Can you find us???

The first thing that my friend Sonya and I learned when we first came to look at the Apple House was that it was HARD TO FIND.  My GPS was about a mile off and while Sonya's iPhone got us in the right vicinity we still couldn't see the house.  Lucky for us there was a group of goofy teenagers playing basketball at a home near where the iPhone said the house was.  We took our chances and asked them:

me: "Hey, do you guys know where number 88 is?"
super smart teen boy (with a grin):  Well, this is number 87, so it's gotta be close!"

there is not another house that can even be seen from where we are.

me: "OK, super smart teen, then where is the log house around here?"
sstb (points across the street) "in that orchard, way back there."

Thank you sstb who is now my neighbor.  I appreciate your help and I'm sure you appreciate me as a source of entertainment.

The Apple House has a driveway that is about 200 yards long.  You can not see it from the road at all, as it very literally is in the middle of a huge orchard.   This became a problem in our first week here as we had deliveries (minor things, you know, like internet modems and preschool paper work) coming to the house almost every day and people had a hard time finding the place, especially in the dark.

SOLUTION:

Give the people something to look for!

 This was the sad state of our mailbox when we arrived.  It is a quirky thing, obviously home built.  More on that later.  Link thought we should replace it, but I kind of liked it and told him to give me a crack at it first.

Goodbye newspaper tube!  John Henry and I scraped and sanded the old paint and lettering off of it, and then covered the cool old wood.  We didn't want to mess with that!

HELLO!  A couple of coats of chartreuse paint and we are getting easier to find all ready!

Next I dry brushed the entire thing lightly with red to give it some age and depth, painted the flag red, added the appropriate numbers and a sign with our name on it made from one of the old shingles off of the house.  John Henry and I also collected large rocks from around the area and dry stacked them around the base to strengthen it and also to cover up the white PVC pipe that is holding it in place.  Last, we added a small solar power light to up light it.

Now when people come to visit we tell them "Look for the apple green mailbox with our name on it and turn into the orchard there."  No one has had a problem finding us since!

One more fun fact.  While I was painting, our neighbor (sstb's father) came over to meet us.  He told us that the previous owner had, in fact, built the mail box.  It is constructed of iron and probably weighs 70-80 lbs.  He had done it after loosing his mail box one too many times to baseball bat toting teenagers in a pick-up truck.  Our neighbor also came up with his own solution.  He had what appears to be a normal looking mailbox, but the inside of it is partially filled with concrete.  He told us it was a satisfying night not long after they were both installed when he was awoken by the ring of aluminum hitting concrete, tires squealing, aluminum hitting cast iron, more squealing, and finally the sound of pick-up truck swerving off the road into the field.  The culprits managed to extract their truck and were never hear of again.

I LOVE IT!  And that mailbox is not going anywhere!