Sam-saturday--Something About Me

in #sam-saturday6 years ago (edited)

SAM Saturday challenge by @bluemoon is a wonderful way for all of us to get to know a little more about each other.

When my kids were growing up we owned a summer cabin in the Chequamegon National Forest on the Mondeaux Flowage in Wisconsin.

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Like most summer cottages at the time it was never intended for winter use and what little primitive plumbing it had needed to to be drained and winterized before winter came, so going to the cabin in the winter presented a few challenges!

There was an artisan well that provided year round running water, but it meant hauling water in a bucket for use in the kitchen, and the bathroom option in the winter was the old outhouse down the little path in the woods.

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Using the outhouse wasn't as scary to me as bumping into a bear was. That happened one time. The poor bear may have been more scared than I was and we both ran really fast in opposite directions.

Keeping warm was easy enough as long as we kept the fire built up in the woodburning stove.

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We brought our snowblower along and used it to make a skating rink out on the lake for the kids, but even with the mosquitoes, we all enjoyed going to the cabin more in the summertime!

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We sold the cabin in the late 90's when the kids got busy with summer jobs and months would pass with no time to even go up to mow the grass. I miss it, but I don't miss all the maintenance that it required!

Shadow Photo Contest Round 52- Night Shadows



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How fun and what great memories I’m sure you made there!

Lots of good memories! Even though we no longer own the cabin it is still fun to go back and enjoy the lake and the forest.

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Hi melinda.
The cabin is beautiful and clean. But I really liked, the cabin is located in a convenient and peaceful nature. I also see the Sun, do the cabin near the Lake?
Thanks for this @melinda010100
Enjoy the holidays

Thanks! The cabin was on a small hill above the lake and there was a grassy path to get to the water image

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Thank you! ❤️

I keep telling my family that I would love a little cottage on a lake. I bet you have wonderful memories from this!

I do have some great memories. We sold it furnished and when I look at these old photos I keep seeing things and thinking why did I get them that? I wish I would have kept that! Actually, I found having the cabin extremely limiting. If I wanted to travel and go and see something else on a weekend I always felt guilty because the grass at the cabin needed to be mowed. I would rather be free to travel and see lots of different places and rent a cabin when I want to stay at a place that I found that I like. I would prefer to let someone else do all the maintenance!

That makes sense. I am thinking that my son will probably end up in the UP. If he does, that would be a great place for a cabin/cottage because I would be traveling to see him on a regular basis. I have used Airbnb...and I really liked that...but it is dependent on availability. I would like to go when I want to go. Some day...

The UP would be a wonderful place for a summer cabin! And I suspect they are still affordable up there.

That is what I am hoping! :)

It will be fun to watch and see what you decide to do. Wouldn't it be fun to go cabin shopping and do posts about everything that you find!?

That would be fun!

You're a very brave woman, Melinda.
I would not have even to spend the night standing alone in a cabin in the woods national nature reserve Chequamegon.
What if that bear was aggressive and attacked you? You had guns?

Black bear attacks are extremely rare. I would not be scared. Grizzly bears would cause me to worry, though, but we do not have them in Wisconsin. I have never felt the need for a gun.

Awesome photos and awesome memories. I sadly read an article about the dying cabin culture in Minnesota. Not enough of the new generations are buying into every weekend up north at the cabin. The maintenance and the commitment of time. Rentals are more popular. Or lake houses that have all the amenities of their home in the Twin Cities.

The summer cabin that my grandparents owned in Wisconsin for 50 years was torn down and a big new four-bedroom house was built on the site. It breaks my heart, and I have only been by there one time.

🤗
@melinda010100
Awesome. A beautiful cabin and spot......!!!!
I'm sure you do miss it 💕
Your description is pretty much how I live at my offgrid cabin. The long cold Winters are most hard..!! My only heat is woodstove and pitcher hand pump..
The woodstove looks like a Garrison..?. I used to have one but I have a Fisher stove now.
(:

Wow! You are good! It is a Garrison with a soapstone top. We had it in our home for almost 10 years before we moved into a different house. When we bought the cabin it made sense to pull the stove out of storage and put it in there. The house that we moved into we installed a wood-burning furnace, that was combination wood/propane gas. I miss having wood Heat, but I don't miss the mess!

😊
It's a great stove. I didn't have the soap stone top. That would have been awesome. I only replaced it with the moma bear fisher stove because it fits better on the stone hearth. I cook and heat my water on the woodstove. Works great.
(:

😊
It's a great stove. I didn't have the soap stone top. That would have been awesome. I only replaced it with the moma bear fisher stove because it fits better on the stone hearth. I cook and heat my water on the woodstove. Works great.
(:

The Fisher's are fantastic stoves, too. I'm envious of your life style! I have physical limitations these days that keep me from doing so many of the things that I had once imagined myself doing.

