10-30-11

Saturday;10-23

Sonny got to my place around 9:00 Saturday morning. We loaded up and headed for IC. Got to the cabin around 11:00. I got my stuff out of his rig and moved in. We loaded Sonny’s gear into his SUV. I decided that it was still to damp to take down the wedge tent so I put that off until later in the week. The weather is supposed to be warm and dry this week. We’ll See!

Just about the time Sonny was fix’n to leave, Joanne and Dave showed up. They came up to take their camp down also but weren’t leaving until late Sunday afternoon. We visited for a while until Sonny left then Joanne and Dave got settled in.

The rest of the day we just puttered with individual projects. I personally did little, which is what I had planned for this week.

Sunday; 10-24

After breakfast, Joanne and Dave began in earnest to dismantle their camp. About the time they had all the interior cleared out, I climbed onto the roof of the cabin and swept all the redwood droppings off. The roof has a very low pitch and will likely have to be swept periodically.

When we got to a point where we could take a break from the projects, I suggested that we take the new bird thrower down the the “old home site” and see if it will hold together through a clay shooting session. We all climbed into pigpen with guns, ammunition, Joanne had the camera we were all set. When we got to the shooting area I realized that we had forgotten the birds. I let Joanne and Dave out and went back to the cabin and got the birds. After I got back it only took about ten minutes to assemble the rig. If I put wing nuts on the seat connection it will assemble much faster.

The thrower performed well. There are a few adjustments that need to be made but it gave no indication of failing after about 50 rounds.

When we returned from testing the thrower, Joanne and Dave continued to take apart their camp.

They left around 4:30.

 

I sat back and used what sunlight was left to read.

Ahhh! the Good Life!

Monday; 10-25

Got up around 8:00. It was cold in the cabin. I threw a couple pieces of wood in the stove and headed for the loo. By the time I got back the wood had caught so I added a couple of larger peaces. I lingered over breakfast, which is to say I had a second cup of cocoa and sat in front of the open door of the wood stove enjoying the radiant heat from the fire. Around 10:30 I decided that I would start taking down the wedge tent that Sonny had used. That is today’s project and I have all day to accomplish it.

It took all day to deal with the tent. The sod cloths (bottom edge of the tent) were soaking wet so I had to let them dry before folding it up. I propped the edges up off the ground and waited. By about 4:00 I decided that things weren’t drying fast enough and the moisture in the air was going up so I took the tent into the dining hall and laid it out on the tables. I left it there until Wednesday when it was finally dry enough the fold up.

Tuesday: 10-26

Pretty much goofed off all day.

I did take a walk up the road past the old crapper to the crossing that Bob has been working on. It still needs some work.

Wednesday; 10-27

Another cold morning.

I sat around the cabin in front of the fire enjoying a second and third cup of cocoa until around 10:00.

Later I grabbed the loppers and took a walk up the road to the mill flat to do some brush cutting along the road. Joanne and Dave have been doing road maintenance during the winter and there wasn’t much for me to cut. Good job guys!!

Bob showed up Around 5:30. He was intending to get here earlier but had trouble with his car. He ended up bringing his van. Which is basically a copy of Pigpen.

Over 20 years ago, Bob helped me build my van, Pigpen. After taking a few trips in it he decided that he needed to build one for himself. I call it “Pigpen 2”.

 

Thursday;

Bob and I were sitting around the cabin deciding what to do today. I mentioned a clump of oak trees up the hill not far from the cabin that I would like to convert into firewood. We decided to take care of them so I filled the chain saw with fuel and we headed up the hill to the oaks.

Bob cut them down

and I cut them up

while Bob went up to do some more work on the crossing.

That should give me enough firewood for next season.

Friday;

Spent most of the morning loading the van for the trip back to Santa Rosa and cleared out the cabin.

It is a little sad.

I guess Camp Run-A-muck is closed for another season. Hopefully I will be able to get back here a few more times before we head for Arizona.

I got home in time to go to Harvey’s football game. Unfortunately Harvey was benched.

That’s what happens when you don’t keep your grades up.

Harvey’s team lost 40-13. They’re 6-2.

