The itchy problem

Every time I think about actually being at the house, I itch all over. There is a huge mosquito infestation, and Brenda says the recent county spray job only lasted about three days.

We went to a program at the nature center and got the bat-brained idea that a couple bat houses might help. Each bat supposedly can can eat 7,000 insects a night. Each bat house can hold up to 100 of the critters — assuming the average 60- to 80-percent occupancy rate has them choosing our dwellings.
Of course we need to get the few bats that live in the attic out of there first.

Bats in yard=good. Bats in house=bad.

Apparently the process is not called "getting those damn things out of the attic." It's called bat exclusion. I guess the difference is whether you beat them to death with a broom or take the time to install mesh, wait for them to leave and plug the holes.

We're going to give it a try, so a couple of these houses are on the way.

Plans are coming together

I finished measuring all the rooms yesterday while Bob tore down some grapevine that was covering much of the brick on the east of the house. He hadn't planned to do it, so he was wearing church clothes and wielding an old scythe he found in the barn. I suggested that because we are not Amish and it's not 1882, we come back another day with a tool that uses electricity or gas to get the job done. I'm grateful he hacked away at the foliage though, because it's getting to look like a jungle (Grandma's words to Brenda a few years ago, apparently).

In the afternoon we sat down with Maggie and Dick and got some great ideas for making the house work well for us. Duane had already been through with some excellent ideas from his experience renovating his houses. All the possibilities had seemed so overwhelming, but now it feels like we have enough direction to move forward.

Direction is now in place, but enough cash is not. We still need to sell that house on the other side of the state!

We're going for it!

Part insanity, part history, part roof over our heads, we have decided to take on the project of restoring the 125-year-old farmhouse that has been in Bob's family since shortly after the Great Thumb fire of 1881. It received its last facelift in 1929.

Yeah, we have a lot to do.

Bob and I are country people, suckers for the draw of family and history, so although this may possibly be the craziest plot we have yet developed, it is our plot.

And it thickens.

The Great Thumb Fire of 1881 wasn't the only one to ravage the area. A decade earlier, another one tore through the Thumb, brought on at the same time and by the same conditions as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 — minus Mrs. O'Leary's cow, of course.

If you're wondering what the heck a Thumb is and why I'd capitalize it, think of the shape of Michigan as a mitten. We live in the thumb. And we're a proud people, so it's The Thumb.

Most of this area was left charred, but somehow a large section of maple woods was spared. That is the family sugarbush, where the family has been making maple syrup since 1882.

Those maple trees have charmed five generations so far. Addy says she has two favorite places in the world. One is my parents' dairy and cash crop farm. The other is the maple woods.

I can't imagine anything better than raising our children at the edge of the woods, with barns (though having seen better days) in which to raise some 4-H animals. We'll be just down the road from grandma and grandpa. Our neighbors will be cattle, corn fields and Amish families. There's one English neighbor (that's what the Amish call the rest of us) across the way, and it's nothing less than thrilling that they have a couple of homeschooled kids just a little older than ours.

We have been town people for nearly 5 years, but the country is where we grew up and where we belong. If you know me well at all, you know that my requirement is to be able to walk to the mailbox in my underwear. Doesn't work so well in the city limits.

Maybe we've been reading too much A.A. Milne and Laura Ingalls Wilder, but we are charmed by the appeal of The Hundred Acre Wood and The Little House everywhere.

I know, it sounds charming now. Wait until we're knee deep in plaster and paint. Ask us how charming it is then.

Until then, we're gathering bids to see just how costly this plot will be.