2016 Part 5 July

In this epic recounting of my life in 2016, it took a whole post just to cover June. And judging by the family's photo record, it looks like I'll be lucky to get all of July in this post. As you may recall from my earlier post Hosting, the summer of 2016 involved a lot of company for us, both at the lake and at home. I guess that leads to a lot of fun to remember. Let's begin.

July

The month began with some light chores, like freshening up our green deck table with a fresh coat of white paint. This was done to match the table with the white deck chairs, which are in much better shape than the old green ones. That's the way life is at the cottage - survival of the most desirable. The green chairs were not abandoned, of course. That's not the cottage way either. Rather, they were tucked away for use in overflow situations. Not fired. Just sort of laid off. Here's a shot of the "new" table.

There were also some heavier chores. One of which was putting the final touches on the new slab that highlighted our June fun. The churning of the dirt and sand around the slab now had to be tidied up, to give the area a more finished look. Here's a shot of the strip of yard between the slab and our cement runner at the back of the house before the work. Note the tiller sitting at the ready.

And here we have our builder Dave P. working that bad boy, leveling the area and prepping the ground for new seed.

What? You were expecting to see me wrestling the tiller around the yard, working up a sweat and aggravating my sore joints? No, I guess you weren't. Not unless you stumbled onto this blog by accident. Besides, Dave loves this kind of stuff. For one thing, he gets paid. And it saves him a trip to the gym.

Here we have a couple of shots of the yard fully prepped, including the narrow strip on the far side of the slab.

And here are the trouble areas seeded and covered with the customary protective straw.

Here is a final shot of the slab with the yard work done and a load of gravel spread around the south end of the slab, providing a little harder surface from which to enter and exit the slab. I'm happy to report that a year later the seeded areas have filled in nicely and that the graveled entry area has held up just fine.

Having survived the onerous task of watching Dave P. complete work around the slab, we looked forward to a nice Fourth of July weekend with our friends Linda and Pat. Seems our respective children and grandchildren had made plans for the holiday that did not include hanging out with the parents. So we put on our big boy/girl pants and decided to have fun on our own. Part of that fun turned out to be clearing away an unsightly pile of wood scraps that had crept up over the years in the hammock tree area. Here is a shot of Pat and me, in our lumberjack deck shoes and sandals, almost giddy from the aroma of wood shavings.

The title of this pic is "How many IRS retirees does it take to operate a tree saw?"

You're guessing two, right? The answer is really four. Just outside the picture is our spotter Linda, watching for any signs of bleeding or heavy bruising. And in the house is Nancy with her finger on the speed dial button for the Alpena Regional Medical Facility. Fortunately, the clean up went smoothly without any weekend-ending medical consequences. Here's a shot proving how important teamwork is to such risky endeavors. Pat, always mindful of safety, has looked away from the kill zone only briefly to ask if my homeowners insurance is paid up.

Here Coco has briefly taken over spotter duties just long enough to allow Linda to step into the house for another dose of tranquilizer.

The weekend wasn't all excitement, however. We enjoyed the fruits of our wood management efforts with a relaxing beach fire the next evening. Here are some pics of the crew setting things up.

The end product, ready for duty.

And the happy crowd, settled in with appropriate libations for a pleasant evening by the water's edge. Life is good.

After the 4th, we headed home for a few days for some of the usual activities. You know. New gas line (yes, this is the one that blew up this summer and made the local news. You'll have to wait a bit for that story to show up in this blog). The caption of this shot is "Did you bring enough stuff?"

And a birthday celebration. This one of our baby, who at this event turned 31.

Then, we headed back to the lake for some family fun. Here are Matt and Cathy enjoying a sunny day on the lake, Cathy lounging in one of our fancier water craft.

And our youngest splashing about with one of her favorite chew toys (that would be any stick, the gnarlier the better).

The beach was in fine form all weekend. We had the toys out.

And the fleet, deck and gazebo ready to go.

Of course, there were some chores that needed tending to. One was expanding our back yard stepping stone array shown here, 

to include a path to the new slab (the white ones).

And more importantly a weather-safe route to the secret trash and recycling storage area behind the garage (the gray ones). Fortunately, our local handy man was available to assist.

  

Here is the finished product. It's not only kinda cute in a "cottagy" sort of way. It's very convenient when relocating refuse during inclement weather. Keeps my Topsiders from getting muddy.

There was also a little chair work to do.

For this I brought in a specialist. You may recognize him from his business card or his MeTV adds for "Dave'll Do It!"

We closed out our July cottage days by hosting Dave and his bride Robyn for a long weekend. Here they are taking a quiet break in the gazebo.

Joining in on the visit was the Florida branch of the family shown here with the other Mrs. Burk enjoying the house specialty.

And as expected, to tell the story of August I need to go to another post.

Until then, Grosse Pointe Chuck.

2016 Part 4 June

It's time I continued with this snail's-pace recounting of my 2016 adventures. Despite my desire to be more timely with these family history posts, I continue to spend more time making family history than reporting on it. Summer activities seem to be just too appealing and energy-depleting to leave much room for sitting at a keyboard. However it is now Labor Day, and my upcoming calendar looks to be more conducive to blogging. So let's have a go.  

