We're back from our longest trip to the cabin and we got a lot of maintenance
done. We arrived on August 25th, about 5pm. We were greeted by weeds almost completely covering the upper driveway. The weeds on the flatland near the road were a good 4-5 tall. We went down the lane and the weeds were as tall as the truck windows. But as we neared the bottom flat area it got better. We knew we had our work cut out for us.
We started unpacking and I suddenly got a phone call from a local number. It was our neighbor Terry Stewart calling to say he saw our gate open and was wondering if we had people there or he would be calling the sheriff for us. I explained that we had just arrived and I thanked him for keeping his eye on the place. It does make you feel good to know that you have a neighbor that watches over your place while you are gone.
Terry mentioned that he saw the tall grass at the top and on the lane and that his wife Dee would take a swipe at it with her tractor mower the next day.
She did show up and quickly took care of the weeds and grass covering the lane. She started to cut some of the higher weeds at the top landing but soon realized that her mower would not be able to do the job. She mentioned that they were going to be getting a new bush hog in the next couple of days and they'd be back to mow that. We couldn't thank them enough for their help and you can tell that Dee sure loves to operate her tractor! You couldn't ask for better neighbors. We wish we were able to visit the cabin more so we could visit with them more often.
The next day we met up with our great worker, Ronnie Young and he said he'd be over on Sunday to start bulldozing and trenching the area for the new water line. Sunday afternoon I heard him unloading the dozer and I drove up to greet him. He said he'd make quick work of clearing the hillside so his backhoe could start digging the trench. He made one pass with the dozer and I heard him say, "Oh oh". He knew right away that something had went wrong and soon discovered that a hydraulic line had broken and the dozer would have to go back for repairs. So that gave us time to get the required paperwork taken care of on Monday and early Tuesday morning Ronnie was back and tearing up the hillside.
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| Me and Ronnie Young |
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| Dewey Driver lending a hand. |
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| Me, Dexter and Dewey supervising Ronnie. |
By early that evening the water line was installed and hooked up and working perfectly. Of course we had plenty of supervision by another neighbor, Dewey Driver and we met a friend of Ronnie's, Dexter, who made sure he offered Ronnie his advice also.
All done. Now we had county water and would never have to rely on the old well and pump system. What a relief that was and we couldn't have gotten a better fellow to do the work than Ronnie. He sure has helped us out a lot with all types of work and he'll always be our contractor of choice.
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| Ray and Connie going for catfish. |
We celebrated the new water line by going to visit Mammoth Cave on Wednesday. It was a nice trip and we had an interesting tour of one of the caves.
Then on Friday we were visited by Kim's dad Ray and her sister Connie. We went to Ray's favorite place in the area to eat, The Campus Fish House in Hanson, Ky. They spent the night and left late Saturday morning.
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| Rick & Merlene |
Later that afternoon our friend Rick and his girlfriend Merlene arrived and stayed until Monday afternoon. We all went and ate at one of our favorite places on Sunday, Penneyrile State Park just outside Dawson Springs. They always have one of the best Sunday buffets around and the view from the lodge dining room which overlooks the lake is really spectacular.
Our next guests were Kim's sister April and her husband Danny. They arrived Tuesday, spent the night and left after we had breakfast the following morning.
April had two surprises for us when she arrived. The first was her commercial ice-ball machine which crushes ice just like the family's favorite ice-ball shop, 'Sweet Tooth',located in Newport, Ky. You know you're ate up with ice-balls if you buy your own commercial machine! It is a hit with the whole family.
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| Quilt made by Connie. |
The second surprise was that she brought along the quilt that Connie had made for Kim. Connie led us to believe she had weeks left to finish it so when April brought is along it was a huge surprise to us.
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| Kim's blue cabinet. |
Also, during their visit Kim managed to find a cabinet that she was wanting to put on the front porch to hold some of the tools and supplies for around the cabin. We looked at a lot of antique shops around the area on our side trips for the right one and finally found the perfect one right near us in Madisonville.
During April's visit we had Ronnie bring in two truck loads of gravel and recovered the lane and part of the parking area. That really improved the appearance and will make driving in and out much easier.
I have another story about April's visit which I'm saving for another post.
One of the drawbacks to getting the new water line installed was that we now have more water pressure than we did using the well and pump. We noticed that the kitchen sink had a leak around the faucet whenever you turned on the water. The faucet was a cheap one installed years ago and the part needed was very hard to
find and quite expensive. So we decided to replace the whole faucet. We ran into town, picked out a much better looking faucet, went back and we installed it. The kitchen sink is now back in perfect working order.
Then on the second day after the new water line was working, Kim thought she heard a small drip coming from the bathroom closet. After further inspection and removing the water heater out of the way, we discovered a wet spot on the inside corner, next to the wall facing the kitchen. It was obvious that the leak was most likely coming from one of the 90-degree elbows and that it was in the wall somewhere behind the paneling.
To gain access we would have to remove the paneling on the bathroom wall, a section of the drop-down ceiling and then still be guessing what part of the wall it was behind. After seeing how the incoming water lines were coming in from the outside it was clear that the simplest fix would be to cut the pipes, drill two holes through the logs, connect two 90-degree elbows and run the pipes under the kitchen sink and connect them to the faucet. It actually was quite simple and would work great.
But I didn't have a drill and bit large enough to go through a 6" log. So after checking with Ronnie (you see how handy he is?) we got a lead on a good plumber. I had been wanting to find a plumber that was both reliable and discreet about the cabin's location. (Since it can't be seen from the road we like to keep it's existence known to a handful of people.)
Now, I must tell you that this problem occurred two days before we were to go back home. We contacted a local plumber, Roy McGregor and he adjusted his schedule and agreed to come out the next morning.
Feeling that the problem would be fixed quickly the next day we relaxed that evening and went to bed around 9pm. When Kim went into the bathroom she found that the light wasn't working. I checked further and discovered that the main room ceiling lights, the refrigerator and the furnace were also on the blink. Great. Out of the clear blue. Since nothing could be done that night we plugged in the fridge with an extension cord and called it a night.
When Roy arrived the next morning he agreed with our decision on rerouting the plumbing lines to the kitchen sink and said he also knew a little about electricity. He discovered that half of the main breaker panel was not working, meaning that somewhere from the main power pole to the breaker box there was a problem with one of the two incoming lines.
This was a problem requiring an electrician and Roy gave us the name of a man that he said was reliable and would fix us up. That reassurance made us feel good and we said I would come back up in a couple of weeks and we'd get together and fix the electrical problem and do some preventive maintenance on the plumbing.
Even though it sounds like we had a lot of small problems on our trip we actually got a lot of major work done and the remaining problems are small and we feel we have the two guys that can fix everything.
So we packed up on Friday and left late that night. We had a great time and enjoyed staying there for over two weeks. It seems the longer we are there the more we think about how nice it might be to live there part of the year, splitting it with our Florida home. We just have to figure out how Kim can get retired!
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