industry. Jointly funded by the Northwestern Economic Futures Association (NEFA) and the Cherryland Fruit Cooperative (CHEFCO), the labs have had some success in introducing new fruiting crops here Leelanau County including wine grapes and hops. Within the past ten years several vineyards and their companion wineries have been established and the area has developed a solid reputation for its excellent wines. In addition some growers have already began growing hops for use in the malted beverage industry.

Their latest endeavor though and the reason for our visit was to announce their latest breakthrough. In the summer of 1997 it occurred to Professor Sylvia Ajau, Chief Research Biotechnologist that since the olive is a species of Mediterranean evergreen, it might be possible to molecularly clone recombinant DNA from native evergreens into the Mediterranean fruiting olive genome and thereby produce a variety of fruiting olive that could withstand our northern climate. Three years later in early 2000 she and her laboratory assistants were rewarded with the first laboratory version of what they now refer to as the “Northern Olive”. Since then they have been hard at work to produce a sustainable and commercially viable Northern Olive. The final breakthrough came when they discovered that they could graft Northern Olive shoots onto the root stock of it’s cousin the hearty ornamental Russian Olive. Consequently, the announcement that the Northern Olive is now ready for “prime time playing”. Three growers who for the present time must remain anonymous have already established experimental groves and it is expected that within ten years Leelanau County, Michigan will have several producing olive groves.

Who knows, ten years from now your martini may be garnished with a home grown Michigan olive.

"The Weather Outside Was Frightful"

Following our decision to leave the open road and no longer Fulltime, we were braced for our first northern winter in six years. Surprisingly though, we were blessed with one of the mildest winters in history, that is, up to now. Evidently mother nature came to realize that she hadn't  been paying attention to us here in Leelanau County, Michigan so last Friday, March 2, she blessed the entire northwestern Lake Michigan shoreline with one of the heaviest snowfalls in history. 

The TV weatherman had warned that there was to be a snowfall that evening so we weren't particularly alarmed as the snow began to fall early in the evening. However around nine-thirty PM we began to get momentary power interruptions and about twenty minutes later we suddenly went dark. We lifted the shades and peered out into the darkness but couldn't see much other than the fact that it was snowing. So what did we do?...well, we went to bed, confident that power would probably be restored by morning...WRONG! 

The next morning, Saturday, March 3 there was still no power and daylight revealed an amazing sight of trees and branches bent to the ground, laden with wet heavy snow. Actually it was a beautiful sight to see all of the evergreen trees with snow on their branches

Here and there broken branches littered our yard and an adjacent wooded area. Teddy had left our only battery powered radio at the thrift shop where she volunteers so we had no idea of how widespread the power outage was until we phoned Teddy's sister, Deb Lawrence. Deb told us that there was a widespread power outage covering approximately eleven counties and not counting us there were some 199,999 homes without power or 200,000 including us.

Fortunately we have this portable 2500 watt generator that we used while RVing, so after a breakfast of cold cereal and coffee heated with a Bernzomatic propane hand torch we retrieved the generator from my basement workshop and carried it to the front porch. Teddy shoveled a path through waist deep snow to the garage to retrieve a five gallon can of garden tractor gasoline, while I fabricated a reverse engineered connection cable to connect the generator to the house through a porch electrical outlet. We gassed up the generator, I shut off the main circuit breaker so that I wouldn't back feed into the power grid, the generator started on the second pull and "Bob's Your Uncle".
We now had enough power to run the furnace, refrigerator/freezer, internet modem, radio and some limited lighting. 

It wasn't until we listened to the radio that we realized the scope of the event. There was widespread devastation everywhere with snow choked roads and downed trees & power lines. 

Sometime Saturday afternoon a plow was able to clear a single track on our road despite having to clear fallen trees every quarter mile or so. We were prepared to be without power for several days but fortunately we were on one of the first power trunks that was restored and late Sunday afternoon our power came back on. 

By that time both lanes of our road were plowed and our friend and contractor, Gerrard Belanger had plowed our driveway to the garage so that we could get our car out.

Gerrard has a huge 6x6 5 ton military surplus truck similar to this that he put a PU bed on and outfitted it with a plow to use for his snowplowing business. He has been putting in 16 hour days since the storm started.

Monday afternoon we took a short drive to look at the damaged cherry orchards. Most of the local orchards have a lot of trees that are lost due to the splitting of trunks and branches.

