Tuesday 09-02-14
Arrived at the cabin around 9:30.
After I got moved in, I took a short break.
The new chairs look like they will work fine. The office chair works so good I may look for another one.
I put the other chair on the porch temporarily.
After getting moved in, I drove the van up the Bear Springs Rd almost to Bear Spring where a small bay tree had fallen across the road impeding any further progress.
“No problem” I thought.
I jumped out of the van, went around to the passenger side, opened the doors and pulled the chain saw out.
I set the chain saw down and proceeded to try and start it. After many, many pulls on the starter rope the chainsaw refused to start.
Out of gas!!
I couldn’t cut the tree out of the way so I had to turn around there. It was a real tight spot but after much backing and filling I got the van turned around.
I unloaded the coils of plastic pipe and connected the end of one of the coils to the bumper of the van.
Then I cut the tape that was holding the coil together and began rolling out pipe. Of course the pipe had plans of its own and fought me all the way down the hill to the end.
By the time I got the first coil unrolled I was pooped and the temperature of the day was getting hotter. I headed back to the cabin for a break. When I got to the porch I checked the temp and it read 99 degrees.
I took rest of day off.
Wednesday 09-03-14
Got up early.
After breakfast I fueled, oiled and sharpened the chainsaw and drove to spring. The first thing I did was cut the tree out of the way. Now I can drive all the way up to the spring where the road makes a loop around some trees.
When I got back to the coils of pipe, I began the chore of unrolling the rest of the pipe. It took a while but I finally got all 1300 feet of 3/4 inch black plastic pipe laid out along the road uphill from the spring where we will pull the pipe through the woods down to the cabin site.
Once I got all the pipe laid out, I connected the valve and fittings on the tank. By then it was getting hot and I was getting hungry so I went back to the cabin for lunch.
Dave pulled up around 12:30.
It was already to hot to go back to work and I was pooped anyway.
We took a walk in the evening to scope out the route for the pipes we will pull down the hill tomorrow.
Thursday 09-04-14
After breakfast we went up to the spring tank.
Our first job was to pull 300 feet of 1/2” drip line up a very steep hill to connect it with the one coming down from the spring.
We got the pipe connected with the tank and it began to fill.
Then began the task of pulling the 3/4” pipe through the woods. There are three, 300 ft. sections of pipe and it all had to be dragged through the brush and trees just above the road.
This job fell to Dave with all the support I could provide.
As Dave fought his way through the woods I pulled the pipe down so Dave would have some slack to work with.
We pulled and sweated and worked until around 2:00 when, after pulling in over 600 feet of pipe we took the rest of the day off.
Nothing like a cold beer after a hard hot day of work. Temperature for the day was 97 degrees.
Friday 08-05-14
Got an early start.
After breakfast we went up to the old mill site to see if there was anything there that we could use for the the bridge we have to build for the water line to cross a gully. We found some long though twisted 2X4’s and some crooked 2X2’s that we loaded on top of the van and took them back to camp.
When we got back to camp we built the bridge across the dip.
We walked the route back from camp to where we need to leave the road and go over a hill and down into the camp.
Once we got the route adjusted we pulled more pipe until we crossed the bridge and decided to quit for the day.
Patti and Joanne arrived around 8:30pm.
Saturday 09-07-14
We got an early start.
The first thing we had to do was to make some stakes to hold the plastic pipe in place.
We split some redwood and shaped the points with a draw knife.
We also made some stakes from some oak firewood with the ends sharpened with a hatchet.
It only took us about an hour with the girl’s help to get the pipe pulled all the way to the camp.
We hooked the pipe to the outflow of the Tank and put a valve on the end at the camp.
Then came the task of staking out the pipe. We followed the pipe down hill taking out the dips and securing the pipe to the mountain side. That took a couple more hours. We finished around 3:00 and took the afternoon off.
After dinner we played cards for a couple hours.
I like the table pulled out so that people can sit around it. That wasn’t possible when we were using nylon camping chairs. The new chairs are smaller so they can be left around the table all the time.
Sunday:
Dave left around 10:00 Sunday morning. He really worked his butt off this week and I really appreciate it. After he left I walked up to the spring tank to make sure that it was filling properly. Everything looked good so I opened the outflow valve and let water head down the pipe for the camp.
When I got back to the camp I opened the valve.
After a lot of air and bubbles came out, the flow settled down and we have lots of water and plenty of pressure now to run the water heater.
Okay that was our trip to the cabin last week.
We will be going up again on the 15th of Sept. I will hook the new pipe to the main line then.
Water sure is magical stuff, eh.
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