It's been a while, but there have been changes so I thought I'd add to this story.
In 1998 I decided that I wanted to be able to store our boats (other than the big ski boat) at the beach rather than having to rely on being able to cross our neighbor's property, lift the boats on top of the car, cart them to the cottage, unload them from the top of the car, store them under the cottage, and chain them to the cottage piles. I wasn't sure that I wanted to do this project in one year; I thought it would be nice to have a deck first. When I had applied for a building permit in 1985 for a deck at the top of the beach stairs, I had gotten a reply saying "You don't need a county permit for this. Go ahead. Have fun.". So I started putting supports in for a deck, later to become a storage shed. One week I found a note on the project saying "There is to be no more construction until permit is approved.". Since I had to apply for a building permit then, I decided I might as well build the whole shed that year. The roof would be a deck. It has been very handy. We are able to store all of our beach equipment there - all the stuff we used to carry up and down the stairs every day; we also store the rowboat and canoe and sailboat there in the winter. The length of the canoe determined the size of the shed - 12x18. We keep a camping potty there too; that has saved a lot of trips up and down stairs when the grandchildren are visiting, as well as for us. And it usually only needs to be emptied once a year. The rooftop deck has been nice to have too. The grandchildren enjoy eating lunch on the roof deck and we enjoy our overview of the lake and sitting there to read and relax.
In Chapter 3, I said "I guess it's too far off the beaten track to attract intruders." Not true. In 1999, we arrived on a Friday in August to find a window open, a sock on the ground, our tool shed broken into and a mess in the cottage and at the dock. We were careful not to touch anything and called the police. That was one weekend I wish I had brought a camera with me. The boat was "hanging" in the hoist and was damaged beyond repair. The vandals had obviously taken anything they could use to carry stuff (knapsacks, packs, canvas bags, duffle bags) and filled them with whatever they might be able to use on a boat trip (flashlights, sweatshirts, beer, snacks). We later found out they had taken our boat about 30 miles round-trip to vandalize another boat. We found evidence of that vandalism under our bed stuffed into one of the duffle bags we had thought was missing, including motorcycle tools and a camera. The police developed those photos which showed a link between the two vandalism incidents. We found some of our property in the woods. It looked like they had stayed overnight so they must have known we were weekenders. One mistake they made was making a long distance call from our phone. That linked them to a phone number. Our insurance covered most of the damage and stolen property, except for our deductible. At least one vandal was eventually caught and spent some time in jail and is still paying us the insurance deductible in installments via the probation office. Since then we've put better locks on our windows and installed an alarm system. Our boat had always been locked, but they cut the cable with tools they found in our shed; we later found those tools on the bottom of the lake.
I plan to retire in October, 2003. Dave and I plan to sell our "winter" house then and live in the cottage during the summer. We will probably end up in North Carolina in the winter since both of our sons live there. Then we would be near one set of grandchildren in the summer and another set in the winter. Or perhaps we'll travel for the first few winters, then settle in one place. We are getting ready for my retirement in several ways.
We'll want to store some furniture in case we buy another winter house. I priced some of the storage malls and they are not cheap. Also, Dave wants to keep some of his yard and garden and exercise equipment. We don't have room for all of these in the cottage. Our solution was to build a storage shed at the lake, which translated into buying an Amish shed. We have plenty of land to do this. Dave started the project in 2001 by cutting down some trees. One tree wanted to fall toward the power line despite the ropes we had tied to it. The power company came out with a come-along and pulled it the other way. The next tree wanted to do the same thing. It was Sunday and I started calling stores to see if we could buy a come-along. One store told me they were closing in a few minutes, but would stay open for us; it took us about 20 minutes to get there and we were very happy they were willing to accommodate us. The come-along was very helpful and we used it for a bunch of trees. But there was one HUGE oak that we felt was beyond our capabilities. We decided to hire a professional. We marked 7 trees for them to remove. They took them down in the Spring of 2002, but they cut down more trees than we had marked - 5 of them on the property next door. Apparently the biggest tree had fallen into the neighbor's property and damaged some of their trees which the tree people assured us were dead anyway. When I mentioned it to the neighbor and told him how sorry we were he was already aware of it and was very gracious about it. Meanwhile we looked at Amish sheds and asked the merchants if they could truck them down our road. They came out to look. One said "no" to a 14'x20' shed. Another said "yes" to a 12'x24' shed. They would need a graded surface that would allow rolling a shed down to its final resting place.
