282 of 365 of What it is Like to Run a Resort

Thursday, April 21, 2011
The lake became very dark, which means it won't be long until it breaks up. We could hear it moaning and groaning all day yesterday. A friend on the lake said she heard it too and that it was loud.

John and I heard the loons and he even saw one fly over yesterday. They are a sure sign of spring.

In anticipation of customers coming on 4/30, John and I worked on getting the water running in 2 cabins - Aspen and Spruce. John went up to the pump house and removed a lot of insulation/doors so we could get to the pipes and pump. Then he went into the basement of Aspen to turn off all the water pipes in preparation. We leave them open to make sure there isn't any pressure or residual water in them. I went into Spruce and turned off all the valves and water too and then I went into the pump house and turned on the water. We had our walkie-talkies with us but there wasn't any water squirting anywhere so we didn't use them. We slowly turned on this and that and emptied out several buckets of dark/mineral water that had sat in the pipes underground. There are so many minerals in our water here, that they build up in the pipes. When we turn the water on in the spring season, we have to clean out a few buckets of dark minerals first.

Every spring we have our water tested by law. It always comes up perfectly safe and pure. We are proud of that. When we got the new well at our newest cabin, there was a little iron in the water, but it is still well within safe levels.

Behind the Ironwood cabin there is a small pond. Our little golden retriever, Orla, loves to play in it and then run around like crazy. She is so cute. We take her back by the pond just to have a bunch of laughs. Puppies are so funny.

I finished the 3-ring binders for the cabins finally. I had to go into town to get booklets from the Chamber of Commerce and the DNR. The DNR office was closed but there happened to be a DNR guy outside the building looking at some turkeys a guy shot. So he let me in and I got the brochures. I had Orla with me. A feather flew out of the guy's trunk of turkeys and Orla chased after it and caught it. They were impressed.

I then went to the Warehouse Hardware store and picked up some things. Orla was in the car and one of the ladies at the Warehouse came out to see her. She exclaimed how Orla is so cute. Then I took Orla to the library to see if Theresa and Renie wanted to see her and, of course, they did. She's a local celebrity.

It took me hours to get the 3-ring binders finished and that was the major job of the day. But I did rake, cut down some thorn bushes, check e-mails, made some calls, etc. It was a good day but, again, it went too fast.