First Day of August update on the Lake and Recap

I almost did not do a post this week.  The summer months are really draining my energy.  I do not know how our ancestors lived without air conditioning during this kind of heat and humidity.

At this very moment I feel that my ancestors did me wrong moving south.  I am dreaming of warm blankets and snuggly pajamas.  Those of you that are in winter right now and wishing for spring, enjoy the days you are having despite it all.  

I have pretty much abandoned our garden.  I just cannot do it.  The lack of bees this year, the lack of something that I have no clue what it is lacking has caused poor production.

A few cherry tomatoes are producing once in awhile.

The herbs are taking my neglect well.  That is ginger and turmeric mixed in the tank to the left.  Those are weeds in the tank to the right. 

The garlic chives have bloomed for several months now.  The grass and weeds are taking over between storms.  But that is okay, because I am going to have a beautiful fall and winter garden!  No more summer garden for me! Right?

The best part is Charles will be finally home, retired and we can team up on this mess when it is cooler.

We just couldn't do the work needed at the lake so we hired someone to cut the massively overgrown azalais at the lake before Charles stops working.  Azalais will grow back quickly and green back up before you know it.  With them lower to the ground we will be able to cut them ourselves.  

They were way over out heads and we could not reach up that high to trim them.  We pulled out some of our azalais here at home and trimmed them down low and I have been able to maintain them myself for the past three years since doing this.  

We are going to try and hold on to Madge's house for now as a place for our family to be able to use to go fishing and get away from the city.  I have the budget really crunched to do this.  Even without it, it is still crunched.  

Some of you know and some of you don't know that Charles mother lived on a lake in a cottage.  When Charles was young his parents bought a lot at the lake and bought a Jim Walter Home and had it moved to that property. They enjoyed fishing and made it a fishing cottage.  Later on they decided to move up there and live in the cottage.  Charles father had a fatal heart attack in 1996 and Madge remained living in the cottage.  

When Madge started declining with her health, Charles and I cleaned out an old small workshop on that property where Charles father would make small wood items.  It is on the property down from the cottage.  She would not clean her house or let us clean it so we could sleep overnight to stay there to help her and do repairs. The one guest room was so full we could not get the door open without squeezing through. We cleaned it out once before, only for her to pile it full again.  She was quite a hoarder and would fuss at us if we tried to vacuum or do most anything.  She did not even have but one chair that was not stacked with something other than the one recliner that she lived in.  Thus we emptied a old workshop that was filled to the gill with junk, spiders and dirt and built the 9 1/2 by 19 foot tiny house we call The Myrtle. 

We had to strip out the walls and insulation and get it bare bones and re-insulate it and put walls, ceiling and flooring inside to make it like a tiny house.

 After we got the Myrtle finished enough that we could sleep in it and cook our meals, we went to work putting up handrails going up the hill to the cottage so Madge would not fall.  Charles replaced decking boards on her deck and started other repairs she needed doing. She fussed at us a lot but we did not listen to her.  Before we had the Myrtle to sleep over we would have to drive back and forth from the lake back to our home and that got expensive with gas and wear and tear on our car. 

We put in a small water tank outside of the door since we did not have running water.  I enjoyed washing dishes this way.  We used a kettle to boil water.

We fell in love with our little Myrtle.  We named it that because of Crepe Myrtles around the area and a small Crepe Myrtle just outside of the workshop.   We made it a quite romantic little place.  Madge actually started walking down from her cottage to sit in the Myrtle and watch us.  She also would sneak up on us. 

We made suppers and had her eat with us and all was going well.  Untill....

Madge had a stroke!  To shorten this part as some of you know, Madge could not return to her cottage, we moved her in with us, therapist came to the house, trying to get her to where she could go home because that was what she wanted but we knew better.  She started having other issues, more hospital stays and the diagnosis Madge had Brain cancer.  This coming October will be two years ago.  

I had surgery two weeks before Madge's first stroke.  I could not get my energy back with care giving and such.  After her passing , trying to do a new 1930s study, we caught covid, needless to say there has been no energy for cleaning out a hoarders house. 

