August 19 - 21, insulating & paneling The Shack

It was supposed to be a rainy weekend in Delta, but we totally lucked out and had sunshine almost all Saturday and Sunday! Perfect weather for cutting plywood and insulation OUTSIDE.

We got to The Shack about 9pm on Friday night, the weather kept getting windier and darker and by the time we were inside heating up bison chili for dinner it was blowing and raining sideways. Luckily we were nice and toasty inside and you couldn’t hardly hear the wind at all. We did get all the insulation, plywood and mattress (for Mike and I!) unloaded before the rain….the kids are getting to be great helpers and even though the wind kept trying to make sails out of the plywood they managed to work together and haul pieces up.

As we were just about to eat dinner Mike spotted a cow moose and her calf out in the “yard”, they were nonchalantly munching away and meandering around the deck platform. Those are the first moose we’ve seen on the property out there….pretty cool!

Calf moose

Saturday we woke up to some surprise sunshine, so after breakfast we hauled almost everything out of the Shack and got right to work on insulating the roof, we were done by lunch time and we gave our leftover pieces to the downriver neighbor who is also building. He isn’t quite to the insulation stage yet, but he was happy to get the batts. 

After lunch we started the “paneling”, we are doing essentially the same thing we did up the Tek, using thin plywood like paneling. The stuff we got from Lowes wasn’t in quite as good of shape as we would have liked (it was a bit stained), but we are going to paint the inside anyway, so it isn’t a huge deal. Measuring and cutting for all the window/ door openings definitely took a while. Luckily Piper and Travis stepped up and made dinner (moose spaghetti) so Mike and I could keep working.

A wizard and rogue stopped by as they were out adventuring...

Sunday we finished paneling the ceiling & gable ends (again, in the sunshine!). We are really happy with the way it turned out, so essentially The Shack is done now except for inside & outside window trim and painting. Both of which can really wait until spring (the siding came preprimed).

We also hauled out some more pallets and improved the “boardwalk” a bit this trip. With all the rain we’ve been getting there were definitely some wet spots on the trail that we wanted to be able to step over. We headed out about 4pm so we could hit the Buffalo Center Drive In for one last set of shakes & burgers before their Labor Day closure.

August 11-15 on the Teklanika

It was great to be able to spend four nights on the river…..it really lets you relax and get into “cabin mode”.

Copper River king salmon

Friday was beautiful, but the rest of the weekend was rainy off and on. Luckily it quit every evening so we enjoyed some nice big bonfires.

We all did some target practice with the clay pigeon launcher we picked up at a garage sale earlier this summer….that was lots of fun! The kids are getting better with the .410, Mike and I stuck to the 20 gauge.

The cranberry patch looks great, we’ll start picking those after the first frost.

Now that the nights are getting dark the owls seemed to be much more active this trip, we heard them calling a couple nights (Piper and I went looking for them, but no luck) and Mike was lucky enough to see a Great Gray Owl carrying a hare (still twitching!) through the woods! He said it was laboring along and then it landed on a tree right by him….how cool is that??

Tiki Torch Trails

Owl Searcher

We got a little visiting time in with some river neighbors too….we would have done a bit more but the rain chased us back to our own cabin.

One of the up sides to rain

End of Season

12U - Sassy Sliders 2011







10U - Marlins 2011



Copper River

We headed down to the Copper River on Saturday, July 23 with the Darrow Family. The fishing reports had been poor, but we were pretty sure that there would be decent numbers of fish to fill our coolers. We dip-netted for a couple hours that evening and got 15 fish, a little slow but not bad.

Sunday morning things started picked up and by afternoon we were averaging 20 fish per hour. We ended up with 98 sockeye and 2 king salmon. Not bad for about 10 hours with of dipping! We knew it was time to quit fishing when my last haul landed me on my butt on the bottom of the boat with a king salmon in my lap, a bent dip net handle and a ripped up net.



Bringing in a king salmon

Running back upriver

Fishy Freckles

 

The king salmon that almost got away



Tote with 42 sockeye

 

Time for rest and libations

Sleeping in the Shack & Fishin' Time

Saturday morning we woke up to POURING rain at the house so we debated whether to even head to Delta or not. The potential fun won out over staying in town so off we went. The rain got lighter and lighter as we headed East and once we hit the river it was just cloudy, YAY!

Lynda met up with us at the campground then we headed down to the Shack to unload all our building supplies, futon and overnight “stuff”. After some lunch we did a little fishin’ before Lynda had to head back to Palmer.

After dropping Gramma back at the boat launch we headed back to the Shack to make it bug proof so we could spend the night in it. To do that we installed the fascia boards over the soffits, trimmed around the door, and squirted expandable insulation around all the windows and door; that worked like a charm, we all slept great INSIDE…..Mike and I were especially comfy sleeping on our Craigslist futon-find.

Sunday was a beautiful day, mostly sunny but not too hot. The boys headed upriver to The Spot with some friends from out of town and the fishing was great. They came back down to the Shack for a late lunch and to check out our building progress.

While the boys were out fishing Piper and I got the bunks framed up & we did some trail improvements. We were cutting up plywood when Piper noticed a grouse sitting in a nearby tree, we watched her for a while then we saw another..and another..and another! There were at least three young ones (plus mom) sitting around the yard, one was even up on top on the kids’ swings (look closely at the picture). Pretty cool! They were eating the blueberries around the property….smart birds! We also saw a juvenile gray jay, robin & three toed woodpecker…..I guess all the teen aged birds are getting kicked out of the nest.

 

After lunch Mike took our friends back to the boat launch (with some more fishing along the way); then we got the bunks hung, gear packed, and then we were off to our favorite Delta Drive In for dinner.

A great weekend….