Yesterday was the "Wallin Family Annual Cabin Cleaning Party". This is a highly anticipated occasion (mostly by Grandpa). This tradition has been going on for 47 years since the cabin was built in 1960. Every spring the cabin needs to be "opened" for the coming summer season. We have found that if the cabin is given an in depth cleaning to begin with, the rest of the time it is easy to keep it in order as it is used. Back in the "Olden Days", when it was just Mom and Dad and us 8 children, the working crew was still living at home and it didn't seem so festive but as the years have progressed and the original 8 now have our own kids and grandkids, it really is more of a party atmosphere. Early on in our childhood, Grandpa came up with our family motto: 'First we work... then we play." Ask anyone in the family, no matter their age, and they can quote this and give many specific examples of it's implimentation. This year there were 4 generations represented!!! Aspen was the youngest at 14 months up to Grandpa who is now 88 years old. He hasn't slowed down much. You'll notice in the wood spliting photo that he is front and center on the spliting machine! He just loves a highly stacked woodpile. The work party consisted of Paul, Sherrie, Cam, LaRane, Collin, Clark, Aspen, Kent, Kory, Kassidy, Mark, Karen, TJ, Monica, Courtney, Lacey, Tyler, Mindy, Zack and his friend, Billy (who probably had no idea what he was in for when he thought a day at a cabin sounded fun). The cabin was thoroughly cleaned inside -- everything from light fixtures to under the kitchen sink. Outside was even more intense. Besides all the wood splitting (thanks to TJ for bringing up the mega-sized splitter) there were more tree fellings (3) under the direction of Monica who is uniquely qualified at cutting down huge dead pine trees with a chain saw because she graduated from Southern Utah Unviersity with a degree in agricultural science and is employed by the Forest Service as a sawyer (she fights fires too). Only one tree actually hit the cabin (Uncle Kent maybe needs a degree before felling anymore trees) -- no damage to human or property! Paul was in charge of painting wooden weather-exposed benches, tables, swings and Uncle Mark repaired some leaking water lines. Whew.... that's alot of work!!! When do we get to play?
2 comments:
i LOVE it! your post gave me some cabin envy! :) sorry to have missed out.
I remember the cabin days, when I was the rookie, scaredy cat, afraid of the tree house, the horses, the swing, the bugs, the big brothers...there was the day my PJ's caught on fire because they were laying close to the candle in the loft bedroom. I grabbed them screaming, and ran out to the cat walk where I dropped them off the catwalk for Dorothy to deal with. She freaked out and did an Indian war dance on those PJs that must have brought the good wishes of all the Indian gods, because the fire didn't catch and take down the cabin log by log. Some of my happiest memories are visiting the Wallin Cabin a few times a summer,
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