Looking back

I just found these photos of our property taken in the summer of 2013, days before we started clearing.  All are taken from the road: the top one is looking south, the bottom one looking north. The center one shows our fence and the driveway. The property had been neglected for 20+ years and we were excited to liberate it. Lots of trash, ground bees and red and black biting ants lived there.

building plans re-submitted

I can hardly believe we have had our property almost a year. In the beginning I was reluctant to show on this blog what a mess the property was. Our new neighbor (building a new house on the lot next to ours) referred to the little house on our property 'the Unabomber Cabin.' We l look forward to living next to this couple with their apparent sense of humor.

Inside our Unabomber Cabin

Demolition September 2013

This is what the property looked like last spring when we first walked the property. By August when the purchase transaction closed, the grass was tall and golden. We love the wildness the land but the 1928 cabin had fallen into ruin. Jay and I both fell through the floor, he in

By the end of September, seven dumpsters full of brush, stumps and tires

knee-deep

When we first walked the property last spring, we were in knee deep grass making our way east, toward the lake. I just realized that three out of four of my posts have referenced "knee-deep." Knee-deep mud, knee-deep after falling through the floor of Old Smelly and now, knee-deep grass. Under all that lush greenery was STUFF. Old tires, stumps, boats, plastic, ants, bees. Our demolition/cleanup crew hauled out seven dumpsters full.

This is what the view east looks like now as we work with our designer on house plans.

Demolition Day

The little cabin was put to rest at sunrise September 20, 2013. It was surprisingly quick and of course necessary so our new Mill Pond Cottage can be built in its place.

Backstory: We could hardly wait to put "Old Smelly" in the dumpster. Jay and I both fell through the floor at separate times. He was strolling through the living room and suddenly found himself knee-deep, standing on the ground under the house. Later, I was trying to cross the kitchen to see if the sink that had fallen off the wall had any value. Debris gave way with my weight and worked as a slide. I found myself sitting under the house, the kitchen floor even with my nose. The only thing we saved was the yellow phone and that took some disinfecting.

1928-2013

In 1928 a vacation cabin was built on our property and was enjoyed for many, many years by the same family. There are stories of ice skating on the lake in the winter and learning to swim in front of the house where the lake bottom was knee-deep mud.

Eventually, the family used the cabin less and less and it became covered by trees, brush and blackberry vines. Last spring we got permission to walk the property and found the little 85 year old cabin looking forlorn as it peeked out at the lake.

our dream property circa 1920

The family story goes like this: When my father Andrew Benedetti was a teenager, he worked with his father, my grandpa, Fred Benedetti building boats for the loggers working in the mill pond at Lake Sawyer. As pay day came around, the loggers were a little short on cash so they offered my grandpa a portion of the lake in trade. My grandpa said, "I don't want no part of this blankety-blank swamp." And so, nearly 100 years later, my husband Jay and I have finally acquired the property for our new home, right where grandpa left it.

Boat photo courtesy Robert W. Benedetti,

 added here 2-6-2016