Cabin Chronicles

Denny Hecker Auction List

Boats, trailers, golf carts, ATVs, and many more items once owned by Denny Hecker are up for auction May 25, 2010, in New Germany, MN. If you can’t make it to the live auction, don’t worry! We have something wonderful called the Internet, and items will also be sold live online (at 5 pm Tuesday, May 25, 2010). Prebidding is now in progress. We know many of our customers have dealt with Denny Hecker personally, and whether you love him or you hate him, you don’t want to miss this! Now is the time to pick up some great deals on new “toys” for your Crosslake area cabin. For more details on the Denny Hecker auction, click here.

Unwanted animals visiting your garden and eating your prized perennials? Strike fear in the hearts of deer and other animals with Eartheart’s Organic Fence, a natural animal repellent with no offensive odor. What’s worse? Animals eating your flowers or the smell of some off-the-shelf deer repellents?  If you have ever attempted to use some of the invisible fence sprays found at home improvement and garden stores, you know the horrible smell I am referring to. There is an odorless alternative to those stinky sprays that is made from organic ingredients. It’s made by Eartheart, and it is called Organic Fence. You cannot find this in stores. It can be purchased directly through Eartheart. But if you are a Home Halo customer, you can purchase it through us, and we can deliver it to your Brainerd Lakes Area home or cabin at no extra charge, and you avoid paying shipping charges. Purchase Organic Fence and say good riddance to tulip-tongued rabbits!

Live Plant

Spring is here, and many of our customers will be returning to their summer homes in Minnesota to find their precious house plants alive and well, thanks to Home Halo! Many of our customers entrust us to keep their green friends hydrated and sunned while they are away. One customer really keeps us a busy with a basement full of plants! Most people only leave a few behind for us to care for. We can rotate them so they are properly sunned, and we can water them as needed. We did well this year. All of our customers’ plants are still alive. We hope to keep them alive again next winter season. Thank you to all our customers that used our service this long winter season. We appreciate it.

It is important that homeowners inform their neighbors if they will be having work done at their home when they are not around. Recently, a Colorado Springs handyman hired to change a homeowner’s locks nearly missed a bullet after a police officer who had mistaken him for a burglar fired a shot at him. The police were responding to a complaint from a neighbor who noticed the handyman there.

It is stories like these that concern us, since we often work in homes when the owners are not home. The neighbor did the right thing by reporting the suspicious activity, but you can see how this turned into an embarrassing and dangerous situation quickly due to poor communication. We always ask our customers to inform any neighbors they can trust that we will be doing some work at their home. Most importantly, we ask that they tell any guests who may be staying at their home about us.

This case is a bit extreme, and it seems like it escalated out of control quickly. However, it does happen. If you have service workers coming to your home, please be sure to notify a close neighbor and any houseguests you may have. You will avoid a dangerous situation like the one in Colorado, and your neighbors and home service workers will appreciate this.

The Colorado handyman is okay, and he has forgiven the police officer.

Here in Minnesota, people tend to have great memories of ice skating or playing pond hockey on the neighborhood rink as a child. It brought the neighborhood together and provided kids with hours of fun, whether the rink was made on an existing pond or lake, or if it was created by flooding someone’s backyard. It seems like kids these days are stuck inside playing video games. It’s easy to make an ice rink, and I think you’ll find that if you take the time to make one, your children or grandchildren will love it. In fact, you might like it just as much as them! It’s pretty fun to shovel the rink on skates. We’ve made rinks for our customers at their cabins. There is nothing better than spending a weekend at the cabin in the winter and having your own private ice rink! Feel free to comment by sharing your memories of the neighborhood ice rink with us. Video music provided by Danosongs.com

The snow has finally stopped here! I was beginning to think it would never end. Now it’s time to film the snow. We have a Sony Handycam that we love to use, so I’ve posted a dazzling slide show of Sony camcorders. It’s neat that there are so many camcorders on the market today. There is one for the person who wants to spend a little money, and there is one for the person who wants to spend a lot. They are even available in all colors of the rainbow. Want an orange camcorder? You can find one! Purple? Yep. They make those too. It’s easy to do your research and buy camcorders online. Camcorders are great for capturing moments that you want to last a lifetime. So, they are perfect for use at the cabin, where people gather with friends and family. Buy one to use at your cabin, then upload your video to the web and share it with your friends and family that couldn’t be there with you to show them how much fun you’re having at your vacation home.

