September 24 Across the street

Wednesday:  I was completely unaware that Karen and Scott also owned a massive piece of property across the street from their farm house. Wait until I show you these pictures!

Look! A barn and an old water tower! Are you even kidding? I LOVE barns! I LOVE water towers! Evidently, they had this property for many years before they decided if they were going to keep it versus selling it. But once they decided against selling, Scott renovated the barn and this whole acreage into an absolutely delightful place.

Once again, the pictures loaded weirdly ... so it's going to seem a bit haphazard. But here is Karen (isn't she beautiful?) inside the renovated barn. There is a little kitchen area, a very nice lounging area, a work space for Scott ... all inside this beautiful barn.

Look at this beautiful window!

Outside the barn is an outdoor eating area complete with everything you would possibly want or need to cook and eat outside ...

The building on the very far right of the picture below evidently used to house chickens back in the day. Scott renovated this space into four separate rooms that function just like a small hotel/cabin room with beds and lights, etc. They are super cool. See the golf cart? Karen drove us over in it from the main house.

Way back further on the property, Scott has made a very cool space. Also, out of fallen branches and twigs, he wove together this cool wall ... amazing!

Inside this area is a hot tub as well as a sauna ...

And there is a small pond that Scott loads with fish so that the kids can go fishing. He also strung a zip-line for everyone to enjoy. This little pond has clean water, so Karen says it's not unusual for some of the children to swim here--although to keep it exciting, there IS a snapping turtle (rather large) that inhabits this little pond.

Karen says this space is ideal to have bonfires and evening cookouts.

Below is the entryway from the road directly across the street from the main house ...

And this is the very cool, quite old, water tower.

After nearly five hours of nonstop talking, Karen had an appointment back in Grand Rapids. I stayed about 20 minutes longer and walked back onto this property to get better pictures of the barn and water tower.

I think a very fitting word here would be IDYLLIC (which Webster defines as: "pleasing or picturesque in natural simplicity"). I am happy just knowing there IS such a place; but even better yet, that it was renovated with such expertise and love, and is maintained with JOY, and SHARED with so many to enjoy. What a blessing.