Now, exactly one week later, there are still several thousand people without power in the eleven county area.
There are at least four different power companies that I know of that still have customers without power. They are Cherryland Electric (our provider), Great Lakes Energy, Traverse City Light & Power, and Consumers Energy. Current predictions are for most people to have power by next Monday with the possible exceptions of those that lost their individual drop. In fact our drywall finisher, Steve Stowe told me today that a tree fell on his line and tore the vertical pipe that anchors the power line off of his house so he will most likely be one of the last people to be restored.

Another aspect for us is that the work on our bathroom remodeling has come to a sudden halt. The house is a mess with construction tools and lumber scattered about and the new powder room is our only working bathroom.

Not to complain though as we can be thankful that after the snow melts we will still have our homes, unlike those poor folks in southern Indiania that were struck by a tornado several days ago.







UPDATE Friday morning March 9, 9:30am EST


At 9am this morning we again lost power and are once again running my little Yamaha generator. So apparently we aren't out of the woods yet. Don't know how widespread this second outage is but neighbors a mile down the road report that they too are out. Oh well...at least we have each other.  


UPDATE Friday morning March 9, 12:00 Noon EST


We have power again. High winds today had toppled another tree across power lines a mile west of here. A cold blustery day today but there's a light at the end of the tunnel...highs tomorrow predicted to be in the 40s and then in the 50s all next week. Spring is just around the corner. "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy"

UPDATE Sunday morning March 11, 8:00 am EDT


Following is an article about the storm that appeared in today's issue of the Traverse City Record Eagle.

March 11, 2012

A STORM FOR THE CENTURY

As many as 200,000 lost power in massive storm last weekend

Record-Eagle

Traverse City — BY BRIAN McGILLIVARY

bmcgillivary@record-eagle.com

JAMES RUSSELL

jrussell@record-eagle.com

and ART BUKOWSKI

abukowski@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — The March 2012 storm: epitome of in-like-a-lion, stuff of local lore.

We’ll be talking about it for years.

Snowfall that measured by the foot, a 12-hour barrage that massed and felt like poured cement. Flattened shrubs and tree limbs that snapped and cracked and sounded all the world like gunshots.

Impassable roads, an eerie morning-after scene dominated by stark white, and, for thousands of households and businesses, darkness.

Perhaps 200,000 northern Michigan electricity users lost power late Friday, March 2 and into Saturday as falling trees clipped power lines.

Laurie Klingelsmith lost power at her Green Lake Township home on Friday at about 11 p.m. The lights didn’t come back on until Sunday at 7 p.m. On Saturday, she and her family headed to Traverse City to stay with her mother, but travel wasn’t easy.
 “We had to chainsaw our way out of the driveway,” Klingelsmith said.
 Before the power returned, Klingelsmith’s clan scrambled to collect oil lamps, wood and other supplies. Next time, she said, they’ll be prepared.
 “I told my husband this was the time to have an emergency stash,” she said.

Traverse City resident Christine Jaymes gathered flashlights and candles before the storm hit. She and her husband lost power for about 24 hours and the items came in handy.
 “We knew it was coming,” she said. “This time, the weatherman was right.”

Tart cherries decimated
 Area cherry farmers reported widespread damage to orchards. Older tart cherry trees took the brunt.
 Overall damage estimates range from a low of 5 percent to a high of 20 percent of the cherry crop in Leelanau, Grand Traverse, Benzie, and Antrim counties, experts said.
 “We got our butt kicked, said Leelanau County farmer Jeff Send. “It could equate to the loss of 15 to 20 million pounds of product, and it’s not just gone this year, it’s gone for the next 10 years.”
Send rode a snowmobile to check on one of his blocks of 400, 10-year-old trees that are nestled in a wooded area to protect them from wind damage.
This storm threw a curve at Send. Snow fell in waves over the taller woodlot and directly onto the fruit trees nearest the woods.
 “I’ve been farming all my life -- I’m 58 years old -- and I’ve never seen anything like this storm,” Send said. “The first three-to-five rows up against the woods, it was just more weight than the trees could support.”

Rob Manigold, a Peninsula Township cherry farmer, said orchards there sustained heavy damage, though losses primarily were confined to older tart cherry trees.

Francis Otto of Cherry Bay Orchards reported spotty storm damage to his crop north of Suttons Bay. Some blocks of trees showed no damage, but older orchards were hard hit, with up to 35 percent of tart cherry trees destroyed.
 “As the wood gets older it starts to get brittle and they just snapped off,” Otto said.