However, we have made progress in her cottage.  We have the small kitchen fully clean, we have pulled out the extremely filthy living room carpet.  We have made many trips to the dump.  But we still are not finished.  The house has a unlevel floor on one side of the house due to an extension they built.  We have considered tearing off the extension to make it back to the original Jim Walter home.  That would cost less than to repair it.  

Took a lot of scrubbing to get this stove clean.  We found the reason she did not want us in her kitchen, is because she hid many things such as greasy skillets with paper plates on top in her oven. The entire stove was greasy and had cat hair stuck to it. Actually there was cat hair in the oven.   She kept telling us she didn't like to cook and wanted to use her toaster oven and microwave.  Those appliances got thrown away.

You might wonder why we did not step in.  Some people you cannot do that with when they have always been in charge of everything.  They have a way of not letting you in.  She had been like this for many years, this was nothing new and why we built the little Myrtle to try and help her the only way we knew how.  Many years ago we did clean her house with her very mad at us the entire time. She made us put it all back but we put it all back cleaned off.  Only for it to get right back like it was.  She always told me that I kept my house too clean and it makes people uncomfortable if their house is too clean. 

Believe me, my house gets dirty too, not like that but real houses do not look like magazine photos. 

Our little place we built on that property is still sitting there with a unfinished corner inside. The wall board is there waiting to be put up for the past three years, we just have not been able to finish the Myrtle. We started moving things out thinking we would sell it but stopped.  It is very difficult to know what to do, it is best to wait for two years if one can to sell anything anyway.   The well is still not fixed but county water is connected.  Soon there will be time to do slow work, not rushed work and make a better decision.  I know that some of you have been wondering, so that is where we are with this. 

Photo above is Madge's cat Blue

Some people may think when someone leaves property to their child that is a good thing.  It is but it comes with an immediate cost.  The bills do not stop, the homeowners insurance and taxes do not stop.  The utility bills keep coming in.  We keep things turned off and when we go up we turn it on while we are there to keep the costs down. 

We still have Madge's cats, they settled in and we will do like we said and take care of them.

Almost nineteen year old Gabby passed away only a few months after Madge died. 

Blue and Jess are doing good. 

Blue will not leave Charles alone when he works at his desk, she will lay on top of his paperwork when he is trying to work. Jess is a very large cat we call him our Big Boy!

We have many things that have waiting for life to settle.  We found this old wringer washer several years ago.  The washer works good, it is the wringer that needs repair.  Charles may soon have time to work on it.  Maybe next year he can work on it.  It will take him quite some time to get some kind of new routine once he retires.  

We have had a lot of things happen in the past three years.  Sickness, deaths, storms, repeated storms, more storms.  

Roofer to our house three times. Gabby died, our permanent feral outside cat Mr. Bingley died, Our Katie girl and Frankie both have passed away. Our granddog Rosie passed just before Katie girl (Katherine).

Our most recent is our beautiful Belle Girl. 

But the dawn comes each morning...

The sun will shine if we let it in.

And then we make scones....

With some homemade clotted cream.

It is up to us to make our life interesting.  It does not happen by itself.  I enjoy history studies because I learn new things, I have a fun and interesting challenge. Along the way, it helped us to learn how to live on less money and helped us to be able to keep the lake house for now and buying us time to make a better decision rather than a rushed or forced one.

I hope the studies have helped you to have a better budget and learn more about the past. I will regroup my thoughts better when I can get through August.  For now this is August 1, and our strict pre-retirement budget is on.  We are sticking to our 1930s study even over the bumps in the road and the heat and mosquitoes.  But not the garden for now!

Many of us are suffering some kind of fatigue.  Not sure why but I want my life to get back to something recognizable,  I love the 1930s life. The new budget is almost all finished.  The menu planning still needs some work. Now I want to get back to the things I was doing before stresses of today stopped me.

I want to make more panty liners!  I made one and never got back to it.  Some women like me pee when they sneeze.  I don't want to pay for liners, another savings.  What do you want to get back to? or did you never stop? and if you did not stop tell us why up in the forum. :)  What are you working on now at this stage into 1930s.  Even if you are not into the 1930s study, what are you doing to cope?  Tell us about it. 

 Grandma Donna