I had trouble publishing this blog all at once because it is too long so I have published it in two parts.
Thursday:
I got to the cabin around 11:00.
I parked the van in front of the cabin to be closer to the frig so I wouldn’t have to carry the ten gallon propane bottle to far. With the propane bottle in place I got the two twelve volt batteries out of the van and hooked up the frig.
Got the groceries, bedding, clothing and toys unloaded and stashed away in the cabin.
Then I put the new propane lantern from Walmart together and pre burned the mantles. After the mantles were well burnt I lit it up. The gas pressure blew the bottoms out of the mantles so there were these two jets of flame shooting out of the bottom of the mantles. It didn’t look like a good way to run a lantern so I turned it off.
Fortunately there was a pair of mantles stashed on a shelf so I took the the broken ones out and replaced them with the new heavy duty Colman mantles.
After pre burning the new mantles I, once again lit the lantern.
Around 1:30 I ate lunch and was about to take a walk up to the new spring tank when I heard the steady rattle of rain on the tin roof of the cabin. I knew by the sound that this was going to be one of those steady soaking rain and was going to stick around for a while.
“Oh darn, I thought; “It looks like I’ll have to fire up the wood stove, heat up a cup of cocoa, sit back and read for a while. Bummer!”
Around 3:00 the rain dwindled to just light mist so I put on a heavy shirt and walked up the road to the spring tank. The flow isn’t super but at the end of summer after three years of drought, it’s amazing that there is any water at all.
From there I continued up the road to the Bear Spring where I sat on a log and enjoyed the serenity of the woods for a while.
I wandered around the spring a bit checking out animal tracks. Eventually I headed back down to the cabin.
Friday:
Got up around 8:00, had a shower, ate breakfast, sat around through two cups of cocoa. The fog hung around for a while but eventually cleared.
I put the damper in the new flue pipe
and split some wood.
Around 2:00 Dave showed up. After he got settled in we installed the new flue.
Here, he is sweeping off the roof.
We sat around for a while and then took a walk up the road toward the gate; we took loppers with us and cut down a lot of white thorn.
It started raining around 6:00 and rained for the rest of the night.
Saturday:
Woke up to a foggy morning.
After breakfast Dave and I went down to the the grove to check out the tree that fell in the swimming hole.
The tree crushed all the trees that gave us shade while we sat by the creek in the summer so Dave and I cleaned out a new shady sitting area.
Patti had arrived by the time we got back to the cabin.
I have had my eye on a downed piece of redwood that looks like it might be used for new treads on the stairs to the cabin. Dave and I went up the hill and cut about a four foot section from the tree. We removed the bark and rolled the log off the hill onto the road that goes to the cabin spring. We rolled the log all the way down to the cabin.
When we got the log down to the cabin we split it in two. It turned out that after removing the white wood from the pieces, they ended up being to narrow for the stairs so we decided to make benches from them.
After we got most of the white wood knocked off the logs we stopped for the day.
After dinner we played cards until bed time.
Sunday:
Got up an normal time, had a shower, ate my oatmeal. Dave came up around 9:00. We sat around and drank coffee until around 10:30. Dave went to his camp and started packing up to go home.
I continued working on the benches. Dave left around 1:00.
I finished up cleaning the loose white wood off the split log.
Then I used the draw knife to clean up the flat side a bit.
Once I got the seat cleaned I started drilling the holes for the legs with a 1-1/2 inch auger.
Patti bought a bunch of Daffodils and other bulbs.
While I was drilling holes Patti was planting the bulbs. She planted some bulbs on the hill around the big stump.
She also planted some between the fruit trees along the drive way.
While Patti was planting I continued drilling holes for the legs on the bench.
Once all the holes were drilled, the legs had to be shaped. I decided to use some pieces of hand split heart redwood fencing for the legs. I used a draw knife to shape the legs.
I cut all the legs to 20 inches long then pounded them into the holes that I had drilled.
I got the bench finished.
Then it was time to deliver the bench. We loaded it in the van and took it up to the Big Fern Spring tank.
After setting up the bench we continued up the road to the turnaround and sat there for a while enjoying the woods.
We headed back down to the cabin where we had dinner
After dinner we played cards until bed time
The end of part one
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