4th of July Week at the Cabin.

Wednesday, 6/27.

Arrival.

I got to the cabin around 11:30.
The first thing I did was to hook up the battery for the fridge.
The battery‘s are connected to a power panel that I made several years ago.

The fridge was plugged into this panel but the connection was shaky and wasn’t working.
I ended up eliminating the plug and splicing into the power wires that go to the panel. The panel still is in the system to monitor the battery’s and the outlets can still be used.
Now I shouldn’t have anymore problems of that sort.

Moving In.

Once the fridge was up and running I began unloading the jeep.
It didn’t take long to get moved in.
Once I was moved in it was time for lunch.

Goofing Off.

I spent the rest of the day; reading, relaxing and just enjoying the passage of time.

No Gas For the Stove.

Around 5:30, I was getting a bit hungry so I started making some thing for dinner. Some diced Spam and Eggs would be nice and easy.
I diced up the spam and whipped up the eggs; when I went to light the stove there was no gas.
Oh, of course. I forgot to turn the gas on.
Went to check the gas and it was on. Okay I need another gas cylinder.
There is one on the shower and one on the fridge and I don’t want to use ether one of them.

I remember that there were a couple of 5 gallon gas bottles over at the Dining Hall.
I brought one of the bottles over to the cabin and hooked it up. When I turned the valve on there was a hissing sound and the smell of Propane. There was a leak somewhere. I shut the valve immediately.
I needed a bubble tester to see where the leak was so I drilled a small hole in the lid of an old drink bottle, put a little dish soap and some water in it and voila a leak tester is made.
I returned to the tank and turned on the valve. I squirted around all the connections and didn’t find any leaks. Then I started wetting down the hose from the tank to the stove and found that some Rodent had bitten a couple holes in the hose.
Bummer!!
This means I will have to take a ride to town to get a new hose.
I decided to let it wait until tomorrow morning and use the barbeque to cook dinner.
I just put the skillet on the grill. It took a bit longer than normal to get the skillet hot but once it was hot it cooked just fine.

Here, I’m heating water for breakfast.

Thursday. 6/28

Removing the Hose.

After breakfast, it didn’t take long to pull out the stove and remove the hose from that end.

Next I removed the hose from the regulator.
I took the hose with me and headed for Boonville in the hope that the hardware store might have something that would work. If not then, I will have to go clear to Ukiah about another 45 minute drive.

I walked into the Hardware store and asked if they had anything like the hose I had.
The guy behind the counter looked at a display on the wall and said “Yep, we have a five footer right here. We spent some time discussing the fittings as I wasn’t sure if the ones on their hose would fit or not.
I ended up buying a bushing that it turned out wasn’t necessary.

Hooking up the Stove

When I got back to the cabin it took about 20 minutes to get everything hooked up, leak tested and the stove moved back in place.

Once the stove was back in place, I fine tuned the burners a little.

Take a Hike.

After around 2:00, I decided to hike the trail. I walked up the hill from the cabin where the trail starts.

Bob and I had planted a group of Plumb and Prune trees in a clump on the hillside here.

As I walked past the trees I noticed that one of the Prune trees had Prunes growing on it.

There are three Prune’s on the tree; one on each side of the picture and one, slightly deformed Prune, at the top of the picture.

These are the first of the Prune trees to have fruit on them. The Plumbs still haven’t fruited.

Tree on the Trail.

After inspecting the fruit trees, I continued up the trail.
I had a rake with me so I did a trail little clean up as I went along.

This spot was a bit more than I can clean with a rake.

This job will take a chain saw to clear completely.
I ended up breaking off enough branches to get through for now.

It took about an hour to walk the whole trail, stopping now and then to rake a short section.

When I got back to the cabin I was a bit pooped. I sat in my chair and dosed for a while.

Friday, 6/30

Arrivals.

Around 12:00, Patti and Dina arrived.
We got Patti moved in and Dina set up her tent.
We had lunch and were sitting outside in the shade when Matt and
Mike drove up.
We sat around and visited for a while, when Josie showed up.
Josie set up her camp.
The rest of the afternoon we shade hopped and visited until supper time, when we all went to our camps to get something to eat.

After supper we sat round the cabin visiting until bed time.

That was our Friday.

Saturday. 6/30

Start Dining Hall Repair.

Some of the perimeter logs on the dining hall were rotting out. The problem was that I used a couple of fir trees for the top logs and they don’t don’t do well on the ground.

This is one of the rotted logs.

I had Matt and Mike cut down a small redwood and cut it into 20+ foot lengths and drag them to the dining hall. They laid the redwood logs near where they will be installed.

Escape to the Creek.

By noon, the outside air temp was reaching 100 degrees so the ladies headed for the creek.
Once Matt and Mike got the the logs in place, we also went to the creek.

By the time we got down there Dina and Josie had made a nice dam which makes the swimming hole a bit larger.

Here we are hanging out at the creek.

Water Pictures.

Patti enjoys taking pictures through the water.

We got back to the cabin around 5:00. The temperature was still in the high 90’s so we sat outside in the shade until the mosquitoes drove us indoors.

Sunday, 7/1

Day at the Creek.

Around 10:00 Matt and Mike headed for home.

