Seasons on Lone Lake

Father's Day

2007-06-21T19:15:00.000-05:00

Weekend of 6/26 - 6/17

Thursday night we got to thinking that we should invite Shaun's parents up to the cabin, since it wasn't their weekend at their cabin and they hadn't had the chance to get up there yet because of their preparation for Casandra's graduation party. We called them Friday morning, they called around to reschedule their weekend commitments and beat us up there on Friday night.

We had a good weekend, staying up until 2am Friday night talking in the guest cabin. We worked together to get the lawn mowed at this cabins and my parents' cabin across the bay as well as fixed the guest cabin hot water.

Sunday, the Dufresne's were in the area and dropped in!

Actually they called ahead on Friday and set it up, and it worked out perfectly! With the beautiful weather, Joe and his brother came up to their property near Garrison to clear trees in preparation for digging a foundation soon. Rather than have their respective wives be home alone with the kids--as they already do all week--they came along, juggled cars, and brought the kids over to our place for the day while Joe and Mike cut trees. Joe and Mike made it over to our place to join everyone in the late afternoon.

With the beautiful weather, we played in the sand box, sat in the sun, played a little baseball, went for a couple boat rides, swam in the water, had watermelon and other goodies, and grilled supper. We really feel that the more the merrier, and on this day we entertained 3 families of 4, plus a family of 2, a dog (Tango), and two cats (Pooh and Cramer).

The fun part is that the Dufresnes are scheduled to return next weekend.

Guy's Weekend: 6/1 - 6/3

2007-06-04T13:20:00.000-05:00

It was Craig Zweber, Bob Wicklund, and Jason Boesch joining Shaun at the cabin this weekend. All friends from being on the University of Minnesota drumline together and all lived at the same house in college.

This was a good weekend to have just the guys, as Liz had an Usborne Books booth at St. Paul's Grand Old Day.

After getting about an hour out of town on the way up, Shaun realized he forgot the food he bought the night before at the grocery store. It was a good thing he took off work and left early, so he was able to run to the new County Market in Aitkin to re-buy everything...

Got the lawn mowed before they got there, and then we went out for dinner at the Knotty Pine Friday night.

Saturday after putting in the pontoon boat and boat lift over at my parents cabin, we did some water skiing behind Craig's boat in wet suits. We waved at my cousin, Jim, on the way past his dock. Over on the other side of the lake, we stopped and talked to some new friends, Pete and Reya (sp?). Craig's mom knows them from owning Leo's bar in New Market. We sat and talked at the end of their dock over a few beers for probably an hour.

The four of us grilled steaks for dinner, put together egg bake for Sunday's breakfast, and then hung out at the campfire pretty much all night. The brush pile is finally almost gone. It would have been all gone but we just ran out of night.

Sunday we got up late and ate egg bake for breakfast. We went out and water skied one more time.

We cleaned up and left by 5pm and stopped at the Blue Goose for supper on the way home.

Good times.

Memorial Weekend

2007-05-29T12:31:00.000-05:00

Weekend of 5/26-5/28, 2007

We brought up Nicky and Jean, who stayed in the guest cabin. Unfortunately the guest cabin still doesn't have hot water--I checked the power to the water heater, and that's fine. The power is also getting through the top thermostat to the top element. The bottom ones don't seem to be getting power, though. So I've pulled out the thermostats to replace them first. If that doesn't fix it, I'll be draining the water heater, pulling the elements, and running to the hardware store next weekend.

The weekend turned out to be a good weekend, although it did start out cold and got a bit wet. Once the rain dried up on Monday, though, it heated up to almost 80. Nicky and Graham got a lot of fishing in, and the two along with Jean went for a nice canoe ride with fishing all along the south shoreline.

Friday night we had a good time playing Euchre late into the night and eating cheese, crackers, and summer sausage.

