Getting ready for company

We sat talking with an “up north” neighbor this afternoon… A guy that’s become a good friend and helpful asset.  He drove down to look at the new driveway.  It was the first time in over a year that he ventured down our way, and as we talked, we walked from the new driveway, to the near complete campsite, and he noted we’ve been busy.  Now that I think about it, we have been busy.  We cut our way in, we built our tiny cabin, we cut trails, we widened the driveway, we widened the driveway again, we cleared a campsite, we widened the driveway yet again, we trimmed the forest road, we had a new driveway installed, and we built a tent platform.  In hindsight, the terms unrealistic and ambitious are adjectives that come to mind.  I say unrealistic and ambitious because we planned for so much more in the last year.  Dreams are often unrealistic, yet, as reality set in, we still pushed forward.

Friday, we loaded up and headed for the land.  I may have driven a little fast as we raced against the setting sun in order to get our first look at the new driveway in daylight.  This was a special day for Katie, she had worked so diligently to make a new driveway happen, I couldn’t help but try and give her the earliest opportunity to see the results of her hard work.  When we arrived  she was beaming as we took the smooth ride down the freshly laid gravel.  She said our driveway used to seem so long… full of twists and turns, ups and downs, bumps and ruts, but now it barely took a minute to traverse… and only that long because we drove slowly to admire it.

Saturday, we were up with the sun, made coffee, and started our typical onslaught against digital enemies lurking within our phones…  Hey, it takes a while for the coffee to take effect, crushing sweets is a fine way to pass the time.  After our morning ritual, we made a plan and got to work.  Well, got to work maybe not right away, but eventually.  Before we started, we headed up the road, and spent a moment or two to speak with our new neighbors.  It’s good to make new friends, especially those who are nearby when the rest of the world is so far away.  After chatting, Katie and I hopped in the Jeep and headed for town on a secret mission… don’t worry, we’ll give details later.  While in town, we made a few stops for needed items, most important was a 2″x12″x8′ – we needed stair stringers for the tent platform.  We also may have dropped a dime or two at the world famous Lou’s Fish House in Two Harbors.  Mmmmm smoked trout and shrimp! Once we arrived back at the land, we wasted no time getting busy. The first task at hand was mowing.  The forest doesn’t take long to regain ground.  It’s almost a weekly chore to cut back the advances… toss in a good rain or two, and the landscape becomes almost unrecognizable.  I hooked up the trail mower to the ATV, and Katie grabbed the weed whip.  I would handle the bulk, and she would work on the finer details.  That idea worked for about thirty seconds until I discovered one of the shaft bearings on the mower had gone out and it was unusable.  Oh well, such is life.

With the mower down, it meant two things; we’d need to trim trails with the weed whip (UGH!) and since only one of us can operate the weed whip, the other would need something else to do.   A quick look around gave me a clue.  The electrical cabinet we used for a bear box while we built our tiny cabin needed to be removed from the tree we had it fastened to.  I had a need for a storage cabinet to hold things like paint, cleaners, and other flammables that we didn’t want to keep in the cabin.  Before we could mount the box on the back side of the cabin, it needed a new paint job.  Katie and I moved the box to the saw horses, and Katie went to work making the box match the cabin.  That left me with the weed eater, a broken foot, and what seemed like miles of trails.  Thankfully, weed eating isn’t a fast paced task.  I plodded my way along and before too long, half of the trails were cut.

It was warm, so we took a few breaks… at one point, Katie said that she was finished painting and that she would take over cutting the trails.  That was fine by me, I had stairs to build.  When we built the tent platform at the campsite, we wanted to build it high enough off the ground to discourage of our furry forest friends from taking up residence underneath.  I grabbed the 2×12’s and headed for the tent platform.  That didn’t last long… “BrrrrPttttt…. BrrrrPtttt… BrrrrPttt pekah… JOHN!”  Apparently, when I filled the gas tank of the weed eater with the last of the mixed fuel in the can, there may have been a little water mixed in.  I mixed some fresh fuel and before I knew it, she was off to the races, like the fern murdering queen she is.

