Summer Update
Now that fall is here, I should probably recap the summer advances. Most of what we accomplished this summer consisted of things remaining from our overestimating last year’s objectives. Still, it fells like we got a lot done, or so says my back, which is getting a good rest now. We got the shelter built and now have a more permanent camp base at the lake. I hauled the old tents to a dumpster; two seasons of wind, sun and rain had wrecked them beyond repair. The new shelter has already withstood some nice winds with no problem, but it is fairly well protected on two sides. Cristian and his cousin helped me with that project. All the wood was cut from dead coigue or a couple of tepa trees we felled (the tepa was only used where it won’t get wet as it is more prone to rot than coigue).
We also put the finishing touches on both docks. I actually had to add a whole second level to the base camp dock, as I had misunderestimated how high the lake would rise (misunderestimation seems to be the common denominator in general). I had to cut up 15 more beams plus a bunch of floor boards, but there were a couple logs left over from other things that provided all the lumber. One of the next objectives will be to build steps from the dock to part way up the hill. Mom got that project underway.
We finally got a pickup truck. It was sorely needed and immediately proved itself useful. It’s a 2001 Toyota Hilux. With it, I was able to bring a lot of firewood back to town for the winter and it also greatly facilitated the construction of the first four bridges. After finishing the shelter and docks, the bridges were next on the agenda. I was trying to figure out how I could co-opt/trick someone into helping me with that when the phone rang one day. It was my buddy Patricio, who did our survey last year. The owner of the company’s son had just got into town and was looking for an internship with a startup tourism project. To make a long story short, he plans to do an internship with us next season but in the meantime volunteered to help me with things like bridge construction, firewood hauling and whatever general hard, manual labor I needed help with. Talk about a gift horse. We got four bridges done in a couple of weeks!
We had amazing weather all summer (at least, from January through March) and it is still fairly good half way into April, though a bit overcast most of the time. Didn’t do much fishing this year, as the late afternoon “return trolling to the car” was replaced by “return with load of firewood to the truck”.� Now, I’m resting up in town for a while and focusing on other priorities for the moment.
Click on the photo to open the gallery in a new window.
June 7th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Ah yes…the old logosol didn’t make it this year. I did take it out to the lake for a couple of weeks, but when I needed it there wasn’t really a good place to set it up. Since I was by myself at that point, there was no way I could have hauled the logs up onto it even if I had set it up, so I just fulcrumed the logs into semi-workable positions and did all the work by hand with my trusty old Stihl MS360. Next time, I’d put more effort into getting the mill set up though and forgo the months of lower back pain that result from the extensive sawing of hard lumber with torso bent at a 45º angle. Maybe when the film crew comes, they can bring my an official Outdoors Network Monster Man Back Brace. That would be real helpful. In fact, they might want to bring two, cause I’m gonna put that Maryland Muskrat to work as soon as he shows up next summer
March 4th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
You can tally me in for a Digg. Thanks for posting this on your blog!