Spring Break

This picture is from our arrival at The Cabin last June. We're looking forward to the day this year when our cabin life begins.

As I sit here today, drinking my morning coffee, I'm watching the snow flakes fall gently to the ground. Thankfully the snow is melting on the green grass. This would be a pretty picture if it was December but not April.

This reminds me of our first spring that we owned the cabin. It was 2000 and we arrived there the first week of April. We were very excited to have our cabin to get away and relax for the whole week. Things didn't go like that. First, there was still lots of snow there. We had to shovel to get in the driveway and then shovel the snow away from the door to allow us to open it.

Things went from bad to worse when we went to light the furnace. Our fuel oil space heater was full of soot and we had the 'bright' idea to use the shop vac to clean it out. Our plan was working well. We were both focused on looking into the opening into the fire space. I happened to turn around and saw the room was hazy. Further investigation-the soot was leaving the furnace and being propelled into the air through the vac. Our entire cabin became covered with a thin layer of greasy, dirty soot.

This required professional help and we had to have the whole cabin cleaned. Everything-curtains, furniture, walls, ceiling and floors. Our entire week was spend coordinating workers in and out to get the cleaning done.

I think that may have been the year we burnt out the heating element in the water heater by connecting the power before it was filled with water but that may have happened the next year. Those memories blur in my mind for good reason.

We are now pros at opening The Cabin but those memories hang close and we always do the opening in a step by step fashion. Oh, also we never vacuum out the furnace either without venting it outdoors.