10-22-11

Well, it has been a rather boring week just went to doctor appointments and hung out at home.

I did find a bag in my stuff that will hold some of the loose parts for the bird thrower. It makes the whole thing a smaller package.

I just hope it works with out tarring it self apart. I will test it this week.

I am going up to the cabin this morning with Sonny and staying until Friday. I will bring the van home then since I am through with all the projects for this year and won’t need the tool box up there..

Its almost time to shift gears and start getting ready to head for Quartzsite. I am starting to get anxious.

Okay that’s it for now. Talk to you next week.

10-16-11

This week hasn’t been very exciting.

We went to a meeting on Friday about the retiree health insurance changes.

Friday evening, we went to watch the Santa Rosa High School football game. The JV’s won again 35 to 18. Harvey #7 made his first touch down in a game.

Saturday was the Home Coming dance and Harvey took his girl friend. Its amazing how fast kids grown up.

Meanwhile, I have been working on a little project in my shop.

Sonny gave me an old clay pigeon thrower.

I have been planning to take it to Arizona this year for another toy to play with in the desert. These things are hard to hold down when they are triggered. I have seen them bolted to a tire and trim or bolted to a palette either way they tend to jump around when they are triggered. I made the one we use up at the cabin. You sit on it when in use so that the operators weight holds the thing in place. I decided to build the same thing only I wanted to make it so that it could be easily dismantled for travel and as light weight as possible.

For the main beam of the device I used a 1” X 2”x 1/4” channel. I had a piece in my scrap metal pile that was 38” long. “Just right!” I cut the channel in half and welded a tongue on one half and a slot on the other.

I slipped them together and drilled a hole for a pin through the whole thing.

Then I welded a short piece of 3/4” square tubing to the underside of the rear piece of channel to accept the rear support.

  

I made the front legs out of some 1” thin wall square tubing That I slipped over the original stubby legs of the thrower and bolted. The whole thing was a little wiggly so I put a couple of braces from the legs to the to the main beam.  The whole thing comes apart easily

and will be small enough to take to Arizona in the back of the jeep.

 

Now, I will have to take the rig to IC and run a box of birds through it to see if it can take the punishment.

Tomorrow, Patti and I are going to take the Kayaks to the river. It will be Patti’s maiden voyage in her new Kayak. I haven’t received the new waterproof camera yet so there won’t be any pictures.

10-13-11

Patti and I got home from the cabin yesterday afternoon.

We went up to Ukiah on Friday and watched Harvey’s team (The Santa Rosa High School Panthers) play the Ukiah High School team. The panther JV’s were victorious again, 13-6. They are now 4&1, not bad.

  

After the game we headed over Highway 253 from Ukiah to the cabin.  As I said last time I didn’t plan on doing much work while we were there.

I did however, add a work surface in the cooking area of the tool shed.

Monday morning around 5:00 it started to rain and kept it up all day. It came down rather heavy at times.

Some time in the afternoon I decided that it would be a good day to do some road work so I threw some tools in the jeep and started up the road. I drained a lot puddles and made some ditches to get the water off the road. By the time I got to the gate I was soaked through but the road was draining much better.

We cut some firewood Tuesday morning. I finally got around to finishing the clean up of the tree that fell across the road when Bob was up here earlier this summer.

Some of the pieces were bigger than the door on the stove so I had to do a little splitting.

Patti stacked the wood.

We ended up with about four days supply of firewood. I have a lot more work to do!

While we were staking the wood I noticed this little toad in the pile.

The rest of the time we just hung out and enjoyed the cabin. Patti sat in the sun when possible and read her book.

Okay that’s it for now.

This week is going to be kind of boring.  We have a health insurance meeting tomorrow and I have more doctor appointments next week. I am ok, it is just routine. 

10-07-11

This week has been one of appointments. Doctor’s and vehicles. Today we are going to take Plan “B” to get serviced. When it is done we are going to Ukiah to watch Harvey Play against Ukiah High School. From there we are going to the cabin. We will be there until Wednesday. I don’t have any plans for a lot of work this time. We are just going up to enjoy the cabin and relax. Of course I want to cut some firewood and I will probably make some improvements around the place. I cant help it.

