Construction Journal Entry Week of 9/13/15

9/15-17/15 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way I stopped in for a short visit with Uncle Charles, then I dropped a canvas off at Marilyn's and then proceeded on to the 59'er Diner where I had a delightful lunch at noon with Bob and Pat. They were on their annual fall foliage trip. This year was a little disappointing because of the dry summer.

After lunch we went to Camp Serendipity and arrived at about 1:00. We found that Robert and his new man, Rob, had already been at work on the log on the high rock. They had cleared a lot of the trees on the high rock toward the woodshed and they had moved the big log a little further.

The five of us had a nice visit and Bob and Pat saw the progress I had made inside the cabin since they were there last. The four of them left at about 2:00 and I went to work.

I started by watering Brian, the giant sequoia, and then took a shovel down to the waterline trench. I backfilled up to where the little creek from the valley entered the trench. Then I started forming the channel across the trench that would become the little creek's new bed.

On Wednesday I spent the morning backfilling the trench. The water from the little creek was in the new channel, but it couldn't cross the backfilled trench until I deepened the channel on the other side. There were a lot of roots blocking it, so I used Cindy (loppers), the buck saw, and the PhD (post hole digger) along with the spade and the warthog to deepen the channel so that the little creek could flow all the way to the main spring-fed creek.

I took a nap after lunch. When I got up I was very stiff and sore from the digging, but after some stretching exercises, I went back down and did some more backfilling. Then I came back up and split a couple of big rounds of firewood. I started a fire in the wood stove before I took my shower.

On Thursday morning, I was pleased to see that the little creek was happily flowing to the main creek through its new creek bed. I did some more backfilling and nearly finished the job. I estimate that there is about an hour's worth of work left before it is completely done. If the weather holds, I expect to finish the job next week. I left for home at 12:50 very sore and tired but very happy with the progress.



Go to Next Journal Entry
Previous Journal Entry

Index to all Journal Entries
Go To Home Page

©2015 Paul R. Martin, All rights reserved.