Minnesota snow storm continues today

The Snow Storm of Christmas 2009 is still going strong here in Crosslake! Today is Saturday December 26, and it has been snowing for a full three days now. I just took this photo of the snow coming down on the Adirondack chairs by the fire pit and wanted to share it with you. Two of our caretakers are out plowing driveways and clearing walkways of snow with shovels and snow blowers. Earlier this season, the caretakers helped some of our customers mark their private wells and septics with flags. Doing this allows the wells and septics to be easily spotted underneath the snow if they need to be serviced during the winter. This is something all homeowners should be doing on their own if they do not have a company like us to do it for them. We have more helpful snow and ice maintenance tips on our site. It sounds like our customers are having a great time enjoying the fresh snow at their cabins this weekend. They’re hopping on their snowmobiles and creating ice rinks to go skating. Is it snowing where you live?

Christmas Eve 2009 Minnesota snow storm

We are having a white Christmas here in Minnesota at Home Halo! This is fantastic. It’s like a fairy tale Christmas in this town. It’s so fun to drive down the snow-covered roads and look at all the evergreen trees coated in snow and see the beautiful log cabins with big snowflakes falling all around them. Of course, I am working when I do this! We have been busy getting homes ready for guests that are visiting over the holidays or homeowners that haven’t been to their cabins since last summer. We have also been plowing driveways and snow blowing and/or shoveling walkways to house entrances, propane tanks, and anything else that should be accessible for the maintenance of the home and the safety of the homeowner. We have had about 5 or 6 inches fall today, but reports are predicting much more snow over the next 24 to 48 hours, possibly for a total of 20-plus inches when the storm ends. Merry Christmas Eve!

The former Pillsbury Estate, Southways, on Lake Minnetonka is up for sale by way of a sealed-bid auction. The deadline for delivering sealed bids on this 40,000 square foot home is December 9 at 3 p.m. central time. There is a lot in the news right now about this sale, but what about after it’s sold? Whoever purchases this magnificent estate, whether it’s a family or a corporation, they are certainly going to need some help maintaining it! With 13 acres and 1,700 feet of lake frontage, the groundskeeping is going to be an ongoing task. And, how about maintaining the inside of the home? Wow! How would you like to clean all those bathrooms? There is a caretaker’s cottage on site. Thank goodness, because the new owner of the estate is going to need one! Depending on the situation, it may need an entire staff to help maintain the property, or a domestic couple at the very least. If we were caring for it, the first thing we would do is create a household manual. The property is actually being offered for sale as five separate parcels or as an entire estate. Either way, domestic help will likely be necessary. And domestic help is what we offer at Home Halo.

Conventiently, this estate is near us. We have many customers that live on Lake Minnetonka. It’s located only a couple hours away from us here in Crosslake, and several of our clients who have cabins in Crosslake also have homes in Minnetonka. If you’re not familiar with Crosslake, when we say cabins….we mean sprawling estates that people refer to as “cabins.” For more information on the estate and the sale/auction of this property, you can do a Google search to see who is selling it. I emailed the company asking them for a good photo for the blog, but they didn’t respond to me, which I found quite rude, so I removed their link! If you’re thinking of buying it, remember we’re here to offer you professional and reliable domestic help after you purchase it! Video courtesy of Fox 9 at www.myfoxtwincities.com

Dead bees cover the cabin floor

So, it’s winter now, and if you’ve had bees nesting in the walls or foundation at your cottage over the summer, they’re dying now and making a graveyard of your beautiful seasonal home! As it gets cold out and the insects die off, their dead bodies start to pile up on your floors. This can be quite unsightly! How would you like to pack up your family and friends for a winter break at the cabin only to find it riddled with dead insects??!! We can’t tell you how many houses we have found dead bees and wasps in this year. There was no way for anyone to know the little guys had made a nest in the walls until now. I’ve included a picture of one of the homes we checked on our route today. We’ll clean these up for the customer and arrange for pest control service with one of our trusted vendors this coming spring so this doesn’t happen again.