I did a little work on the dining hall.

After lunch Patti, Dina, Josie and I went to the creek. We forgot to take a camera with us so no pictures. We stayed at the creek until around 5:00 when it seemed cool enough to go up to the cabin.
We hung out outside until the mosquitoes got to aggressive. Then we took refuge in the cabin.

Monday, 7/2

Hanging Out.

We spent the day just hanging out around the cabin.
Josie went home around 1:00.

I did a little work on the dining hall but it got to hot to work on it.

Toilet Problem.

Dina used the toilet and said that it didn’t sound like the tank was filling. Patti used the toilet and said that it would not flush.

I checked it out and found that the inlet valve was clogged with what looked like earth worm parts.
I cleaned it out and it now works fine, except that the flapper valve is not sealing properly.
I have a new valve but I forgot to bring it up.
I also have a filter for the water system but it is at home also. It will have to wait until the next trip.
I want to also put a “Y” strainer on the water system at the input to the tanks as I think that is where the worms are getting into the system.

Okay tat’s it for today.

Tuesday 7/3.

The Dining Hall.

I worked on the dining hall a little this morning. The back side is ready to put the log in place.

I started removing the rotten log on the far side of the hall.

There is a 12” spike that I am having trouble getting out of the log on the side of the dining hall.

Joanne and Dave Arrive.

Around 2:45 Joanne and Dave showed up. We visited for a while, then they moved into their lodge.
By the time they were settled, the day had warmed up a lot so we shade hopped for the rest of the day.

In the evening we played cards; Joanne won.

Wednesday, 7/4.

Happy Birthday America!

Dining Hall Repair.

Dave and I worked on getting the log’s in place around the back and left side of the dining hall.

Removing the Spike.

The first thing I had to was get that big spike out.
I decided to use my Farm Jack and a chain to pull the spike out of the log.

Unfortunately this is the only picture  and it was taken after the spike was removed.

What I did.

The chain has a hook on one end. The space in the hook was just right to fit the spike so I slid the hook around the spike right at the top.

Then I wrapped the chain over the lip on the Farm Jack, put a different spike through the links of the chain to hold it in place and jacked the spike out of the log.
It was hard to get out.

Installing the New Logs.

Once again there are only a few pictures of this operation and those are of the finished project.

We decided to put the back log in first.

Then we cleaned out all the debris from the removal of the left side log.
We cut a notch in the end of the log for the left side and set the log in place.
There was a large gap under the front of the log so we needed to find a small tree to fill the gap.

I knew of a small redwood that was growing out of a group up by the main water barrels.
It was a runt and would never amount to anything so we cut it off and drug it back to camp with the jeep.

A Nat. Geo. Moment.

When we returned with the tree the ladies were very excited.

After we left to get the tree, they were sitting in the shade talking when a Gray squirrel ran down the hill and jumped onto a fir tree and scurried up it.
Right behind the Squirrel was a Red Fox who also jumped onto the tree.
About that time one of the women made an exclamatory noise. The fox stopped in its tracks, looked over at the ladies, jumped off the tree and ran back up the hill. Of course it all happened so fast that no pictures were taken.

Continuing the Log Replacement. 

Dave and I cut the new tree to length and worked it under the top log.
After we were finished with the logs, we dug a drainage ditch under the eaves to try and keep water from running toward the dining hall.

Okay, that job is done.

We spent the rest of the day visiting.

In the evening after supper we played cards. Patti won.

Thursday, 7/5.

Packing up to Go Home.

Once we got up and had breakfast, Patti and Dina slowly began gathering their stuff. Once it was all stacked around Patti’s car I loaded it all in the back of the car.

They left around noon. Joanne, Dave and I are staying one more night.

Lots of Air Traffic.

While Joanne, Dave and I were shade hopping in the afternoon we heard several aircraft flying over head. There were helicopters as well as fixed wing aircraft. We eventually got a view of one and it turned out to be a fire retardant bomber. We speculated as to what it might mean; was it just a lot of tourist flights or was it DEA choppers looking for illegal pot farms or is it some kind of rescue operation.

Fire!!!

Around 5:00 I went into the cabin and turned on the radio to listen to the local station and see if I could get some information.

As it turned out there was a wild fire along highway 128 between Peachland Road (the road we are on) and Boonville. The radio said it was being hit hard with air craft and ground crews and they expected to have it under control by dark. No problem,

We spent the rest of the evening visiting until around 10:00.

Friday, 7/6

Going Home.

We all spent the morning packing to go home and were ready to by noon.

Driving by the Fire.

As I drove down the hill I kept an eye out for signs of the fire.
About 2/3 of the way to the highway I saw the first signs. A
red stain of fire retardant on the trees and the hill side across the canyon.

A little farther down the hill there was more evidence.

I got a fuzzy picture of a fire fighter working on the steep hillside.

Fire engines staged by these barns near the highway.

Here is the hill that burned.

Parts Arrive.

I got home around 1:30.
I was happy to see that the distributer I had ordered had arrived.
I opened the box to check it out and found that the distributer cap had been broken in shipment.

Now I will have to send this one back and wait for a replacement.

Okay that pretty well wraps up the last nine days.