John and I discussed what we wanted to accomplish during our next trip to the property. One of the issues we have experienced thus far is lack of time. It is pretty time consuming to pack up all of the gear we need each trip, make the three hour drive, then spend a few more hours hauling the gear to our campsite and setting things up. It was really cutting into our precious little time on the weekends to feel like we are making some real headway accomplishing our goals with the land. We started talking about options for what we can do to reduce the preparation time, in an effort to increase the time we have implementing our ever evolving plans.
One of my main mantras is K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple, stupid). We started tossing around the idea of building a shed to stay in temporarily, until we can build something more permanent down the road. We weren’t sure we wanted to make the financial investment so soon after purchasing the property, but in the end, it turned it to be a sound decision for us. Simplifying the sleeping arrangements is a logical step that will help us accomplish our aggressive goals with the land.
Both of us were also really excited about the prospect of seeing the land for the first time without snow cover. Spring time is my absolute favorite season of the year. Even though the weather pattern in Minnesota can have some pretty wild swings during the spring months, I love watching the ground wake up and begin to grow, the leaves popping out of the trees, and the new surprises to find as each year passes. I am really excited to see if there are wildflowers on the property, as well as the types of birds that migrate to our area and all of the other wildlife that will wander through.
I am also thrilled about the prospect of seeing the northern lights for the first time. I have traveled to the North Shore more times than I can count. Unfortunately for me, I have never had the opportunity to witness the ionic beauty dancing across the sky (John has been lucky to see this incredible phenomenon).
We headed up to the property Friday morning with the intention of driving down to Duluth the next day to purchase the shed. It was a relatively warm day out, and seeing the property with most of the snow melted was incredible! We decided to walk down to the campsite, before beginning the arduous process of hauling down our gear to the campsite. About half way down the main trail, we saw tracks. We both knew immediately what they were. The bears were finally awake! They were relatively small tracks, but our shackles were still raised as we made our way down the rest of the trail. Luckily for me, my sweet, intelligent hubby also brought along a large steel electrical enclosure that he thought would make the perfect bear box to store our food.
We both had been wondering if one of the low spots next to our campsite held water in the warm months. After making our way closer to the campsite, we HEARD the evidence! Not only is it filled with water, but the sound of many ribbits could be heard from a good distance away. That’s right folks, frogs….tons of them… everywhere, croaking away at the top of their lungs! Frogs are good, frogs eat mosquito’s, which we are both convinced are going to be very thick in the warm weather months to come.
We hauled all of our gear with us, and preformed the same routine of transporting it to our campsite and setting things up. Since that took several 
hours, we decided that hanging the bear box was about as much energy as we had left to accomplish much for the day. John thought it would be a good idea to hang a couple of pieces of wood across two trees to hang the box. Since the old homestead is not salvageable, we intend on eventually tearing it down, so he proceeded to harvest some decent wood from it to use on our project. After nailing up the wood to the trees, he placed a screw in the middle of the top board, so we could lift the box up and hang it temporarily, until it could be fully secured. Let me tell you, that sucker was was extremely heavy to lift! I’m not really sure how I did it, but I was able to assist him enough to hang it onto the screw. After it was hung, John proceeded to work on securing it further. I turned around to start working on something else, and suddenly heard a loud crash behind me. Oops, the screw wasn’t in the wood quite far enough to hold up that heavy sucker. Round two was much more successful, and we again lifted it onto the center screw so he could finish securing it. After the hardware was installed, I filled the box with our food for the weekend, and was a very happy girl to know that we had a bit more security from the sleepy bears roaming around.
As soon as the sun started to set, it quickly cooled off. I learned a great fire starting tip from my nephew Joshua, who is a boy scout currently working towards becoming an Eagle. He taught me that dried birch bark is a really great fire starter. After gathering wood and quite a bit of birch bark, we made a nice fire and grub to eat, while we settled in for the evening (Thanks Josh!). Alas, Aurora Borealis escaped my eyes for the evening, but we had a great time star gazing and playing a round of cribbage. I’ll admit I lost the cribbage round (revenge will be mine) but John and I always have so much fun together, the loss of the game didn’t matter much to me.
We woke up pretty early Saturday morning, because we wanted to drive to town as early as possible to get going on the shed. While we headed to Duluth, I had to laugh at myself. Duluth is a decent sized town, but is definately small city. I thought to myself “wow Katie, it has only been a few months, and you are already thinking that driving to Duluth is similar to driving to a major city”. Yup, i’m already adjusting to country life very quickly.
