Otters on hoist bay.
The ice is going out already in hoist bay.
Back at the cabin for another summer. This poor gate is still bent from the tree falling on it last year. Please, no trees across the road.
No trees across the road - thank you Warren and Arlis.
Everything came up just fine: electricity, water, internet, DirecTV. It's a little chilly but I still put out the deck stuff.
This big balsam that Rob and Andrew transplanted last summer appears to have survived but it's leaning rather badly. I'll see if I can do something about that.
That's better. There are some brown needles on this guy but I remain optimistic. I'll try to keep it watered.
Three trees across the Widow's Point path. Let us hope that these aren't the first of many this year.
(I need a new cameraman.)
The dock and ducks are in the water.
Okay, the motor is on the boat and the boat is in the water. You'd think after all these years this would get easier. You'd think.
It was 80 last Sunday and now this moring the bird bath is frozen over.
I haven't been to the Good Life in over a year. My waitress remembered me, remembered my usual lunch order, and after lunch said "welcome back, lunch is on me." Wow.
It was below freezing last night so this may be too optimistic but it is historically possible.
It is my plan to do something with these cabinets this summer. I cannot wait to see what happens.
Okay, let's start. I've emptied the left upper cabinet and removed the shelves.
I'm sanding the three shelves I removed.
This is 70 year old varnish, very sticky. It gums up the sandpaper pretty quickly.
In Bemidji today visiting with Paul Bunyan. You may have heard that he broke his arm. I'm just here for moral support.
I'm still plugging away on the upper cabinet. It will be ready for some primer and paint pretty soon.
I've got the water running in the log cabin. No leaks.
We've had no rain for a month now and none forecast for the next 10 days. I'd like these little pine trees to live.
This is for the birds to perch on when visiting the feeder. The old one was starting to fall apart. The birds don't care but here's a new tree.
First hummimgbird of the season. E pluribus unum.
This is, i believe, a female downy woodpecker checking out the new deck tree.
Treating my socks with permethrin spray to keep the ticks away. I'll do my jeans this afternoon.
This is a primer coat on the cabin cabinet.
First fishing trip with Burney today. I had a couple of chances but missed them both. A nice day nontheless.
Burney said I had to post this picture because it's my first bass of the year even if it is just a baby.
We all knew I was an early adopter. This is my latest fling.This could be a mistake but I'll keep you posted.
I went to PR yesterday and, among other thing, got a hanging basket and some flowers for the barrel.
This is a temporary mount for the StarLink antenna, it really needs to go on the roof.
Early results:
current DLS: 9.7Mbps down 0.4Mbps up
Starlink: 94.2Mbps down 19.9Mbps up
I haven't forgotten about the cabin cabinets. I believe I finally have the varnish (mostly) removed and am ready to prime the doors and shelves.
No water in the cabin! This motor just hums but won't drive the pump. It's a capacitor start induction motor so if I'm lucky I can just replace the capacitor.
Fishing with Burney today. This is not the best picture but there were two chicks swimming between two adults. Very early for chicks.
Pretty cold this morning. Cold enough for a fire. VERY windy yesterday but surprisingly there were no trees down on the road.
Freeze warnings for last night. The bird bath was frozen again this morning. Fortunately I covered the barrel so the impatiens survived.
Loading ...
Remember that no water in the cabin issue. I got a new starter capacitor from Amazon and ... no joy. I think it's time to call in someone who actually knows what they're doing.
Still no water in the log cabin. The good news is there is nothing wrong with the pump. The bad news is it appears that something is wrong with the buried electric cable from the transformer. Aargh.
These are the pros from Dover (or maybe just Park Rapids). No suprises here, I need a new cable plowed in from the transformer to the cabin and a new service panel.
Here's the left side done.I'm moving on to right side now. I hope that goes faster.
This just isn't right.
The new electric line to the log cabin won't be installed until the 21st so I dragged the generator down from the garage to let me run the lake pump and the palm sander for the cabinets.
Most of the loons have hatched.
Burney and I went fishing today on my side of the lake. We got four bass between us - this 2.5# fish was my best.
I'm finally done sanding the shelves and doors on the right hand cabinets.This is the first coat of paint. This took just as long as the left hand side.
This is all the stuff from the right hand cabinet. Now would be the time to throw away unneeded crap and reorganize. That's probably best lest for someone else, maybe Terri or Dorothy?
Fishing with Burney on his side of the lake today. This is a 20" 3.7# small mouth bass. I don't catch many of these.
