The east porch is going up. The concrete floor is polished. And I’m not there.
It’s strange to be away while work continues on the Cabin at Many Moons. I write this from my townhouse in Arlington, Va. and am off tomorrow to Roatan (Honduras) for a scuba trip. Is it weird that I’m heading for “fun” while Jeff continues work on the house? Maybe. But he doesn’t want to come and seems to truly enjoy the building process — which might be his version of fun! So I’m sticking to my retirement commitment to make at least one international and/or active trip each year, as long as I can, even in the midst of building. Each of us determines our own “fun” and our own priorities, right? And in the 2nd half of life, it’s important to be true to those even as we weigh them against the needs of our partnerships and families and communities. Here’s what’s happening at the building site on Huron Bay while I’m off to float over reefs and seek out octopi…
While he still had use of the handy lifting machine, Jeff placed the shingle packages on the roof for placement later.
The east-facing porch is going up! We will have a very long covered porch. I’m already shopping for outdoor furniture for it, but it’s a bitI soon for that!
The treated beams that I ordered about a week ago were delivered quickly and have already been placed along the porches to hold up the roof. Just two guys did this!
Today, the polishing crew was hard at work making our foundation/floor shine. (They “ground” it weeks ago, to make the embedded rocks appear. They had to wait until we had the walls and roof in place to finish the job.) I added black color to the concrete before it was poured in hopes to avoid the standard gray and make the stones pop, but it looks gray here. Maybe it’s the lighting, or Jeff’s camera…or, it’s just the way it is. With concrete, you never know…
A few days before I left, we started to see the signs of impending fall. Like morning fog. And dew.
The evening before I left, we held a first-ever “block party.” So fun to visit neighbors and several newcomers who came from Wisconsin, Lower Michigan and Chicago – some permanently, some creating a “2nd home.” And who can blame them? I did it, too. But then, I’m returning to my roots…
Moonrise over Memorial Bridge, which links Arlington, Va. to Washington D.C. When I get back here, I like to go down to the waterfront to walk along the Potomac River just a few miles from home. It reminds me of the important work that happens in the nation’s capitol on behalf of the taxpayers, and my own career toward that end. In rural America (like Michigan’s U.P.), it’s common to hear gripes about the federal government. “Robbing” and “corruption” are frequent accusations. It makes me sad to hear it, and I remind myself that the speakers haven’t seen and done it, like I have, so just don’t know. Yes, it’s messy. People and leaders are fallible. But there’s so much good done also, and it just isn’t visible enough. Who said “Democracy is messy but it’s better than any other system we know?” Something like that. I wonder if our democracy will survive my lifetime. It’s not my fight any more, not the way it was before. But I do wonder!
Believe me, I responded often. To tell my experience of things, and why. But that got tiring and seem to have no effect. As you said, for another time…
For Many Moons 
Yippee! The cabin building continues! Lovely progress.
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As a former Federal employee, I stopped letting those kind of comments go. But that’s a rant for another time…
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Believe me, I responded often. To tell my experience of things, and why. But that got tiring and seem to have no effect. As you said, for another time…
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