Community Thanksgiving

Butler Creek has a huge clubhouse. Our second event held for the community was a Thanksgiving dinner, which we held last night. We had over 50 people who attended.

Butler Creek provided the turkeys, and we roasted four of them yesterday. According to the directions, they should have taken 5-6 hours to roast, but were done in 2-3 hours! This was not just ONE of the birds, but all of them! We cooked one in the clubhouse kitchen, one at our own home, one in a home we have for our partners when they are here, and one at an employee's home.

The plan was for people to sign up and tell us what they would bring to go along with the turkey. Of course, some people showed up (with side dishes) that had not signed up, but that was okay. We more than planned for the unplanned! We had one family join us that have deposit money on a home and are moving into the community before Christmas, so this was a great way for them to feel like part of it - they even met someone else who is a member of their church!

Not many people had dessert on the list, and no pies. Friday night I baked four - pecan and pumpkin. (Not a big deal for me - I put myself through graduate school baking and selling homemade pies!) Jim and I also picked up rolls at Sam's Club, because nobody signed up for those, either! We also bought garnishes - olives, cranberry sauce, etc.

We ran into some problems: our clubhouse kitchen contains NOTHING. Of course, plasticware and paper plates worked, but we now know we must buy things like serving spoons! (Yup, people brought food but nothing to serve it with; luckily I had salvaged a multitude of plastic service utensils at company picnics throughout the years and had taken them to the dinner!) We also learned that the dishwasher does not work, so that will be added to the list of things we need to buy.

And....talking about things we have learned we need to buy...we recently had a huge rainstorm, which was much needed in Georgia. HOWEVER, we learned exactly how many leaks are in the roof of the clubhouse. Thus, we now have contractor's coming to give us estimates on replacing said roof. So far we only have one estimate and it is about $10,000. When that is done, we must replace the ceiling.

Plus, the rain also blew out the sides of the pipes embedded in our lake to channel overflow. We knew one of them was leaking, but we had enough rain that the pressure was just too much for these old stainless steel pipes. We have already contracted for these pipes to be replaced in early December - another $6,500, but a very necessary as well as desirable repair. This lake is a highlight of the community. We won't even have to drain the lake much to replace - the hole is large enough and low enough that the contractor can almost do the work as-is!

We have been incredibly busy since getting to Georgia, thus the lack of blog entries. The next blog, hopefully next week, will discuss our new water meters and our tenants getting their own bills.

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