After spending a few hours at Home Depot (or as John calls it “THE Home Depot”) gathering the supplies we needed, we headed back to Rustic Pines to get started. It tuned out to be an absolutely beautiful day. The sun was shining, the air felt warm, and I was perfectly comfortable wearing a tee-shirt (in fact, I was a little too warm). The main shed box weighed 1,200 pounds, and our path isn’t wide enough yet to drive our truck down to the clearing. We used the four-wheeler and trailer to haul all of the materials down, a little bit at a time. We organized all of the wood by size and type, so the build could go as smoothly as possible (hopefully).
The first step was building the floor. John has had years of experience with building and carpentry (thanks to the Seabee’s and his brother, Paul), and spent a good deal of time leveling out the ground, so we would have a solid structure. While he was working on this, I didn’t feel like I was being very useful (mostly because I was just standing there staring at him…not a bad gig if you ask me), so I decided it would be a good time to make more progress clearing the trails. Since we went back and forth to the old homestead a few times to salvage wood, that seemed like a logical place for me to continue clearing out the path.
After working on the trail for a few hours, my sweet hubby had leveled off the ground and the platform was built and the deck boards screwed down. I helped him build the first wall, which took a little longer than we were anticipating (projects always take longer than you think, don’t they?). It was pretty close to dark at this point, so we decided to call it for another evening.
We built another bonfire and had some much needed rest and relaxation, once again taking in the sounds of the frogs and the sites of stargazing. Surprisingly (or maybe not surprising) we were both pretty wiped out and turned in for the evening relatively early. Unfortunately, missing any opportunity to see the northern lights once again.
I am not clear on exactly what time it was, but around 4:30 I woke up and realized something wasn’t right. It took me a couple of minutes to shake off my grogginess and I said to John “why is the tent touching my face”? After a little struggled navigation, John made his way to the door and unzipped the tent. It looked like a snow globe all shaken up outside! Our land turned into a winter wonderland! The ground, trees, and deck were completely covered by a layer of snow, with more white stuff falling at a good clip from the sky. The snow was so heavy, it broke the main pole of our tent (hence, it was laying on my face). So, we went from wearing tee-shirts on Saturday, to full winter gear on Sunday. That’s a Minnesota spring for you!
The snow fall did stop for a little while, but we only had a short reprieve until the flakes made a reappearance. We needed to kick this build into high gear to make sure it was enclosed as quickly as possible, to protect it from the elements. I helped my sweet hubby as much as I could, even though he completed the brunt of the work (I’m an extreme novice yet, but am picking up skills from my very patient and handsome teacher). It was a bit slow going building the walls and propping them up, especially since we have no electricity on-site, but John has a gas powered sawzall that came in handy on more than one occasion, and plenty of batteries for his drills. After all of the walls were up, we assembled and installed the rafters. While this is all written into a fairly short paragraph, let me assure you, it took most of the day to get to this point.
Not knowing when we would be able to come back up to finish our project, we didn’t want to leave the unfinished shed exposed to the weather elements. With the wet stuff falling yet again, we both climbed onto our respective ladders to install the asphalt roofing membrane. We realized a little too late that we were a few sections short on our metal roofing sheets, so John decided to tack the membrane down temporarily with wood trim we had on hand. We also had an extra tarp that we covered the door and windows with, until we can come back and complete our new temporary home. The next trip we intend on installing the metal roofing, door, windows, and paint the shed to finish it up. (I was excited when I picked out the paint colors, I think it’s a girl thing).
While John was finishing securing our shed, I began packing up the rest of the campsite and hauling it back to the truck. We were both completely wiped out, and were very ready to hit the road. Both of us were sopping wet, and we felt all sorts of aches and pains that made us feel pretty ancient. As soon as the truck was packed up, we changed into dry clothes and off we went, back to the daily grind.
It was another successful trip. I didn’t get to see the Northern Lights, but I know I will eventually (good things come to those that wait). The more time I spend at Rustic Pines, the harder it is getting for me to leave and come back to reality. Even though we are both working really hard while we are there, we love it. I love seeing the progress we are making. I love spending time in nature. And most of all, I love spending it with my sweet husband. I fall more in love with him as each day passes, and I am continually excited that we are progressing on making our dream a reality.
Until next time folks, happy homesteading!
Katie