Talk to you next week some time.

10-04-11

We had a little get together last weekend for my 70th birthday.

I went up to the cabin on Wednesday morning. Bob arrived a couple of hours later. Our friend James came up Thursday morning just as I was starting a project. Bob and James went up the hill to sanitize the camp spring and another spring that is further up the hill.

While they were gone I took care of the few projects that I was working on. When they returned to the cabin we got to discussing the upper spring and the fact that we need a lot of pipe to bring the water down. I happened to remember a large coil of plastic irrigation pipe down in the barn so we went down there and drug the pipe back to the cabin. There was about 300ft of pipe so we drug it all the way up the road to just above the spring. Bob and James pulled the pipe down through the woods and connected it to the spring. Now we only need about 300ft more to get the water down to camp.

Chuck (AKA Swamp), showed up around 9:00 Friday morning.

Bob left on Friday around 1:00. James stayed until late that evening.

 

L to R: James, Bob, Sonny, Swamp and me.

In the mean time, Joanne and Dave showed up around 10:00.

Patti got there with my brother, Sonny an hour later.

Our old friends Jerry and Lorraine arrived around 1:00.

Around 4:00, Kathi and Bob, (Patti’s sister and Brother-in-law from Oregon) pulled in with there youngest daughter Anna-lee and her one year old son, Lucas.

 

Becky, Kathi, Bob C, Bruce, me.

Connie, Anna-lee and Lucas.

Lucas was the hit of the party. He was very well behaved and charmed everyone.

Doug and Paulette arrived late afternoon.

Matt, Elisa, Mike,Renee, their son Cody and Ray (Mike and Elisa’s dad) showed up around 7:00.

Renee, Elisa, Mike and Cody.

Ray and Matt

Saturday:

First thing Saturday morning even before I had a chance to have breakfast some unknown person must have put a huge load of toilet paper in the toilet and plugged it solid. I worked on it for about an hour and after getting S%^T all over me I finally had to go to town to buy a plunger.

I took Chuck along for company.

We went to the Boonville hardware first. They were closed so we went across the street to the Boonville market. They didn’t have what we needed so we had to drive to Philo, a small town 5 miles west of Boonville, where we went to Jacks Market and Building Supply and got a toilet plunger and headed back to camp. When I got back to camp I gave the plunger to Dave and he and Sonny got the toilet cleared. Joanne cleaned the bath house from top to bottom. Thank You, Joanne!!!!!

Josie came up Saturday around noon.

 

Josie and Matt

Becky and Dennis from Myers Flat showed up Saturday. I was very pleased that they made it.

 

Becky, Dennis, me and Gaby.

My niece, Connie and her husband, Bruce showed up.

Around 12:00 we went down to the old home site and shot clays for about an hour.

When we got back to camp it was time to start cooking. I was planning on making a big batch of Nopalito’s and grilling  four Tri-tips.

When I got to looking for the stewed tomatoes for the Nopatito’s I realized that we had forgotten to bring them. So, its off to Boonville again. The store didn’t have the Mexican style stewed tomatoes that I normally use in the dish so I got the “Italian Recipe” and raced back to the camp.

When I got back to camp both of my daughters were there.

Gabriella with her husband, Morgan

and my youngest, Felice and her friend, Marcy.

Felice is on the left.

Needless to say I was very pleased to see them.

Peter, the property owner, came up Saturday afternoon, late.

Doug and Peter.

Everything turned out fine in the end. While I worked on the Nopalito’s,

Morgan grilled the Tri-tip’s.

Every one brought something to share so we had ton’s of food.

The most interesting setup was Loraine’s Dutch oven tree where she baked 34 potatoes.

They were done just right. Loraine has been known to cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner in this way.

By noon on Sunday the only ones left were the hard core group. Patti, Joanne, Dave, Sonny and Me.

We spent Sunday afternoon cleaning up and Monday morning packing. We came home Monday afternoon.

It was a fun weekend and I want to thank everyone who attended.