It has been a long time coming, but today we received official notification that Terrapin Station achieved LEED Platinum Certification US Green Building Council (USGBC).  Our home is the first single family home in Benzie County and only the 28th in the entire State of MI to achieve Platinum, the highest level available.  Our score was 8 points above the required to achieve Platinum.  Needless to say, we are overly excited and delighted.

Happy Holidays 2011

I am penning this from Orange Beach AL where it is in the 70's. We are listening to the Reverend Jimmy's Christmas Island album.  Those of you who are parrottheads know to whom I am referencing...for the rest of you, it is Jimmy Buffett.

We are waiting on the final determination of our LEED Platinum certification.  We sure thought it would be completed months ago but.....stay tuned as hope to know in the next few weeks.  Not that we are over zealous, but the champagne is on ice :)

Jack and I absolutely love our cottage on Turtle Lake and are very happy and peaceful there.  We were so glad that many of our family and our dear friends came for a visit.

I've tried uploading a cool slideshow I made showing the wildlife, but everything I have tried doesn't work...I'll keep trying and if you have any suggestions, I would appreciate it.

Thanks for your continued interest...we really appreciate it!

Barbara

TERRAPIN STATION Update - Early June 2011

I apologize for being sloooow in writing. Here is the lastest update on our cottage:

First of all, we have settled on a name because it seems all cottages have names:  Terrapin Station.  Jack and I spent hours trying to decide on a name.  In Spanish turtle means la torruga, Old Irish: seilce, Gaelic: turtar, Portuguese tartargua or cagado.  None of those sounded right.  One day  right before Memorial Day, Jack was driving and listening to his third favorite XM/Sirrius radio station: The Grateful Dead station,  and he heard their version of "Terrapin Station" and wola, we have a name!  Terrapin is a another term for turtle.

We put our house up for sale in Algoma Township the beginning of May and we still own it :(.  Mostly, we are living here full-time with Jack going "down state" to make sure everything is in order and be sure our local haunts haven't gone out of business.

There were terrible rains (5 1/2 inches in 2 hours) in early May.  It was exactly one day after the excavators completed their work which proceeded to wash away in less than an hour.  You can see by the pictures that we installed a silt fence (it is the black one) and ended up terracing the side of the house in order to keep the hill from washing into the lake.  We bought native trees and shrubs and planted 2 flats of native Columbine and Lupine along with 1 oz of Little Blue Stem native seed which has an ginormous root system.

My brother, Richard and his wife Marilyn joined us for Memorial Day.  It started out rather cool but turned out great.  We had a small planned party with our neighbors who are the only other ones building, Sandra and Dennis along with their daughter who was visiting from Chicago, Kathryn.  We were later joined by Jeff and Debra who were camping on their lot down the street.  Also, on Friday the couple who own the lot next to Dennis and Sandra stopped by, Keith and Lynn.  At first blush, we have very nice neighbors, with varied interests, but all seem to be totally aware of our obligation to the land and be good stewards of this beautiful area we have been entrusted with for a short time.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.