I got back to the stairs, and by the time Katie was done weed eating, I had the the stringers cut, framed up, and ready for treads.  Katie jumped in and cut the treads while I screwed them in place.  She was like a princess with her arms floating as she ascended the stairs for the first time.  I remember thinking “I did good!  She didn’t trip!”

After the stairs were finished, we started cleaning up the construction debris along with the forest deposits.  We had the garden trailer behind the ATV and we hauled load after load away to a compost pile.  As evening approached, we decided to get dinner going and settle in for some relaxation.  After eating, we sat and listened to music and talked about our plans for the next day.  We had work to do, but we were making great progress.  By the time we went to bed, we had completed most of our intended work.

Sunday brought with it sunshine and warm breezes.  Great weather for relaxing, but when it comes to working outdoors, cool and cloudy is often the weather of choice.  Even though it was a bit warm, we plodded ahead with our tasking.  We continued to clean up the campsite, and once we had it cleared, our next tasks became very apparent.  The first thing we noticed, was that the ground was rather uneven around the site.  It would be difficult to navigate at night without stumbling.  And, since late night trips to the outhouse are a reality, we figured it smart to smooth things out as best we could.  I spotted a place alongside the driveway where the bulldozer exposed a good supply of gravel and sand.  With shovel in hand and the trailer in tow, I began to haul load after load to fill in the low spots.  Once we had things sort of leveled out, it still didn’t seem quite ready.

Katie hopped on the back of the ATV and we tore up the driveway in search of the needed items.  A perfect byproduct of our driveway construction, we found what we were looking for very quickly: ROCKS!  Every proper campsite needs a fire ring.  We have plans for some steel rings that are a smidge personalized, but until they are finished, rocks would make a perfect and rustic substitute.

We filled the trailer with rocks that are large enough that they wouldn’t be easily moved.  We arranged them in a circle resulting in a two foot diameter space inside the ring, but something was a bit off.  It just didn’t seem right.  Katie suggested that we head back to the piles of rock and seek out some more construction materials.  After a few minutes of picking, we had what we needed, and soon added a second ring of rocks that were about half the size of the first ring.  I headed back to the mine of sand, and with another trailer full, filled in the voids between the rocks.  We stood back to admire our work, and we were pleased with what we viewed.  Not pleased because we artfully stacked some rocks in a ring…  We were pleased that another piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.  We had a spot where others could come and feel at home.  A place where relaxation could be found.  Unlike the feeling of staying in a room in a friend or family members home, the campsite offers the needed seclusion to allow visitors to be close enough to enjoy company, but separation enough to stretch out and relax as though they were all by themselves.

It wasn’t long before we would need to pack up and head home, but the progress we made left little to do before our friends would arrive next week.  We’ve been working hard all weekend to get ready for company, but it feels like so much more.  We now have a respectable place for friends and family to reside for a few days at a time.  This is significant because so many of you have expressed interest in seeing what we’re accomplishing first hand, rather than just read about it here, and now some of you can do just that.  It’s also significant because with visitors can come cheap labor!!!  You didn’t think staying here would be free did you?  Honestly, so many people have come to help us out already, that it’s made a huge difference in our progress.  There will always be time for fun and relaxation, after all, that’s why we’re building this place.

Next week marks a milestone for us; the first campers will arrive on Friday, and we’ll get the first critiques of the campsite on Saturday morning.  Plus, all that readily available cheap labor will help clear land for building the shed!

Remember that life is best shared with those you care about… so always be getting ready for company.  You just never know who might show up!

Oh, and our secret mission to town?  My mom was due to celebrate 80 years on this earth.  Eighty years!  What do you get an eighty year old woman who constantly tries to pawn off the contents of her home that she’s accumulated over the years?  Laughs… you get her laughs.  you try to touch her heart.  This year, my bride not only succeeded in making Mom giggle, but she touched my heart as well.  Friday night, we sat on the screen porch and laughed as we filled out more than half of the 80 unique birthday cards my wife purchased.  It wasn’t just the inside of the card we had fun with either; addressing the cards with fun names was a blast!  I hope Mom had as much fun reading them as we had writing them.  I think my favorite was addressing an envelope to: Bernie “Let me tame you with this wooden spoon” Waldorf.  Our trip to town was to mail more than 40 birthday cards.  Happy Birthday Mom!!!