First Weekend

Summer is almost here! For our very first weekend at the cabin, we were greeted with the roadside wildflowers blooming all along the way.

These day lilies aka 'ditch lilies' are everywhere! I know they are very common, but I love them. The Queen Anne's Lace is blooming as well, and is one of my favorites. Coreopsis, phlox, and daisies are blooming, and the Joe Pye Weed is getting tall, and should be blooming toward the end of summer. I noticed a few thermopsis blooming as well, and would love to transplant a few into the yard.

We had our first spend-the-night-weekend at the cabin! It was wonderful to be able to stay, and not drive back and forth. It wasn't perfect (LOL) but we were functional. The first day we were there, we had our first cooked meal in our cabin. Bacon wrapped filets on the grill with sweet potatoes, and asparagus. So yummy! Not exactly how we planned it, but delicious! I had planned to have a microwave to cook the potatoes, but there was a little problem. Lowe's delivered our appliances (washer, dryer, fridge, dishwasher, microwave, stove), and installed everything except hooking up the ice maker to the fridge (they didn't bring an adapter), and the dishwasher and microwave were not installed but left in the boxes on the floor. Major disappointment. For whatever reason, the installers said they didn't do those installations, and we should have had a different team to deliver and install those items. Huge fail on Lowe's part, if you ask me. Who gets appliances delivered and not installed? They should have at least told me so I could have planned. Anyway, it was OK, just not very convenient. We were truly roughing it without ice, a dishwasher and microwave! Ha!

Kitchen with the dishwasher still in the box...

Another view of the kitchen

Furnishing the cabin is quite a task! We have been scouring Craigslist, flea markets, and Goodwill for anything that might be acceptable. We were very blessed to find a listing on Craigslist that had lodge furniture for sale. They had lots of nice things! There was a hunting lodge in Albany, Georgia that unfortunately had gone under financially. All the furniture was being sold from a warehouse in Clarkesville, Georgia. The owner told us that the furniture was all handmade by a man in Albany, and is excellent quality. Major score!! It's perfect for our cabin, and looks as tho it were made just for us. And it was cheap! Happiness.

All told, we came away with a dining room table and 10 chairs, a sideboard, a hutch, a gun cabinet, two double beds, four lamps, and two cypress porch swings.

Here is the hutch with my Blue Willow dishes. I have had these dishes for about 20 years,
and I love them with the pine! 

Dining Room Table and Chairs, Gun Cabinet, and Sideboard.
This dining room used to be the screened porch. The previous owners had it enclosed, but it's not completely finished. You can see that the wood needs to be polyurethaned. It's on my list to do, as soon as the back door threshold is fixed. We have a water leak and there is no point in finishing the floors until it's done.

Basement Bedroom with the two double beds. The table is an old one I've had for years. It will eventually live somewhere else, but for now it works here. The antler lamp is from the Lodge sale as well.

Another view of the Basement Bedroom. The window is off-center, but it will look better with some curtains and
some art to balance things out.

Saturday night was our second and last night. We were both pretty exhausted, and I was not sleeping well. As I was dozing in and out, I kept hearing this noise that I couldn't identify. Finally, I woke up enough to realize that it was worth checking out because it sounded like a MOUSE was scurrying about! EEK. Thank God, I had a flashlight on the night table, and when I would hear the sound, I'd shoot the light over and look for any sign of critters. Nothing. Nada. Never saw anything. Finally, in my super-exhausted state, I realized that it was raining a soft, drizzley rain, and that the tin roof made it sound different than how it sounds at home. Relief beyond words washed over me, but I felt a little silly, too. After identifying the sound, it was nice to listen to the rain and drift off to sleep.

This was our treat the next morning as we were leaving. Our first weekend was a delight in so many ways. We will always remember sitting on the back porch listening to the whippoorwills, watching the lightening bugs, and seeing the stars. Oh, those stars!! With no city lights to compete with them, they are truly spectacular.

View from the Dining Room Window

Next on the agenda is getting some mattresses delivered for the Loft Bedroom and the small main floor bedroom, as well as the threshold repair, and the appliances to be finished up. We also ran into an unexpected problem: MUDDY WATER coming out of the tap. Yuk. Maybe it's from the rain? I have no idea, since I've never had a well. So a plumber is installing a filter for us. Not more sludge!! Woop! Then we should be fully functional to have our kids come up for the weekend without it being too harrowing. With so much going on, there is a lot to supervise, and you have to expect a couple of glitches. Thursday, we are going up to meet the plumber and appliance installers. Should be interesting. I'll keep you posted.