December, 2014

PLAN BEE

For some time now we have been yammering about this big-o-honkin article about the island that was to appear in Cottage Life magazine. The writer and photographers spent 3 days each separately with us the summer before last, getting their story together, and it was finally published last month. 

It is what I am told the magazine world calls a 'puff piece',  a 10 page feature spread intended to keep the summer cottage folks fires burning in anticipation of Spring. With a million readers, it gets quite a bit of coverage in the cottage community. I have reproduced it here although some enlargement of the text might be required to actually read it. ( Ctrl and + key)

Granddaughter Kayla blowing bubbles on our dock

At the risk of driving this thing into the ground even though at this point I think I already have, we got word that the televised segment that was shot this past summer at the Bee by the Cottage Life Television Network (as opposed to the magazine folks), aired on December 9th and it is being syndicated internationally. We thought it turned out pretty well and we have a You Tube version of it here for you to see. How our little bit of paradise has generated this kind of attention is beyond us.

Mothers world

Last fall we spent some time just before we left putting Janice's mothers affairs in order after she lost her husband Vern. Over the summer she decided it was time to move into a senior retirement home here in San Luis Obispo. She packed her clothes and a few pieces of furniture and moved out of her double wide mobile home. 

She then waited for our arrival in November for us to empty the house of its furnishings and contents and to put it up for sale. We spent the better part of two weeks working daily to get it done, then checked that box and moved onto doing the maintenance that our own home needed before tackling our big project for this season. 

Meanwhile,  we unloaded the furniture we had brought on our trailer from New York and a piece we could not live without that we found in Idaho while visiting our favorite son Wesley. We are thrilled with the new acquisitions as they fit into the eclectic decor that our home here demands.

Remember this from last month?

Well, here it is. The wood is Blue Pine.

Last June, we asked our sawyer friend who had built a few pieces of future for us at the Bee, if he could find us a piece similar to what we had seen in a shop in California. We wanted to take it and a one of a kind office desk we had commissioned him to make for us, back to California on our little trailer. 

Weeks later, he called and said that he thought that he had found it. We drove 10 miles out into the woods with him and walked through a muddy field to find what you see below. It is a Red Cedar stump, or is it a root gone wild still stuck in the ground? Of course, it was perfect! Wouldn't everyone want one of these?

By September it was ready to go. Having drug that thing and the live edge Butternut and Ash desk all through hell and gone across the country to get home, it was a done deal.

Command central, where all the brain work occurs.

This is our new wine rack. What you see is an optical illusion as you see it reflected in the 10 foot high ( 3+ meter) mirror behind it with a view of part of the kitchen seen in the mirror also. I point this out so you don't think that we are bigger lushes than we already are.

Here is to a Merry Christmas and a happy New year.