Apple and sweet cherry trees appeared to have escaped serious problems, and vineyards aren’t the worse for wear, said Nikki Rothwell, district horticulturist at the Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Station.
 Rothwell said farmers won’t be able to come up with firm damage estimates until they’re able to access their back lots.


Officially, the storm dumped between 19 and 23 inches of heavy, wet snow on Leelanau County, but emergency management officials said they received unofficial reports of up to 3 feet of snow in some areas.

Leelanau County officials asked Gov. Rick Snyder to declare the county a disaster for agricultural purposes, a designation that could provide farmers state and federal assistance.
“Usually it’s just a low-interest loan, but a loan is just a loan and you still have to pay it back,”  Leelanau County farmer Steve Kalchik said.
The storm snapped branches or leveled entire trees. Damage varied, depending on how much snow fell,  Kalchik said.

Dark days

The wacky winter of 2011-12 already cut into revenue at the nonprofit ski hill, Mount Holiday, just outside Traverse City. A slow start to the season pushed back the opening date and business was hit-and-miss in the new year.

Then the storm hit and cut power to the ski area from early Saturday through Thursday night.

“It’s been a hard year,” said Michelle Konstanzer, Mount Holiday’s food and beverage director. “We couldn’t open in beginning because there wasn’t enough snow, now we couldn’t open up because too much snow.”
 Konstanzer estimates the resort lost out on $20,000 in revenue last week, and workers were forced to throw out about $8,000 worth of food. It’s a big hit for the nonprofit, which already faced an uphill funding battle amid the bad economy.
 “I’m not taking a paycheck, so I can help my staff ... I have people trying to raise kids, and they just got the week off with no pay. For those living paycheck to paycheck, that’s not easy,” she said.

Mount Holiday was one of nearly 20,000 Cherryland Electric Cooperative customers — more than half the utility’s 34,000 customers — that lost power last week. Tony Anderson, the utility’s general manager, said the damage was the worst for Cherryland in at least 35 years.
 “People who have worked here all that time have been telling me they’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.
 Cherryland was one of the last utilities to restore service to all its customers; fewer than 500 were still without power Friday morning. Anderson acknowledged the utility had difficulty finding outside crews to assist in the storm’s aftermath.
 “We were short-handed in the beginning, but there were 200,000 people out of power in all of northern Michigan, and it was tough to get crews,” Anderson said. “I had all my people, but I didn’t have a lot of extra help until Monday.”
 By Tuesday, 25 crews were at work on Cherryland lines. Fifteen more crews were at work by Thursday.
 Faced with a flood of incoming calls to report outages, Cherryland staffers turned to Facebook to keep its customers informed.
 “We’d tried really hard, but you have to understand, we’ll never be where we can answer 20,000 phone calls. We can’t even handle 5,000 phone calls, but 364 days of the year we don’t need to. So we used Facebook to alleviate that,” Anderson said. “People mainly just wanted to know what’s going on. It was a pretty good tool.”

Traverse City Light & Power also struggled to handle the influx of callers.
 “The phone system got locked up early in the process,” said Executive Director Ed Rice. “With so many coming in at once, even the answering system got overloaded. People just got locked out of communication. We need to do better there.”
 Rice said 8,000 of Light & Power’s 11,500 customers were without power at the storm’s peak. Almost all had their power restored by Monday night.
 “We were able to acquire downstate crews pretty early in process. We started calling about midnight on Friday,” he said.

More than 60,000 Great Lakes Energy customers were in the dark at some point, said Dave Guzniczak, the utility’s spokesman. Heavy snow made it difficult for crews to repair the lines.
 “It was very difficult to get to trouble spots. Some you couldn’t get trucks to, other trucks were getting stuck. It was even difficult with snowmobiles and snowshoes,” Guzniczak said. “Two years ago in October, we had a two- or three-day wind storm that actually created more outages — over 90,000. But we probably restored power quicker when we had 90,000 because didn’t have to deal with this wet, heavy snow.”

Mount Holiday’s Konstanzer is upset that the power outages took such a heavy financial toll on the nonprofit, but said Cherryland and the other utilities did the best they could under the circumstances. Her husband works for a power company, and he’s shared stories of devastation after tornadoes and hurricanes elsewhere in the country.
 “We didn’t lose any lives, just food,” she said. “Food can be replaced, lives can’t.”