We planned to grade along the north side of the property since we would not need to cut trees down in the right-of-way, which we had been using for overflow parking since we had bought the property 18 years earlier. Suddenly there was a "Posted"/"No Trespassing" sign in the middle of the area. There is a twenty foot strip between our property and the road that belongs to the farm over whose property we have right-of-way. We looked at our deed which guarantees us right-of-way. I called to reassure them that we did not plan to BUILD on their property since I assumed that was their concern. That was not the problem. They told us we are allowed only ONE access and this was a second one. We offered to buy the 20 foot strip; they were not interested in selling although we don't think they have any plans to use it themselves. Our deed says nothing about having only one access. Later we found that other cottagers were having similar problems. One cottager found a sign near his boat which was covered by a temporary canvas "garage": "Remove Boat & Building. No Permission Granted. Private Property." There were many other "Posted", "No Trespassing", "No Parking" signs. We were puzzled and dismayed. The farm family seemed to want to be asked for permission, but when I did ask they didn't really respond other than to repeat that we already had an access. The right-of-way problems were first on the list for discussion at the annual beach association meeting. The farm family had owned the land since before we had bought ours so it was not that it was a family who was new to the situation. As far as we knew, they had not created any problems for the 25 cottages during the 18 years we had owned the property. The consensus, affirmed by a lawyer, was to continue using our properties as we always had and report any problems to the lake association president. We made one concession - no annual road-clearing party. We usually have a limb-cutting day soon after the annual meeting; this is to widen the road sufficiently to allow fire equipment to get down the road if required, but we didn't want to irritate the farm family further. We hope that doesn't mean that the cottagers have to sacrifice a cottage (or more) to fire. We wonder why the original farm owners didn't either build the road along the property lines or sell land up to the road.
Our trees had been cut in March; we had also asked that they grind down the stumps and chip everything and haul the chips away, but that was not done when the trees were cut. It was a rainy Spring and the tree people were waiting for the ground to dry enough to be able to bring in their equipment. It was July before the rest of the job was done. The grading was done the next week, all in one day. At the same time a drain was installed since two small streams come together just uphill of where we wanted to put the shed; we had never seen water flowing there, but we didn't want to take a chance. The same day, crushed stones were put down. No grading or crushed stones on the farm property and we seeded there to repair bulldozer marks.
When the farm family saw that we had graded and put down crushed stone, they barricaded our access with concrete "logs", a metal fence and three bushes (which also limited parking there to one car instead of two). We had asked permission to cross twenty feet of their land three times, once to grade, once to spread crushed stones, once to bring the shed in; we promised to repair any damage done to their property and we offered to plant something across the top when we were done. The bushes were their response; I wonder if I gave them that idea. It is probably legal if we really have only one access. It is their land, but we still wonder about our right-of-way. We don't think they have anything against us in particular. We suspect it is combination of things and we don't feel that we know what is motivating them - maybe personal problems, perhaps illness, maybe a desire to control, perhaps irritation with other neighbors, maybe jealousy? We feel helpless with the situation. All we could do is accept it and eat the loss of money and work we had already put into the project. We were now limited to a 12 foot wide shed since that is the width for which we had a "foundation" of crushed stones laid and we no longer had a way to bring in more crushed stones. If we had known from the beginning that we would have to build it ourselves, we would have had a concrete foundation laid and it would certainly have been bigger. Fortunately we found a dealer who would bring in pieces via our existing access and build the shed on site. It took two days to build and the price was very reasonable. Once it was built we felt that we could relax more about the blocked access. I imagine we'll be annoyed again when it's inconvenient to load and unload, but we plan to load only once and unload only once, if that.
Remember that a huge boulder fell from the cliff onto our beach in 1989? And we hoped that no more would fall? Well, the rain did it. It was a rainy Spring in 2002 and the rain must have loosened the dirt around the remaining boulders. Sometime Saturday everything was fine. When I went to the beach Father's Day Sunday about 9:30 in the morning, the raft and first section of dock were smashed and there was a huge boulder (3'x3'x4') sitting on the dock; we estimate it weighs several tons. We had been there, but we had heard nothing. The pile which had supported one side of the dock was tilted, the support broken, the bolt bent, and the second section of dock was tilted as well. Whenever the lake was rough, the part of the dock that had fallen was wet and slippery. With it tilted, it was also dangerous. I nailed a piece of wood the length of the first damaged section so we could walk without sliding and I wrote on it with magic marker "Slippery when Wet". I didn't do that to the second section because I didn't want to put unnecessary nail holes in the good section of dock. Guess who broke her leg on the second section the next week? It was a minor fracture as fractures go, but VERY inconvenient, my first fracture ever other than possibly fingers and toes for which I hadn't bothered getting medical attention. I was able to walk on the leg and even went in the water to do some dock work afterwards, then walked up the 53 steps to the cottage and told Dave I thought I should probably have it xrayed since it was hurting more instead of less.
