Here's a picture of when we were just starting the berm immediately in front of the cabin. At this point, we had already put in a couple of long, narrow berms, to kind of separate the camp site from the road. I'll upload photos of those later.

We use berms and various containers for almost everything we plant at the camp. That's because the soil is very poor and rocky. It's almost impossible to dig in. Planting trees and bushes has been a big pain.

Same berm... a little further along.

A closer shot of one of the flower boxes on the front of the cabin deck. There is also a similar, long, box down the side of the cabin to the left of the photos. It runs all the way from the front to the back of the cabin. We did not add one on the other side, because it receives very little shade. We did, however, add another deck on the other side, just this summer.

All of this looks a lot different by now.. but you'll just have to wait for the last installment of pictures to see how everything is this summer!

Rocking chairs on the deck never change though... they are a constant. They go inside when we leave at the end of the weekend, but are the first thing we bring out when we arrive again. We absolutely love sitting out there drinking our coffee in the mornings. We use them a lot at other times of the day too. And they are our primo spot for enjoying the hummingbirds that flock around the hummingbird feeders and the honeysuckle every summer!

No power tools? If so, that's quite an accomplishment.

bk

We had problems with condensation on the inside of the flat roof, which was really just a heavy, corrugated, metal roof (suitable, of course, for a carport). So, in 2011, we added a peaked roof.

Of course, you will notice the cast iron kettle simmering over the campfire in the foreground. Cooking and EATING is always an important activity!

You'll also notice the red camper 'tool shed' has been replaced by a newer, but still very 'vintage' camper that servers as our camp kitchen. That camper is currently (as we speak) being remodeled and modernized inside. We tore out the kitchen last week, and will be re-flooring, putting in a new door and windows, new interior walls, new cupboards, new propane range, the works! Except for a sink, which I don't use anyway. I like to bring my warm water to a table outside and do my dishes, etc there. Since we don't have running water, our camp water is also brought to camp in multiple 5 gallon beverage coolers, so we never had water connected to the sink anyway.

Ahh... bkay2000. Sorry to disappoint, but we do have a generator and can run (and often do) a full range of power tools :-)

Comments and questions are great! I love 'em!

But we feel it's quite an accomplishment anyway, mostly done with our own (4 - husbands and my) hands! Those plus a lot of love and enthusiasm and a little advice from our friends!

Here's a photo of the inside of the cabin, taken (I believe) in 2011 or 2012. It's fairly similar yet, although we have reorganized somewhat.

The bed (3/4 size) is behind the sofa. There is just enough room to walk down either side of it in order to get in :-) We sleep well at camp!

That's a battery operated gazebo chandelier hanging in the middle of the room. We must have our luxuries you know, even at camp :-)

Early stages - probably back in 2009. This is one of the berms that we put in to separate the main clearing from the road. There is a similar berm on either side, and the iron wagon wheels are on either side of the actual drive into the clearing (which sits immediately off of the road, so it's not really much of a driveway.

You might wonder why we even bother to separate the clearing from the road (other than that it's a good excuse for a couple of berms with gardens on them). Our road is private property. We own it. We could put up signs saying this and prevent people from using it. But... the land on the other side of our camp property belongs to the local timber company and is open for public use. Many people use our road to access that land. They travel it using 4 wheel drive trucks, ATV's including 4 wheelers and snow mobiles, etc. We enjoy our back country trails and we enjoy riding our own 4-wheelers. We don't enjoy coming across roads that are the only easy access to public ground that owners of other properties have blocked off. So, we leave ours open. We welcome visitors who are driving through, and they sometimes stop and talk with us. The only thing we really worry is children and our puppies playing at camp. We try to keep them off the road, and we ask that people driving through drive slowly and watch out for them.

Oh yes, these berms started out with mixed perennials. There is a row of Rugosa roses down the middle of each. The roses are spreading and smothering out the other perennials, so we've decided to remove the perennials (relocate them) and let the roses form a beautiful living hedge. That will take a few years to form, but I'm sure we'll enjoy it very much. Right now, at this very moment, the roses have bright red rose hips on them that are as big as crab apples!

What wonderful progress you've made! I loved looking at the pictures and knowing you've been busy little bees creating your haven. To have to drive to and from this spot and 'rough it' while you are there is especially impressive to me. As I remember it you and your hubby are of a similar age to me and mine, born in '48 & '44. We are always busy doing things around here but come inside to our creature comforts. I'm really impressed and hope you stay with us and add pictures as you have them. Thanks for posting. Myrle

What wonderful progress you've made! I loved looking at the pictures and knowing you've been busy little bees creating your haven. To have to drive to and from this spot and 'rough it' while you are there is especially impressive to me. As I remember it you and your hubby are of a similar age to me and mine, born in '48 & '44. We are always busy doing things around here but come inside to our creature comforts. I'm really impressed and hope you stay with us and add pictures as you have them. Thanks for posting. Myrle

Hi Myrle! Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying the tour. And there is more to come. I have quite a few nice up to date photos from this summer and I'll add them shortly. It really is so different from what it was that first summer or two that it just amazes us when we look at the photos side by side. W

We're a little younger than you, but not by very much. I was born in '55 and Gary is a young 'un, being born in '58! We both work full time, but work so hard during our time off (mostly at the camp) and have a hard time just sitting and doing nothing but enjoying, though we do a little of that too, from time to time. We do like our creature comforts, but we include as many of them as possible at the camp, and have been told by friends that it just doesn't fit the 'camp' category any longer and they like to refer to it as our 'resort' LOL! We do love it. We live in a very small town, and it's not that where we live is high pressure or noisy or anything of the sort. But we drive 15 miles north to our camp in the woods and all stress and pressure just seems to slip away. we are so filled with peace when we are at the camp, no matter that we are (at the same time) often working our tails off!