Biggest since ’78?

Traverse City Police Capt. Steve Morgan believes the storm was the biggest since the famous blizzard of 1978.
 “Looking back, I can’t remember a storm ... that had that large an impact on the city,” he said. “I don’t ever remember getting that much heavy, wet snow in such a short period of time.”
 Residents generally stayed off city streets during the early period of the storm, Morgan said. But plenty ventured out later; some just sought information about when roads would be cleared or power returned.
 Morgan said he hopes residents learn from this storm and create a stash of emergency.
 “Everybody should take the responsibility for themselves and be prepared to stay in their homes for a couple of days if they have to ... . I think up here, people should realize that being out of power for 24 hours, 36 hours or even two days is a very real possibility.”

The storm wreaked havoc in the region, but no serious injuries were reported. And that’s remarkable, police said, with all the icy roads, downed power lines and tree limbs and other hazards.

“It’s unfortunate that people went a week without power, but to not have anybody injured seriously, we’re very fortunate,” Grand Traverse sheriff’s Capt. Randy Fewless said.

Gerry Thibert lives near Torch Lake in Antrim County’s Milton Township. He heats with wood, and nearly all of his neighbors who had gas-fired heat lost it during the storm.
 So he had about 15 to 20 neighbors over to his house, and they learned to appreciate his old-fashioned method.
 “They always wondered why we continued to heat with wood,” he said. “They sure thought it came in handy this time. We were the only ones who had heat.”
 Thibert said plenty of people who lived around him helped their fellow neighbors, so in a way, the storm was uplifting.
 “It brought our neighborhood closer together,” he said.

Linda Miller, who lives on Veterans Drive in Traverse City, wasn’t without power for long. She didn’t mind not having the ability to use her television and other appliances.
 “You get so used to all of those amenities,” she said.

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Plumbers, and Carpenters, and Electricians, Oh My!

It seems that I do some of my best thinking after I go to bed while I am waiting to go to sleep The ole’ brain starts to rev up and new ideas float around in my mind.

A lot of my nighttime musings don’t hold up in the light of day but a couple of weeks ago I got to thinking about our bathroom. Although it never bothered me much, Teddy has never liked the fact that the bathroom is located off the living room. I suppose that she is right but this is an old farmhouse originally built in the late 1800s before most houses had inside plumbing. Teddy can still remember that when she was a young girl they had an outdoor outhouse and had to carry water into the house by the pailful.

What followed was that through the years as the family grew more prosperous and was handed down generation to generation, new rooms were added to the original structure. They were, in order, a kitchen on the east side of the house, a living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom on the north side and an entrance foyer on the south side. As it happens, the bathroom is adjacent to the bedroom which is also  entered from the living room. So as I lie all tucked in my bed, musings of bathrooms floated in my head, “Why not cut a door into the bathroom from the bedroom and make it the master bath”? “Hmmm, this, however, would necessitate constructing a new powder room for guests on the other end of the house off the foyer and extensive remodeling of the existing bathroom”....and right about then, I fell asleep.

The following morning when I had risen, a quarter after seven; I recounted my musings of the night before to Teddy and she liked the idea and urged me to call Gerrard Belanger, our contractor, to investigate the possibility.

Gerrard reaffirmed that it was possible, Teddy got all excited and started to rearrange furniture, and I thought, “Oh, no!, What have I done? There goes another chunk of our meager savings.”

So...for the past week we have had Erich Hallett, our plumber/electrician, Gerrard and Jason Belanger, our carpenter/drywallers, and Steve Stowe the drywall finisher all working feverishly to make it happen.


At this point the new powder-room is finished ..........

and work is now progressing on the new master bath.

This is a drawing of the new remodeled master bath adjoining the bedroom



















Hopefully we are all done with the farmhouse upgrading.............but...........no promises, if there's anything I've learned through the years, there are always new ideas that can slowly develop in the back of my mind and then suddenly erupt into a conscious thought.

It kinda' works like this!

