THIS IS LIVIN'!: May 2011

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Memorial Day on the DCR

It was in the 80's in Delta this weekend! It is hard to believe that just two weeks ago we were still seeing ice float past the Teklanika cabin!

Friday night we spent a couple hours at Lowes getting our materials purchased & loaded in the boat and truck; then Saturday morning we took off for Delta. It took us two boat trips to get all the materials & camping gear down to the site. The boat parking area was PACKED at the campground; so Mike made friends with Les, the campground host, and he let us park in a nice private spot where we could get the truck & boat out of the way.

It was soooo hot in the afternoon that we took quite a few breaks as we were hand carrying all the materials from the boat up to the cabin site. That evening we relaxed by the fire (a SMALL one since wildfire danger is so high) then hit the sack early since we were all pretty wiped out from the hauling and heat.

Spring-fed Fridge

Sunday morning we got right to work finalizing the cabin location, squaring & leveling the rim joists, and nailing everything together. In-between the building work we picked away at the clearing/ thinning that needed to be done to improve the "viewshed". We must have cut at least a couple hundred alders, those things are like weeds! There were a couple dead spruce we had to cut as well....but mostly it was little scrubby stuff. After we got the floor done, Mike and the kids went fishing for a little bit, then just as they got back to camp our Delta friends Brandy & Ross stopped by with their daughter Izzy. We had a good visit & an excellent dinner of bison burgers & corn on the cob.

Monday we hauled most of the cut brush to the edges of the lot (out of sight!) and started digging the new outhouse hole....we hit frozen ground at about 12 inches so we'll be picking away at that throughout the summer...

View from Cabin Site - before trimming brush

View from Cabin Site - after trimming brush

We did a little fishing before heading to the boat launch and you can see who caught the first grayling of the season.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Ice Ice Baby

These pictures will show you how darn cold this spring has been! We’ve never seen this much ice up at the cabin this late in May….granted we’ve only been going up there since 2004, but we talked to other folks who have a much longer history and they agree with us.

When we went up on Friday night (May 13) it was pretty cloudy and chilly, we had to thread the boat through a couple narrow spots of ice but they were fine.

The biggest obstacle was when we made it to within sight of the property corner and a big sweeper was down in the river. It had trapped a bunch of ice behind it and there was no way we could get around (or through) it. We sat and thought about it for a while then figured our only option was to cut through the tree.

So Mike stood up in the bow with the chainsaw and I kept the boat steady against the tree while he cut.

CRACK! The tree snapped and as the crown sunk to the river bottom the ice jam started to shift and flow downstream, right around us. We got over to the side of the river and tried to keep from getting swept up in the ice.

As soon as it was clear we continued on up to the cabin, got everything offloaded and enjoyed moose chili & cornbread for dinner…..we were all tired after the excitement of the ride up so we fell asleep relatively early, thankful for the toasty wood stove & full stomachs.

Saturday was a much nicer day weather-wise, super sunny & breezy. We did some chores & spent a couple hours playing on a sunny gravel bar with Tekla and throwing rocks at all the ice chunks that were still flowing downriver.

Mike and the kids did some shooting at the range and then we enjoyed a dutch oven dinner out by the fire ring. We even squeezed in a Dungeons and Dragons game before Piper fell asleep at the table.