This surely was a lot of maintenance, as you write, I believe you !
This cottage is so lovely, I love the stones on the facade and the part in wood also, this makes a charming place in nature ! I would have been scared meeting a bear ! ^_^

That was the only time I've ever seen a bear in Wisconsin! I encountered one one other time when I was canoeing in Minnesota, and we had set up camp on an island and I was cooking over a campfire. The bear smelled the food and wandered into camp. We had secured most of the food in a pack with ropes hanging from a tree, but this guy had obviously raided that camp before! After scaring the daylights out of me and causing me to head down to the lake shore with a canoe paddle in my hand, he came right over to the campfire and knocked my pan of food off the fire on to the ground where he proceeded to eat everything I had out on the picnic table while he waited for the pan to cool off so that he could lick that clean. I was left with a very battered lightweight aluminum cooking pot when he finally left. We packed up and canoed to a different site before we set up camp for the night! Mostly I was furious that he ate the chocolate brownies that I had been hoarding in the bottom of the food pack and had been looking forward to so much, after a week out in the wilderness with no sugar!

Oh my goodness !! This story made my day my dear ^_^ You have such incredible experiences to tell, this is pure happiness !

Ha! You provided me with the opening to tell this tale! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

These are some beautiful photos. I'm sure you and the boys really enjoyed the time they spent here

It was a good place to be close to nature!

If it's a beautiful place, you sure have beautiful memories of that place. Less when the bear came

Your kinds were really lucky to have such an experience, even if it was little bit challenging. Those are the stories that will be told for generations 🌸💖🌸

Thank you! I had so many great opportunities to teach my kids about nature. Being in the middle of a forest was pretty wonderful!

There is nothing better 😊

I can image the cost, not to mention the work in maintaining a cabin.
It's nice and inviting in the Summer, but Winter will be a bit of a challenge. But still something nice, and different to do, once in a while for a couple of days.

It stopped being fun when it became a requirement... and all the time there was spent doing repairs and chores!

Great times and I love the way you tell your memories. How vivid they are. Thank you
Our summer cabin was a tent for tw to three weeks of road trips each summer.
Love

I love tent camping. I wish I could do that still, but the last time I went I was stiff enough in the morning that I was afraid I would never be able to get up off the ground. And I also realized that it would work far better for me if my tent was directly next to the bathroom. Took a lot of the fun out of tent camping!

They have these great airmatresses and I got me a gallon bucket some trashbags to fit it and a swimming noodle then made a toilet so I do not have to walk early in morning.

Abbi and I go at least once a year the fire is my faborite part.

Love

I love the campfire, too! Sounds like you are all set to camp!

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Wonderful memories! I love your stories about the holidays in the forest.

Thanks! Tell me if I start repeating myself! I have heard that old people might do that! 😜

Ha ha ... I just thought before I read that it would be something you've talked about but it was not like that. It was a new story.
It's happening to me all the time to repeat the same memories ...

I had an 'opportunity' recently to spend some time with my kid's dad. We were divorced over 20 years ago. He repeatedly shared the same memories over and over. And the funny part was I kept thinking wait a minute. I was there. That is not my memory of how it happened at all! Sometimes I would share my memory of how it happened, but most of the time I just let him have his version and thought you know what? If that makes him happy to remember it that way that's really what it's all about. It belongs to him.

That is, we each have our versions. Very nice to let him believe in his version ... although we all try to look better in our versions. You told us something about you now!

I often check my version with what the kids remember just so I know I am not altering reality!

Yes, it's the best way to check.

Love the cat! It looks like he found a great spot, there on the rug.

He was the best cat ever! TJ. He was bi-eyed, one blue and one green and had an attitude that he could take on the world. He never met a dog that he was afraid of and anytime anyone rang the doorbell he ran to the door to welcome them. I watched him one time out in the yard
milling around between a herd of deer that were passing through and actually touching noses with one. And another time I watched him chase a flock of turkeys out of the yard. He never killed anything that I was aware of. But he was terrified of babies and would climb to the top of the kitchen cupboards if there was a baby in the house. He was the coolest guy.

Howdy tonight Melinda! wow that is a really great looking cabin! That looks like so much fun. Glad you guys got to use it for some years.

That's where I was when I had the encounter with the beaver while I was in my kayak! Lots of memories.

I think I would almost perfer it in the winter if it had a modern water and sewer system, spend time cutting wood and having a roaring fireplace. plus it would be so beautiful and quiet when it snowed, not to mention the scenery!

Yeah, it was the modern water and sewer system that was lacking! It was so beautiful to be in the middle of the forest when it snowed. The lack of man made noise made all the natural sounds so much sweeter. In the summertime you can hear four wheelers traveling around out on the gravel roads, and boat motors on the lake. There would be the occasional snowmobiler, but we were miles from bars so that seemed to keep that crowd away! The people that bought it from us tore it down and rebuilt it, and put in a septic system, so I'm assuming it now has all the needed updates. They pretty much kept the same design, with more windows and used the original fieldstone to face the exterior. I believe they retained the same fireplace also. I'm guessing that now it can be used year-round very comfortably.

Howdy Melinda! Well that is what I imagined it to be, so nice of a get away. If the stuff hits the fan like so many preppers on here think it will, then that would make a nice place to go.

How has your day gone so far, getting alot done?

This looks like the perfect place for summer vacation. I love the outside decoration, those stones look great.

The people that bought it from us pretty much tore it down and rebuilt it with modern plumbing and updated insulation and windows. They did reuse the fieldstone on the exterior, though.