A paddle on the Russian River 10-9-14

I went over to Bob’s yesterday. We went to Monte Rio and put in at the town
boat ramp.

 

I got in the water first as Bob had to park his car and then had to go back for
his hat.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who does that.

Once we got settled we headed down stream.

 

Right now the river’s mouth is closed so the river is like a long lake. We paddled
down stream for a while and stopped along the shore for a break. While we were
sitting there we were treated to the sight of this pretty young girl majestically
paddling by on her paddle board.

 

We continued down the river enjoying the warm day and the beginnings of fall
colors.

Further down stream we spotted a Great Blue Herron at the edge of some
water weeds.

As we paddled along I noticed that people who live along the bank of the river
have not pulled up their floating docks yet this year.

A little ways down stream past the docks we spotted a turtle sunning on a log.

Just down stream from the turtle was an interesting tree with two Cormorants
perched on it.

Eventually we ended up at the Villa Grand hole and hung around there for
a long time eating snacks and BSing.  While we were there this young
Mallard drake came by and hung out with us.

I was looking at this old cabin on the cliff above the hole. The construction
techniques are pretty interesting.

 

Take a look at the sub roof, I bet that makes for an interesting ceiling if it is
open beamed.

 

There is also a Osprey nest in a tree near the hole.

After a while we headed back up stream. A nice breeze had come up and
pushed us along with very little paddling.

We stopped under some trees. A nice spot to sit for a while.

Further on we noticed a few small ducks feeding in the weeds.

We continued up stream and saw a few Cormorants on the water.

In another weed patch we saw another Blue Herron.

Eventually we made it back to the boat ramp, got off the river and headed for home.

It was a fun relaxing day so I don’t know why I am so tired. :o)

Worked on the auger, bought a table and visited with relatives. 10-07-14

This morning after breakfast I went out into the shop and started the repair on the 1-1/4 in. Auger handle
that I broke making the holes for the legs on the benches that I built at the cabin. Whew!
The way the handle broke was that it split long the grain. I cleaned the two flats of the handle and rough
sanded them and laid them on my welding table.

 

Next,  I mixed up some JB weld and after several batches had the flats and the
groove in the handle liberally coated with epoxy. Then I clamped the whole sticky
mess in a vice, put a clamp on each end to hold them together and cleaned off
most of the overflow.

 

Now it will sit for a while. I probably won’t get to work on it again until at least
Thursday. I found a couple cutlery screws in my stash

So I am going to try and put them through the handle to help hold it together.
I’ve never used these screws before so it will be interesting to see if I can make
them work for this.
After I was done with the auger, Patti and I went to Lytton Springs to see if we
could find a table with a pedestal. We found a nice light oak dining table on a
pedestal for $25.00.

All I need is the pedestal

 

I’ll sand it a bit and throw some dark stain on it and it should fit right in with my
old table top.

On the way home from Lytton Springs we stopped at Joanne and Dave’s. Cindy
and John were on their way over so we stuck around and visited for a couple
hours. Now we are home so I decided to get the blog out of the way.

Tomorrow I am going to see Bob and we will likely  go kayaking.

Errands, and strange fruit. 09-06-14

I am trying a new template so that I can enlarge the pictures. If you hate it let me know

We didn’t do much yesterday, just ran a few errands but here is some thing interesting;

When we were up at the cabin, Bob found a couple of green fruits in the woods and showed them to me.
I had seen one before and recognized it immediately.
Do you know what it is?

 

The fruit kind of looks like a giant Goose Berry. It is about the size of an Apricot and has a slightly citrusy smell.

I pealed one and found a large nut inside.

 

I cracked open the nut and found the seed inside.  

 
Then I cut the seed in two.

The seed has no aroma.

Well, have you figured out what it is yet?

It is the seed of a California Nutmeg.
It is not aromatic like the nutmeg you use on eggnog.
From what I’ve read on the internet the seed is edible but is full of tannin and must be processed first.

Here is a site with more info.

 http://univ105group5.weebly.com/california-nutmeg.html

Okay, that’s it for now.

A visit with Cindy and John

We went up to Cloverdale to visit with my nephew, John and his wife, Cindy. They live in Sparks, Nevada and are camping at the KOA in Cloverdale so we went up to see them with Dave and Joanne.

An interesting side light. Did you know that the Cloverdale KOA charges $11.00 per person to visit someone that who has already paid $65.00 per night to stay at the campground? I don’t know if other KOA’s do the same thing but tt seems a bit ridicules.

We had a good visit with Cindy and John and got home around 9:30.

A week at the cabin making benches and digging springs 09-25 to 10-03. part 1

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