Catching Up

It seems that I have been negligent lately in keeping up with our blog. Reason being, that in May 2005 after selling our home in Appleton, Wisconsin we purchased a large 5th wheel RV, a heavy duty PU truck and began our adventure of traveling and living full-time in an RV. This blog was created shortly afterward on 1/1/2006 so that our family and friends might follow us in our travels.
Mainly because of health concerns, this spring after six years on the road we decided to discontinue full-time RVing and moved into the Schlueter family farmhouse on a cherry farm in Leelanau County Michigan. We have a life lease on the house which has been vacant since the passing of Teddy's parents.
Teddy's brother, John owns and operates the farm and lives in his own house across the road from us.
And, since we are not RVing any more, I no longer feel compelled to update the blog very often.
Life on the farm or any permeant home for that matter, although not boring, is much more static than while traveling as day to day events often repeat themselves. I will, however, make an entry every so often for the benefit of the many RV friends that we have made while traveling.

Lets see  now...where was I...oh yeah...life on the farm... or "The Farm" as we have named our newly remodeled farmhouse.
I won't go into the updating and remodeling which actually began two years ago as it has been well documented in previous blogs.
We now have obtained Michigan drivers licenses and have registered to vote so as of January 1, 2012 we are now legal Michigan residents. We still remain loyal Packer fans even though we seem to be outnumbered by Lion loyalists. Some things just have to be regarded as sacrosanct.  ;-)
This winter I have been catching up on my reading, we both read on Kindles; I logged over 60 books read last year on two different web sites for readers Shelfari and Goodreads If you are a reader I highly recommend joining a readers club. It is an excellent resource for exchanging reviews and other info with like minded readers. Teddy has also been kept busy working as a volunteer at two local different thrift stores, one in Traverse City on Mondays and one in Lake Leelanau on Thursdays.
Up to now were fortunate to have an unusually mild winter but winter has now struck in its full fury with blizzard conditions for the past two days.

Here is how "The Farm" looked when we arrived

last  May...

...and this is how it looked last week, before our current blizzard.

As for the snow, the nice thing about being retired is the fact that we don't have anywhere that we have to go to; we don't even have to walk out to the mailbox to pick-up our social security check as we have direct deposit. So let it snow, and if need be I can do most of our shopping on the internet and let UPS & FedEx do the driving. Hell, you can even buy groceries on Amazon.com.

Life in the 21st century is good!

THIS IS WHERE WE LIVE!!

If I do say so myself, we live in one of the best places on planet Earth.

The following is from The U.S. News & World Report which listed The Traverse City area third in "The 10 best places to retire in 2012"...

The 10 Best Places to Retire in 2012

These cities will meet your retirement lifestyle needs and suit your budget

By EMILY BRANDON

October 17, 2011 

Water views on a budget: Traverse City, Mich.

Dream of retiring to a lake house? The Traverse City area offers more than 180 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline and 149 large lakes measuring 10 acres or more. Residents can climb the high sand dunes and lounge on the freshwater beaches at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, or take a ferry out to the Manitou Islands. There are also plenty of opportunities for boating on the twin Grand Traverse Bays. Housing prices in this lakeside city average a reasonable $155,715.

