09-17-13

I was talking with my friend Chuck (AKA Swamp) the other day and he sounded like he needed some time in the woods so I invited him to come up to the cabin for a couple of days.

I left for the cabin around 9:30 Thursday morning and got up there around 11:00.
I got moved in and had lunch.
After lunch I decided that I would take a walk up to the Bear spring. It is the first time I have walked up there in a long time.
It took me a while to get there but it was a nice walk.

As I was getting back from my walk, Chuck drove up.

We hung out and visited for the rest of the day.

The next day was pretty laid back. We took a walk down to the old homestead site where we normally shoot trap.

Chuck standing near the trap.

I wanted to see how high the grass was and to ascertain whether or not it would be safe to shoot down there next month.
It might require a little weed eating to be done, but if it rains between now and then there should be no fire danger.

We also spent some time throwing a tomahawk and throwing knife at some blocks on the campfire wood pile.
If you look close, you can see the hawk stuck in the end of the block of wood at the right.

 

Once you learn the technique and with practice you can do that fairly consistently.

While we were sitting around we noticed a lot of yellow jackets buzzing around in one area. As we watched we could see several of them going into a spot where a couple of logs for the dining hall perimeter come together. They were disappearing into the gap between the logs.
I put some gasoline in a gator-aid bottle and poked a hole in the top. We collected an old tarp and a small log to cover the nest and set them near by.

After it had been full dark for a while we decided that it was time to wipe out the hive. We went over to the dining hall with a couple of flashlights. 
I squirted the gasoline up into the entrance of the nest and all around the area. Then I threw the folded up tarp over the spot, put the log on top to hold the tarp in place and left it there over night.

In the morning there was no trace of yellow jackets coming from the nest.
A good deed done, mission accomplished.

We set up a couple of rounds to throw the hawk at

and played with that occasionally during the day.

Here is Chuck’s best throw.

I wanted to check out the spring that Bob had connected when he was up.
Chuck had not seen our spring setup so we climbed the hill to the cabin spring and then we walked across the hill to the old spring where we found that the line coming to the tank from Bob’s spring was disconnected and the tank was almost empty. We re-connected the line and the tank began to fill.

The next day we took a ride down to the grove.
Later we did a little target shooting with my .45.

Chuck left around 10:00 Sunday morning and I took another walk to the Bear spring.
 
In the afternoon I started working on a path along the back side of the cabin. I had forgotten that I had a waterline buried in that area and as I was chopping away with the Polouski I cut through the line. (Oops!).
I walked up the hill to where the valves are and turned off the water to the cabin.
The cut was a short slice length wise on the pipe so I had to remove a section.

 

I pushed a short 1/2” nipple into the pipe and clamped it. The clamps that I had were some aluminum ones that I bought at Harbor Freight. They aren’t strong enough to stop the water from leaking.

I will have to use a slightly longer nipple some Rector seal and some stronger clamps. It will get fixed the next time I come back.

I packed up Monday morning and left around noon.
I turned off the water to the cabin before I left for home  

It was a fun couple of days and I enjoyed hanging out with my old friend, Swamp.