Hometown delivered the new shed during the week, and it's great. It looks like there were a few complications with delivery, though. The leveling I did had him putting the door-side of the shed towards the side I had to dig down about 7". But the door only has about 5" of clearance between it and the ground, so the doors wouldn't open. It looks like he set it where I wanted it and found out that wouldn't work, so he picked it back up onto the truck moved ahead 6 inches and set it back down. This put the front of the shed outside of where I leveled the ground. So this weekend I jacked the shed up using the jack for the 4Runner, put bigger blocks under the back half and leveled it a bit better. To keep skunks and other critters from going under there, I put hardware cloth all along the bottom and then covered it with dirt. I think it will work great.

I mounted the winch on the lawn mower, so that will hopefully assist in pulling various things out of the lake such as boat lifts, dock sections, or even the lawn mower itself if necessary (though I hope not).

As part of mowing the lawn with the new mower, I decided to finally take care of that broken picnic table. Since we were probably going to need it for Kristin, Dave, their kids, Grandma, and Judy's visit for supper on Sunday, I decided to repair it. Without any cedar to use, I decided to just use pine boards. It won't last as long, but it worked for the weekend and will maybe last a year or two.

The Sunday evening supper party was fun. We grilled brats, hot dogs, hamburgers and asparagus. Grandma brought beef stew, and we had baked beans and a few salads. I think everyone had a good time. We ended it with a campfire down by the dock with smores for desert.

Liz mowed the remaining grass where the rider couldn't go, and I finished off the remaining long grass with the weed whip just in time to leave on Monday evening.

Favorite Things:

Graham: Canoing with GJ and Auntie Nicky
Ian: Watching Clifford Puppy Days with Auntie Nicky
Shaun: BBQ with Judy, Grandma, Kristin, and all
Liz: Making chicken shish kabobs on grill
GJ:
Nicky:

New Riding Mower

2007-05-25T16:06:00.000-05:00

Re: 5/19/2007 - 5/20/2007
It was just the four of us this time.

We got various things accomplished, although due to the cold weather, not quite the things I had intended as I was leaving last weekend.

I tried out the water heater in the guest cabin again. It's definately still not working. I'll have to test the circuit breaker, power, thermostat, and element(s) to get it going again.

So we shopped around for a new riding lawn mower and decided on one. Since the grass was getting pretty long and it's such a hassle to borrow Bruce and Carol's from across the bay, we bought it. We chose one from the Husqvarna dealer in Aitkin--a Husqvarna YTH 2348. It has a 23 horse motor with a 48" mowing deck.

A twin-cylinder 23 hp Briggs & Stratton Intek engine and 48” triple-blade deck design are just two highlights of our most popular riding mower. You can easily move forward and backwards with the YTH2348’s pedal-controlled hydrostatic transmission. A simple pull of the button on the control panel engages your blades while an hour meter tracks your usage for future scheduled maintenance. Gauge wheels on the deck prevent scalping of your grass in uneven terrain. Additional features include 6-position cutting height adjustment, an 18” turning radius and comfortable 15” high back seats. A front bumper and nose roller are great upgrades not found on similarly priced competitive models. Like our other tractors, the YTH2348 has a welded frame and cast-iron front axle for greater durability.

With nowhere to store it, we put some more thought into how we use our yard and our sheds and decided to get a new shed for the new mower, start moving essentials from the old shed over to the new shed, and eventually get rid of the old shed. We're thinking it will be the perfect place for a patio or even a gazebo-like screen tent and maybe even another fire pit for when the wind isn't right for the other fire pit. They're delivering a new 8' x 12' shed this week.

I got some shims from the dock dealer to repair the new dock after it getting bent during shipping. They turned out to be almost perfect. They were pre-drilled, counter-sunk, and included the stainless screws. I did run into a small problem, though. About half way through, I while switching back and forth between a drill bit and a screw driver bit, I set the drill bit on the dock and watched it roll off the dock and into the water. I couldn't find it at all--not even with a magnet. So I put that project on hold until Sunday when I could get a new bit from the hardware store.