I've finished sanding the right hand cabinet (I don't know if it's actually finished but I'm done sanding). This is the primer coat applied.
That's enough sanding and painting for a while. I'm suppose to get electricity down here tomorrow so once I have hot water maybe I can clean up a little.
This is the second morning in a row this guy has been here. Yesterday he sat on the deck eating sunflower seeds. Today he knocked the feeder to the ground and ate down there. I need to discourage this.
This is going to be a busy day. Three men and a boy have shown up to run a new electric line down to the log cabin.
This is a Dingo with a trenching attachment. There was still a lot of hand digging to expose the septic line, the buried ethernet cable to the log cabin and two other electric lines.
This was a game time decision. Since rhe trench was there I decided to have them run a new power line to the hill house too. Maybe not necessary but it will never be easier than now.
They just had to dig a little more trench, run some conduit up the outside wall and drill a hole through the service panel.
There is now an emergency disconnect on the outside of the log cabin - code requirement.
This neat attachment on the Dingo, kind of like a snow blower, levels out the ground over the trench. They'll be back tomorrow to finish up the log cabin.
A couple of guys from Avenson Electric came back this morning to finish connecting the log cabin. Everything is done and appears to be working. This is the new look on the south side of the cabin.
And here we have the new look on the north side of the garage. Now that I have running water again it's time to start cleaning up.
It's time to start making the log cabin livable again. Dorothy sent me a bunch of new spices to replace the old ones I pitch in the trash.
The wall was opened up to allow access to the circuit panel. It's all back together now and the kitchen is scrubbed clean.
This is the google mesh router in the bedroom. The whole network is now on Starlink and appears to be working.
Speed test in front of the log cabin:
Ping - 86 ms
Download - 66 Mbps
Upload - 34 Mbps
Walking to the mail box this morning and then this ...
(Side note: deer flies are back.)
Chris arrived after a long drive from Florida. Maybe he should relax while we go fishing.
4.9# bass on a tube worm. That's the best in show so far.
All four ducks are back. Two of these guys have been MIA for a couple of weeks now but all is forgiven and we are one big happy family again.
This is a portable fish cleaning platform that hooks onto the wall. If we ever catch any bass I'll try it out.
Burney gave me Ruth's old lake pump. I'd like to get an outside water faucet in the boathouse. If I just suck water out of the lake the intake eventually clogs up with gunk.
If I could get a 4" PVC pipe down about 10' that would be fine. I could then put a 1 1/2" PVC pipe inside that to suck up clear water. This pipe is only 4' and that's about as far as I can go with all the rocks.
This is the old original well which hasn't been used in 30 years. Maybe there is a way I could pull this up and reuse the well point.
No! I cannot do that.
Here's another totally unnecessary distraction. This old Johmson 6HP motor hasn't been used in years. After clearing points and plugs it actually started. I wouldn't say it purrs but it runs.
This is the "wild" area between the hill house and the boat house that I do not mow. I like this better than mown grass.
At last a chance to try the fish cleaning platform, and ... it works great. Now I just need running water near by.
Remember this weird fish moasic I put in the triangle of death back in 2016?
It's fallen onto hard times - digging animals and neglect.
I never was all that satisfied with this thing anyway so now I'm back to a blank canvas. I'll have to think about this for a while.
We actually caught a couple of bass today - it's been really hard these last couple of weeks. This 3.8 pounder is Chris' best (so far).
For the first time in something like a decade this second Almacraft is in the water. It even has a current boat license.
It's also been about a decade since the boat house was this clean.
Breakfast at La Pasta with Bill Mills, Burney and Chris.
New arrivals (l to r): Brandon, Rhys, Kaitlin, Rob and Terri.
I got the backordered well stuff from the Fleet store today. Now what?
We've started pounding down the well pipe. Here we have the 3' well point and the two 5' segments in. When that top gets about ground level I think it will be enough.
Eureka! We have water. It's brown and sandy but that will pass after some use. Now we need some pipe fittings and stuff. I'll need to think about this.
Andrew, Crystal, Banzai and Addy arrive in their camper. They'll stay in it since space is so limited in the log cabin.
We went to PR today to get what we think we'll need for the well.
This is a test run with the small pump just to clear out some of the sand and dirt. After 5 minutes the water was running clear.
Almost done now. This guy pumps fine but it doesn't shut off automatically like it should. I don't really need that anyway.
Andrew and Crystal are on their way back to Houston.
Brandon, Kaitlin and Rhys have packed up the big boat and are also headed back to Houston.