...and this is from the Denver Post, Oct 15, 2011

October 15, 2011

TRAVEL

Indulge your inner hermit in Michigan's Leelanau Private beach hideaway By Tucker Shaw  The Denver Post Unspoiled dunes and crystal-clear water draw more than 1.3 million visitors a year to Leelanau Peninsula. (Courtesy of the Leelanau Herald) There's something strange about the beach here. It's not the fact that it stretches for miles, white sand as far as you can see. It's not the fact that the water is fresh, so the mist tossed into the air by the crashing waves doesn't carry a briney aroma. It's the fact that you're the only one here. Oh, glory. The Leelanau Peninsula (pronounced LEE-lah- naw), located at the tip of the pinky finger of Michigan's mitten, was never on my shortlist of places to visit. Until, that is, I spent a week there. Now, I'm eager to return. It's in the sweet spot for domestic tourism: Plenty of infrastructure for visitors, but not a crowd to be found. Deep evergreen woods, reminiscent of the Maine coast, line Temperate weather makes Leelanau a great place to grow cherries, wine grapes and apples. (Courtesy of the Leelanau Herald) the Lake Michigan coastline. It gives you the feeling of remoteness and privacy, even when you're just a mile or two out of town (that town being, depending on your travel planning, Leland, Northport, Suttons Bay or Glen Haven). If you wanted to, you could go full-bore hermit here, and rarely see another soul. But a quarter-mile in from the big lake, you'll find a lovely, civilized, urbane community, fairly buzzing with activity. Much of the land has been cleared to make way for orchards (cherries and apples abound) and vineyards (there may be more wineries per square mile here than any place I've ever been). It adds up to a picturesque slice of Americana that, while rooted in tradition, is anything but old-fashioned. The foodie scene in Leelanau is intense (Is that Mario Batali at the farmers market in Northport? Yes, it is!). This is particularly true in the summer months, when the rich Midwest soil throws forth fruits and vegetables with enthusiasm. Produce here rivals the best anywhere, and every tiny town has a farmers market — honest-to-goodness farmers markets, staffed by local farmers, not farmers from other parts of the state or faux-farmers hawking produce they picked up off a truck. Historic Fishtown on the northwest shore of Lake Michigan in Leland. (Courtesy of the Leelanau Herald) And if you happen to miss market day, you'll find tomatoes, corn and lettuces at the end of nearly every driveway in the county. Just drop a couple of bucks in the jar, bag your goods and head back to your rented house to cook 'em up. Renting a house is the best way to handle lodging in Leelanau (there are dozens listed on vrbo.com). Here's why: The restaurant scene, while passable, is limited, so having your own kitchen is a big plus. Pick up some smoked fish and wine in Leland, some steaks in Cedar, a pie down in Traverse City, and some fruit and vegetables along the way, and you're good. If your budget is generous, you'll want a house on the big lake, Lake Michigan, where the sunsets sprawl across cocktail hour and where after dinner you can build a fire on the beach (hello, s'mores). When you do choose to go out, your best breakfast is a cinnamon twist from Barb's Bakery in Northport. Midwesterners do know their way around baked goods, and this soft, homey, not-overly-sweet breakfast pastry is no exception. Lunch calls for a sandwich and a "Chubby Mary" (a Bloody Mary garnished with a small smoked whitefish, whole) at The Cove, located on Leland's charming dockside strip. You'll find sandwiches and salads and an excellent whitefish spread. If you're picnicking, visit the Village Cheese Shanty. They stock plenty of local wine, too. For a special dinner, visit the upscale Riverside Inn, also in Leland, If your budget is generous, you'll want a house on Lake Michigan, with its sprawling sunsets. (Andy Fishering ) for their resplendent Porchetta plate, a slow-roasted spiral of local pork belly rich with herbs and fat and a barely sharp red wine sauce. (You won't finish it, so take the rest home for lunch tomorrow.) For a more casual dinner and a chance to hang with the locals, head to Fischers Happy Hour, halfway between Leland and Northport. You'll grab a burger and a beer, or perhaps a bowl of navy-bean soup. Another option, the Bluebird Bar in Leland, for a basket of fried smelt and a glass of Michigan wine. This being Michigan, there's water everywhere, including many smaller "inland" lakes in driving distance — the most notable being Lake Leelanau, which stretches for much of the length of the peninsula and offers swimming, fishing and generalized hanging out. (Don't skip a swim here: The water's much warmer than in the big lake.) Summer is not the only season on the Leelanau Peninsula — far from it. This region rivals New England for fall foliage. Bring a sweater: The average October temperatures top out at about 59 degrees. Tucker Shaw: tshaw@denverpost.com,  twitter.com/tucker_shaw Leelanau Insider's Guide Get here:Your best bet is to fly to Traverse City. United/SkyWest operates one daily direct flight starting at $547 round-trip. Dine In Northport Fischer's Happy Hour Tavern, 7144 N Manitou Trail, 231-386-9923 Barb's Bakery, 112 N. Mill St., 231-386-5851 In Leland Bluebird Bar, 102 River St., 231-256-9081, leelanau.com/bluebird The Cove, 111 River St., 231-256-9834, thecoveleland.com Riverside Inn, 302 River St., 231-256-9971, theriverside-inn.com Meats Pleva's Meats, 8974 South Kasson St., Cedar, 231-228-5000, plevasmeats.com Pies Grand Traverse Pie Co., 101 N. Park Street, Traverse City, 231-933-3972, gtpie.com  Follow Tucker Shaw on Twitter.

Read more:Indulge your inner hermit in Michigan's Leelanau - The Denver Posthttp://www.denverpost.com/travel/ci_19107370#.TpuXV6lQ2Pk.email#ixzz1bdXELnIX




The only possible bad downside to all of this sudden publicity is that we could be suddenly overrun with with a population influx, driving property values up and straining our available resources.

But, then again, "A stranger is a friend that you haven't met yet", so come ahead and be my neighbor.