Next I moved onto replacing the boards of the dock bench with pre-drilled boards of the appropriate color. Once I finally determined the right socket to use to disassemble the existing bench piece, I connected the socket to my ratchet and went to reach for something when I heard a clunch, rolling, and a splash. I looked down and I lost my socket to the muck as well. The magnet also couldn't turn it up. So I added that to the list for the hardware store and moved on. Sigh...

Needless to say, I made it to the hardware store, but I wasn't able to complete either one of those projects before it was time to leave.

Instead I spent time leveling the ground for delivery of the new shed. Hopfully I got it level enough to work, since I did run out of time as the sun went down and Liz packed up everything, cleaned the cabin, and got the kids out the door to the truck.

Favorite Things:

Graham: Fishing, swimming, playing with mom
Playing with his new "pink" ball (which is purple)
Mowing the lawn with Graham with the new lawn mower
Playing Labyrinth with Graham

Mother's Day/Fishing Opener 2007

2007-05-25T15:48:00.000-05:00

Jean Sund came with us for the Mother's Day weekend.

Last weekend we got the new dock put in. It seemed a little more difficult to install than advertised, but I think that was because we hadn't payed enough attention to exactly how they do it in the video on their web site. Regardless, because of the water depth at the end of the 4 8' sections of dock, the lift still had to be deeper than the end of the dock. So I bought another section.

This weekend, with no other options, I figured out how to install the last section by myself: Carry the section out upside down with the legs folded up by standing inside the frame. Set it down on the dock crossways. Unfold the legs. Pick it back up the same way and stick in the one end. Press it up over your sholders and let it splash.

Unfortunately, it was evident after I installed it and put the decking on that the 1" x 2" aluminum support beam had bent during shipping. After bending it back a bit using a ratchet tiedown and some wood blocks, I called Pier of D'Nort, and they're going to make and send me a semi-permanent aluminum shim that I'll slip over the supports to shore it up better. I'm hoping to be able to just screw the shim on permanently so I don't have to try to keep track of that every spring and every fall.

Next we cleaned the hull and windows of the boat and put it in the water. The hull cleaner I used is wonderful--Waterline Stain Remover from Aurora Marine. The boat went in without a hitch...er, without a problem. Having the dock at the boat launch is really helpful.

After adjusting the bunks on the boat lift, it seems to be set up just right for easy launch and return now. The only problem is that one of the dock legs sticks up far enough that it gets in the way of the boat wheel--maybe it's time for a motorized crank for the boat lift...

I got the dog fence fixed--there was a break in the wire over by the neighbors. They probably broke it with a shovel when doing a bit of landscaping to manage water runoff. I put the wire inside a length of garden hose right there so it is less likely to happen again. The fence now works, but it may be quite a task to train the dog to retreat from the noise before he gets stimulation. The instructions say to train more than 4 days per week for a while, which we obviously can't do only being there on the weekends.

We also got the first two sections of the "sunset dock" installed. The third section broke last year when we took it out of the water. I got a good start on repairing it. Next weekend, I think I'll be able to finish up the repair and get it in the water.

Graham caught an 8-inch Catfish with his fishing net near the new dock! We were walking along when I saw a fish hanging out in the shallow water near the shore line. I told Graham and he caught it with his net. We carried it onto the dock and put it down in the water. The fish flopped about a little, but not as much as you'd usually expect. We convinced him that the fish was probably not healthy and to let him go so he can get better and grow bigger. The fish floated there in the water kind of sideways for a bit, but once I used the side of the net to roll him upright, he quickly swam down to the bottom.

We were able to get in a few boat rides to see the loons nesting, as well as a camp fire with smores.

Graham did some swimming with his wetsuit on. Ian wanted to really badly, like Graham, but it was just too cold.

Favorite things:

Graham: 2 speed-boat rides, campfire, catching a catfish, swimming
Ian: eating cantaloupe
Shaun: using the new dock to get into the boat
Liz: exercising by the lake
GJ: speed boat ride, grilling hamburgers and chicken