Rob and Terri head back to Denver. It's always fun to have them here.
I want to have an outsode faucet for the new well. We got a hose and a spigot and a short nipple. Duh. Wrong gender and wrong tread type.
The second boat is safetly stored back in the boat house.
This is pretty specialized connector: female-female and npt-ght. Amazon comes through again.
This what it looks like under the little work shelf where it pokes through the wall.
Finally an outside facet at the boat house. All that's left now is getting the pressure shutoff switch working.
This is the pressure shutoff switch. That tube out the bottom was clogged up with schmutz. The compressor blew it away and it works just fine now.
The triangle of death is now actually a triangle instead of that weird 5-sided polygon it used to be.
Here is the last little touch on this boat house well project.
Chris and me with our new fishing T-shirts from Dorothy. Do the bass even have a chance now?
This one of those "What can possibly go wrong?" moments.
Not exactly as planned but no one was seriously injured and the light fixture was not damaged. That was the best I could hope for,
This the broken ceramic light fixture that needs to be replaced. I'll need to splice in new wire from here to the coupling.
Too windy to fish so ... installed new light socket and new wire (spliced in at the coupling).
This is Dorothy's glider on the operating table. I think it looks good but is remarkably uncomfortable. It didn't glide much anyway so it's going to become more like an adirondack chair.
Fine tuning the new base. We'll need two identical pieces so it's a good chance to use lots of power tools.
Table saw, jig saw, oscillating spindle sander, router, cordless drill. I couldn't find a excuse to use the thickness planer.
Lake association get together at the park by the public landing. A good crowd - it was fun.
Here we have a regular 15' ladder duct taped to the lower section of the pipe. We plan on running a rope over the ladder to pull the upper section vertical.
After one false (disasterous) try we did succeed on our second attempt.
I haven't forgotten about this triangle by the boat house. Here's my latest changes to it.
Bass Tournament
Bill 50.2 (18)
Chris 18.8 (9)
Final Score
Chris heads out, back to Florida (by way of Texas). We fished, we laughed, we did some projects. It was a good time.
This is Dorothy's glider converted to Dorothy's chair. I think it's an improvement. I also thought about making it a rocker - who knows?
Dorothy arrives. We stopped off at Dunn Bros for some coffee on the way back to the cabin.
Here we have a jade plant in the triangle. We'll see how this works.
Dorothy and I had a late lunch at the Iron Horse in Nevis.
Wednesday fishing with Burney out of my boat. This guy is 2.5 pounds.
Dorothy is masked up and flying back to Detroit. It's always fun when she comes to visit.
Fishing at Burney's today (no joy) and then fish tacos for dinner.
I'm finally starting on repainting the deck railing. There's not that much so maybe I can finish before I leave.
I got a new cell phone today - a Pixel 5a. My old Pixel 3 could barely hold a charge for six hours, I'm hoping this will do better.
That's the deck railing done: scraped, sanded, primed and painted. Maybe this will last for a couple of years.
I'm pressure washing the deck and stairs on the off chance that I might stain them later.
I haven't seen a hummingbird in a week. Alas, it's time to take this down for the season.
I've stained the deck.
Fishing out of Burney's boat today. He was the big winner.
I had the road graded today - it needed it.
The log cabin is closed up for season: rust stains removed, floor swept, pipes drained and blowned out and antifreeze in the traps.
The stairs and hand rail are painted. Is this the last of the painting for the year?
Fishing from my boat today Burney caught this 4.1 pound (19") bass. I believe that's his biggest bass of the year.
10/5/2021
Creepy.
It's time for the ducks to come in out of the cold.
I'm still using the winch to pull the boat and motor up on shore. First pull is here and then another tree as an amchor to get it pointed more toward the boat house.
The way I get the motor off is to lay it on its side then roll it on its back then slide the cart onto the clamps and finally tilt the whole thing upright.
This thing weighs a bit over 100 pounds. Once upon a time I suppose I could have just picked it up.
Now there's just the dock.
I love having running water at the boat house but, of course, that means I have one more thing to winterize.
I'll do what maintenance I can now to lighten my load next spring. Since there's a slow oil leak I'm draining the oil and I'll refill next year.
One last cast off the dock before I bring it in. Sometimes it only takes one.
Always a little sad to see the end of another summer.
My bass totals:
Total weight: 119.7
Total count: 49
Average weight: 2.4
One last look at my old Camry before it's off to K-Bid and a new owner.
It's hard to leave while the weather is so nice ...
... but I know what's coming so I'm out of here.