We are looking forward to retirement, but it will be a few years yet. We would like to be 'snow birds' and spend summers here at our camp, and winters far south. That might happen before too many years, since my job is portable. I work from home and could work from anywhere, so long as I have high speed internet and a telephone. Gary, on the other hand, would have to find part time work (or part year work) in both places, so we'll see. It's not the cold that bothers us here so much, but the amount of snow! Last year we had over 310 inches and that's just a lot of snow moving!

We have collected a lot of large rocks, and use those in our camp landscaping. Here are a couple of close up photos of a few of them. Gary and I have also moved all of these, some of them weighing easily 400+ pounds by ourselves, along with our truck and a few simple tools for leverage.

One more rock close up.

Another photo of the berm in front of the cabin. Here it is complete (well, as complete as any gardening project ever gets) but still very young. You'll see a huge difference in the photos from this year!

And here, Gary and my step-daughter's boyfriend are putting together the garden 'bed'. This would be to the left of the cabin, as we face the cabin from the front. It was one of the early projects to be completed. It contains a lot of daffodils and misc. perennials. You'll probably see it in other photos. It's still this same outlandishly bright orange color!

And here, Gary and my step-daughter's boyfriend are putting together the garden 'bed'. This would be to the left of the cabin, as we face the cabin from the front. It was one of the early projects to be completed. It contains a lot of daffodils and misc. perennials. You'll probably see it in other photos. It's still this same outlandishly bright orange color!

{{!gwi}}

Oops! Apparently missed adding the photo on that last update!

I sure am glad I came over here for a look!

hh

I would highly suggest trying to find the documentary "Alone in the wilderness" everyone on this thread would LOVE this show...

Ok, that was then..... the early days.

Now, I'll start adding some photos from 2012 and then will end up with 2013.

Originally, we had put up a gazebo at camp, but over the course of a couple of years, we left the fabric screen sides up during the winter once and they just didn't hold up well. So we replaced the gazebo in 2012 with a nicer one (photos to come) but we couldn't stand to waste the older gazebo framework. So, we decided to move it to a different spot and use it as the framework for our own home built rustic gazebo.

We decided it would be covered with lattice, which (hopefully) will later be covered with vines, blooming ones if we can find any that will bloom here. Around the bottom of 4 sides (out of 6), two on either side of the entry, we would build wooden planter boxes that are sided in slab wood.

This rather unflattering photo is me, tromping down the dirt in one of the planter boxes at the base of the gazebo.

A closer up shot of the planter box, as we were building it.

and one more of the finished planter box, with just a few plants in it. I can see now (a year later) that this is going to be way too crowded in this area, with the wisteria near the doorway and then the lilac right beside it. BTW, by now that wisteria is covering a good section of the lattice on this side and is way up on to the roof area.

This shot was of Gary when we were working on the platform and surround for our shower tent. We put that up at the same time that we were working on the rustic gazebo in 2012. If you look back a few pics, you can see the shower enclosure and tent in the background behind me playing in the gazebo planter box :-)

We bought some old wheels at a sale, and decided to add some of the small ones to the berm immediately in front of the cabin. These next couple of shots are the wheels and the berm, later in 2012.

You can see, the plants in this berm have really matured since the earlier photos. Garden's just seem to love our camp!

Another angle.

Still 2012, liatris in the boat.

This isn't part of our camp, but our camp IS located right at the base (back side of what you're looking at here) of these beautiful cliffs. We love to ride the trails (4 wheelers) that lead from our camp and up into the cliffs. There are 4-5 spots where we can get right up to the top, and stand up there looking back out over the area that this photo was taken from. You can see for miles and miles and miles.... The cliffs are actually much taller than they look in this photo. I never do seem to get the perspective (even the grandeur of the Grand Canyon doesn't seem the same in my pictures) in photos. Of course, our cliffs are nothing compared to the Grand Canyon, but the ARE much taller than the photo makes them appear :-) And we love 'em!

I do think this photo gives a good example of why we garden in berms and containers at camp. See all that rock? That's the same stuff that is underlying our camp area!

And to finish up the 2012 photos! THIS is why we don't plant hostas at the camp!!! We do love the deer. But they eat anything, especially hosta!

This photo was taken a bit over a mile from our camp, at Eagle River, MI. They feed the deer here every winter, nearly all winter, once the snow falls. It's a great place to go deer watching! We don't see them in this number at the camp, but they are all over town, and we do see them in ones, twos, threes, and so on at our camp!

Oh, and just so you know.... this photo is only a FEW deer. We see them here, literally 150-200 deer at a time on many days! Especially if we arrive shortly after feeding time.

The next bunch of photos that I upload will be from 2013.

I decided not to upload any more photos to this same thread... so, to be continued... at the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Cabin - 2013

AHAH! MI's left thumb der eh? The Packers cap started to give it away ;-) I'm jealous of your old wheels we only have one. and we only have about 50 deer that travel though our lower field - 3,4 strands of electric fence keep em out mostly, and lead poisoning takes care of the couple that find their way up the driveway, mmmmmm canned venison is lean goodness. Has your Wisteria left room for one of these?

Honeysuckle, yes, hostahillbilly! If you think it will bloom well in the shade, Oe actually, part shade. We have honeysuckle growing on the front of the pergola over the cabin deck! It's one of my favorites, because it has beautiful flowers AND because the hummingbirds love it! Check the link to my second cabin/camp post on my last comment before yours.I've got a couple pics of honeysuckle there. Do you have more pics? Would love to see them!