June

With our spring chores and fence wars behind us, Nancy and I moved on to more fun things. I started June still at my mother's in Florida, lollygagging on her lanai, communing with this magnificent live oak in the yard across the way.

And practicing my selfies.

I did have a little company that morning, as a member of the local fauna was cruising the neighborhood. This fellow measured out at just about four feet. I didn't invite him in.

Florida being just a little too exciting for me, I headed home for the annual Burk picnic. It was a fine event as it has been for the last 30 plus years. Here are this year's maitre d' and head chef (yours truly and Jim "Styro" Wyatt) contemplating the day's challenges.

Here we have honorary hostesses Laura Forest, Val Oatley and our daughter Cathy enjoying a break out on the backyard swing.

And here is our crack security chief Coco on patrol. Ever at the ready, note that she is toting one of her favorite balls, just in case a friendly picnic goer would like to engage in a little game of fetch.

In this shot we have protocol officer Mary Wyatt (in the middle) demonstrating for Dave Dyle and her daughter Marie the proper grip for toting a libation in casual dress.

In this shot, key staff members Laura, Jim and myself have convened with Marie and Brian Bauer for one of the many focus group interviews of the day. I believe the topic at hand was that classic dilemma - hamburger or cheese brat?

Others discussing the menu of the day as they anxiously awaited the lighting of the grills were Stevetta Brown and her son Willie.

Economy enthusiasts Joe Villeneuve and Steve Ristagno, arguing the merits of recyclable paper versus reusable plastic picnic plates.

And this suspicious cabal meeting discreetly in the garage covered patio. From left to right we have Miranda Reinhart, Brian (undoubtedly sharing the results of his now completed focus interview), Miranda's dad Jeff and brother Justin, and Pat Rouan.

All useful attendee input having been processed (and largely ignored), Chef Styro proceeded with his duties.

Here is a sampling of the happy diners, deep into gastric bliss. First daughter Christine.

The kitchen crowd (at our own little Pope's table for you Buca di Beppo fans). Facing away from the camera we have Robyn Mullinger on the left and Linda Mathews on the right. Facing the camera are Robyn's sister Susan (a first timer at the picnic) and Dave.

And these platinum members of the Deck Dining Club, from left to right my bride Nancy, daughter Christine's college buddy Victoria, neighbors Martin and Maggie, and Laura.

Of course, there were recreational opportunities in the lab annex, such as this billiards smack down between neighbor kids Jakub and Dane, with Dane's mother Holly refereeing.

And character greetings. In this shot Dane is chatting things up with my alter ego.

After the hectic activity of visiting, cocktails, dinner and post-dinner critiques, most party goers settled in for another round of visiting, drinking and eating (there are fewer critiques as the imbibing crescendos). Here are some candid shots of this afterglow. First up, the former IRS Research leadership team Stevetta, Deandra Reinhart and myself (actually, I'm the only one who is former).

Next, the longest-term (and as such some say wisest) retirees of our group, Pat and bride Linda Mathews.

Former lunch-bunchers Vicki Ristagno and Lydia Villeneuve.

And long-time Music Nighters Laura and Mary.

And soon-to-be new moms daughter Cathy and Molly Dupes (both have since given birth to beautiful babies; possibly a new generation of party attendees).

Of course no party would be complete without a reliable cleanup crew. Here's a shot of one crew member tending to a little tidying of the grill.

And this last shot of our in-house photographer Quinton Anderson, who took all of these shots and more. Kudos to Quinton for his efforts.

Spent from party prep, hosting and cleanup, Nancy and I headed to Wiser Times for some much needed R&R. 

After a couple of weeks under the radar, split between home and the cottage, Nancy and I decided that our fairly new Wiser Times garage needed a little help. The garage sits in our yard approximately 25 feet from our used-to-be-gravel driveway, separated from the drive by a rather soft and sandy patch of yard. Despite yeoman efforts to firm this area up by adding wheelbarrow loads of dirt and packing it down using a variety of brilliant (but ineffective) techniques, the area remained squishy. This was resulting in ruts in the yard and muddy tire tracks on the garage floor. And as the garage mostly serves as a utility work room and sports venue (complete with ping pong table), mud is a problem. You all know how tidy (read OCD) I am. So we decided to bite the bullet and add a cement slab at the entrance to the garage, taking the soft ground issue totally out of play. Here's my chronicle of this adventure. 

First, a shot of the target area. 

Next, preparing for the concrete. That's Nancy in the backhoe and me in the dump truck. (Actually, we used stunt doubles for these shots).

And the site fully prepped for the main event, complete with steel reinforcement rods.

Then the next day, pouring.

And finally smoothing and grooving.

After a few days of curing, the boys were back for cutting. This apparently encourages the slab to crack (which they assured me it will) in pre-selected places. Our slab was cut into four equal sections, 11' by 8'.

And Voila! The completed slab.

Now being over a year old, I am happy to report that the slab has become a valuable member of the family, exceeding all expectations. We drive on it, walk on it, play games on it, pack and unpack on it without fear of tracking up the house, and someday may even shoot baskets on it (this item is in a holding status, waiting its turn on the family meeting agenda; it may be a while).

This takes us to the end of June, and also to the end of Part 4 of our 2016 journey. My hope is to finish the year before the 6th book of the Game of Thrones saga. I know. That's not setting the bar too high.

Grosse Pointe Charles