Bubble, bubble toil and trouble. I said trouble, like right here in River City. You know, like when you start picking at something and it just gets worse? That’s what I’m talking about here. While this photo is not optimal, because of its time of day, its angle is correct. The problem is in the vicinity of the kitchen door. Remember the wood rot that Harry tried to address at the base of the left side of the kitchen door? He used wood putty and the like, but that has not worked. That door frame has gotten worse. Much worse. Tonight, exiting the cabin, Dave put his toe through the inside the kitchen flooring. The wood rot has extended that far. Further, examining the exterior paneling, the base of the paneling from the kitchen door to the back corner of the porch, appears to have rot along its base too. IMHO, the root cause of all of these problems is the overhanging gutter. It does not extend to the edge of the porch, leaving several feet of roofline without a gutter. The rain falls on the roof there and then falls directly on deck. In addition to the aforementioned problems, this situation causes that section of the deck to get very slippery. It probably also contributed to the settling of the deck in that area that Dan addressed this summer.

Tomorrow, Anne and Dave are proposing an exploratory under cabin crawl. Bill came by and suggested reaching out to Arbic. I think that this is a good idea. He may not do this kind of work but may furnish us a lead. Bill also helped me with my plans for the sleeping porch stairs. I plan on buying five 12″x36″x2″ pieces of treated wood to replace the eclectic mix of stairs there. One of which appears to be a half log firewood piece that Declan was tearing apart with his fingers.

It’s not too cold, but it is not exactly warm either. Here on the shore of Lake Superior there are only two seasons, winter and the 4th of July, and I think that the 4th this year is here in name only. While the rest of the nation swelters, I’m huddling around the space heater. Yes, the space heater! It had been warm here before yesterday’s snap cold front. I was even able to get in the lake a couple of times. Again, it is not too hot, nor too cold, certainly not cold enough for a fire, but I am wearing long underwear and sporting Polartec.

We have a party to go to today. It will be in another one of the original three log cabins. The one next door. All three of these log cabins were built by the same man, Pat Ginter, and his mule. At the time, a hundred years ago, he lived nearby. He built our cabin first and the next two on subsequent summers. It will be interesting to see the differences and similarities between the structures. A fourth log cabin was eventually built. Constructed from logs that had washed ashore, from back in the days when booms of logs were floated down to the Soo. Unfortunately, that building recently burned and has now been replaced.

Anne and Bill, mainly Bill, have been furiously re-webbing the lawn furniture. Getting into the Mister Fix-it mood, Anne and I hung the new IKEA spring-loaded desk lamp on the wall. Naturally, it took us three tries to get it right. We may not be handy and some of us are not even men. Still, it looks nice. Unfortunately, it calls for a no more than 13W lightbulb and all that we could find was a 13.8W. I hope that this does not burn down the cabin. Anne tested it and found that she could reach it to turn it off without getting out of bed. Even if it is on fire?

I have been leisurely creating this post all morning long and as the clock rises slowly to high noon, the mercury continues to wallow in the low sixties. During the IKEA lamp episode, I got warm enough that I shutoff the space heater. Afterwards, sitting has chilled me again. There is a breeze out now and splitting firewood would warm me up, but that sounds too much like work.