Visitors

Got to the cabin on Thursday and found someone had broken into our shed. We've had our cabin for about seven years and never had any problems, other than in the winter when brazen ice fishermen cross our land to get to the lake. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't such animals with complete disregard for personal property rights and the environment, as they don't seem to mind using the outdoors as their personal garbage can or destroying your property. But, I digress.

Pulled into the driveway at the cabin and could see the shed door was open and the kids inflatable pool was half pulled out. The door frame/trim that held the lock was completely ripped off the shed door. Hubby made a bee-line to the shed and did a quick mental inventory. Two gas cans were still there, antique motor of his grandfather's was still there, all the lawn furniture and games were still there. I commented they must've been complete idiot thieves to have broken in and not taken anything. Then I see my cocoa bean mulch pulled across the lawn and the plastic bag ripped to bits. Our dumb thieves didn't want valuables, they smelled what they thought was food. Turns out the bear had been back and thought my mulch was chocolate...since cocoa bean mulch smells just like chocolate! Yikes!!

We then get to the cabin door to find a huge pamphlet from the Jehovah's Witness folks. It's odd to think that the government might not even know our cabin exists in boondocks Wisconsin, but the Witnesses do. Second batch of visitors. They must have us on a schedule, because I posted about them at length at this same time last year.

Underneath the pamphlet from the Witnesses is another note. Seems we were very popular this week. Normally, it is very quiet where we are so it was surprising to suddenly have all this unwanted activity!

This note was from the County Sanitary dude. Forget his actual, "official" title, but it's not one I would want on my resume. A few years ago, the lake had a bad reaction to something. It's a big, long lake, about 2000 acres, but it isn't very deep at all. I think the deepest it gets is LESS than 30 feet. The little lake my aunt's cabin is on gets twice as deep as that. Plus, from what I hear, there are tons of submerged logs at the bottom of the lake, remnants of the logging era.


In a misguided attempt to get to the bottom of what was causing the lake to have a huge algae bloom and goodness knows what else ailed it, the local do-gooders decided the cause of the lake's wretchedness had to be man-made, just like Al Gore and his conclusions about global warming. They proposed that all the owners of homes or cabins on the lake allow the county sanitary dude to inspect their septic systems because this lake problem had to be from old and leaking septic systems (no evidence or research, just their belief). A farmer whose land is close to the lake cannot even keep cows on his land because they were believed to be part of the problem. How this isn't a violation of the farmer's land use rights, I don't know.

These are the same people, in my opinion, who have built the large cabins on the lake and now want to impose huge building restrictions on any future developments. They got theirs, but no one else can. We need rules to protect the lake, we need restrictions, we need lake associations and we need them to tell us what to do.

Anyway, last year we received a letter from a group of the do-gooders asking us to voluntarily allow our septic system to be inspected. They even enclosed a self-addressed stamped envelope to make this intrusion seem less intrusive. Of course, we didn't want to be the only ones to say no and be ostracized, but not being invited to the area picnic was far less concerning to me than allowing these wing nuts to bring about martial law on the lake. We didn't respond.

Later, we received another letter from them, again with a self-addressed stamped envelope, re-asking us to allow the inspection. No way. Even if my septic system had been brand new, I wouldn't have agreed, just the principle of it.

So, reading the letter from the sanitary dude we find he had been by our property and inspected the septic system without our permission, but at the behest of the lake association folks. I don't think he can do that. First the bear, then the Witnesses, now this guy.

The septic system is older than 1968, at least according to his notes, but passed with flying colors. This is good news, but how can someone trespass on your property and look in your septic system? At least the bear had an excuse.