It might sound glamorous if I told you that we spent the better part of the summer at our lake cottage, but the truth is, those visits were filled with blood, sweat, and tears.

After Papa passed away, mom, in part, inherited the place, and after she and my aunts made the painful decision to put it up for sale, we had lots of work to do.

Across several trips to Plainfield, WI, our dedicated crew painted, cleaned, fixed, and, once I eagerly made my riding-lawnmower debut, we landscaped too! Our efforts were sometimes interrupted when cute bunnies, jumping toads, and slithery snakes crossed our work path, but once some of us were done being distracted for the rest of the day, we were promptly back to work.

In the end, we got Papa’s cottage looking really nice! In fact, it was so nice that we had to hurry up and post it on Zillow before we changed our minds.

And we were indeed able to sell that cottage quickly, especially when advertised as a true lakeside getaway.

Because even though nearby potato irrigation farms sucked the body of water dry by the time Papa purchased the property, he always believed a return on investment would slowly come as the Wisconsin rain and snow replenished the basin over time. And he was right… Papa was always right.

We once owned a house on a lake, a wet lake.