This boulder fell Father's Day weekend; the 1989 boulder had fallen Mother's Day weekend, both during very rainy weather. Cathy and I rolled a smaller rock off the raft, with difficulty, and I fixed the raft and anchored it to prevent further damage.
One thing we were thankful for is that the Sunfish sailboat wasn't crushed. We usually leave it chained to the dock just about where the boulder fell, but we hadn't yet moved it there for the summer when the boulder fell. The insurance company said our insurance doesn't cover "earth movement" damage so it wouldn't have been covered, and neither were the dock and raft.
Dave looked into renting a jack hammer to break up the rock (too heavy). Then he investigated drilling holes into which he would pour a substance which would expand and crack the boulder (too hard to drill). One man said he could bring in a crew of men who would dig a hole and push the rock into the hole (too expensive and success doubtful). We made an appointment for an explosives expert to do his stuff (neighbors objected). Dave bought some chisels and tried to chisel the boulder (just flaked off, no big pieces). A guy with a barge and a backhoe was going to come and move the rock (never showed up).
Finally, when I had given up all hope of ever having the rock removed from the dock, it was done! Dave had been asking me what I wanted for my birthday and Christmas and I had said, "All I want is the rock off the dock." We had gone to the cottage one weekend in October and I had to return home to participate in a church activity. When Dave came home he brought Polaroid photos of the new beach and rock-free dock. He had been able to get the barge to come with its excavating equipment. They had moved all the large rocks along our beach to form a wall near the base of the cliff to create an area into which other rocks could fall without causing damage to dock, raft, boats, or people. What a nice gift!
Dave had been worried for years about the boulders in the cliff and had put up "Danger - Falling Rocks" signs. Now he wants to get all of them down. A guy with a backhoe had come and knocked down the few rocks that he could reach from the top of the cliff and, in the process, ruined the fence and the horseshoe court. Dave did fix the fence since we were scheduled to babysit four of our grandchildren, ages 3-11, for two weeks. We hadn't used the horseshoe court in quite a while so we weren't concerned about repairing it. Dave has gotten some rocks down with a pry bar; he got a good dose of poison ivy with that attempt. He also broke a big toe when he dropped lumber on it; he was using the lumber to try to direct the boulders away from the stairway. He's still working on the cliff rocks.
After my attempts at a floating dock end had failed, I had square metal piles put in and built a lower dock at the end of the permanent dock; we could remove it every Fall and put back in place after the Spring floods. It worked well and enabled us to get closer to the water. Dave decided that we were getting too old to be carrying it in and out twice a year. He wanted to have one that could be raised and lowered easily, similar to a boat hoist. So in Spring 2001 I agreed that he could have the metal piles removed and have longer wooden piles put in. We were without a lower dock all that year because the piles were never replaced until September. I was determined to have a lower dock in 2002, especially for our grandchildren. I bought supporting lumber and decided where to drill holes and bought a 17"x3/4" bit that would accommodate the 5/8" bolts we had used for the rest of the dock. I hadn't remembered that it was very difficult to drill, but these were lower in the water and the water was deeper. I had to get in water that was up to my shoulders or forehead. I put concrete blocks on the bottom so I would be a bit higher for the deeper piles. When the water was rough I swayed back and forth and I was making no headway even when the water was smooth. I also tried doing the job from a boat and from the raft; that worked no better. I was very discouraged. Dave took over the job, tying himself to the pile to get more leverage. Even so, it took him four weeks to get the eight holes drilled. He was doing that job when I broke my leg. And it was to put bolts through the first holes that I got in the water after my fall. Because of my broken leg, we never did finish a lower dock in 2002.
One thing we had always promised ourselves before retirement was a laptop computer for each of us. I am still working at IBM where there is an employee sale every week, selling mostly used equipment. We wanted to wait until just before I retired so the speed and quality would be highest and the price would be lowest. But Dave got impatient and bought one in Spring, 2002. After he brought it to the cottage one weekend, I got jealous and bought one too, the same model as I was using at work and liked very much, an IBM ThinkPad 600E. Mine plays DVDs, but Dave's doesn't. Now it's his turn to be jealous.
We were anticipating the time when we would move and realized that we would want to get rid of many of our possessions. We started giving stuff to the kids, having "garage sales" when they all visited, never visiting North Carolina without a full car load. We've given away a lot of furniture and advertised other belongings on the IBM internal Swap 'n' Shop without much luck. One of our more successful sales was selling china, silver, and crystal to Replacements.com in Greensboro, North Carolina. They have quite a business and it was interesting to tour the place while we were there.