Wednesday August 25, 2021
The view from the outhouse
Hello all from Silty Slough. Mayor Cooper has finally lifted the media ban for the Slough so I am able to post again. Really we have been so busy with the addition to Spruce Manor there just hasn’t been any free time. I will give you a blow by blow report on the summer’s events. No pun intended Kamala. There are gaps because a lot of the details are lost in the mass storage of my brain. I’ll do my best to recall or if I can’t I’ll just make it up as I go along.
Friday May 14
The river is clear of ice and the ramp has firmed up a bit. Roger is picking us up and taking us down to Northwoods Lodge to catch a ride to town to get the Wine Down ready to make the first trip up the river. Steve Butts was waiting at the house for us when we arrived. We shopped a couple days for supplies since we hadn’t been to town since early April. Steve and I got the boat ready and took it to a nearby lake for a test run. Everything is good with the boat so we are ready to depart.
May 18
The boat is fueled and ready. We are loaded heavy with supplies and 3 people.
The boat took way more RPMs than normal to stay on step for the trip. Must be about time to get the Hamilton jet rebuilt.
May 22
Tom Lord and his son Colby arrived to wake up their drill rig from its winters nap. They are going to drive the 6” pipe pilings for the foundation of the addition. Steve, Kari, and I had already laid out the location for the 20 pilings so drill baby drill.
May 23
Tom and Colby finished the last of the pilings. We shot the grade to cut the pilings off and Colby welded 10 inch square steel plates to the top of each piling.
I posted a picture of all the pilings sticking up before we trimmed them to length on a local FB group. My caption was “18 dry holes, no water, two more and I give up.” You should have seen the comments. Why are you drilling so close together? Did you water witch? Here is a name of a different well driller. Only a couple people figured it out.
I guess since we can’t find water here we might as well put a building on all these pipes sticking up.
May 24
Tom and Colby showed up this morning with pipe to drill a well at the neighbors cabin. 50 feet down, no water and we are out of pipe and time for now. They will come back later.
May 25
Steve and I started setting the 10 x 10 beams on the pilings. We were short a couple so we milled a couple more spruce logs.
May 27
Beams are all in place ready for floor joists.
May 29
Tom Lord and Charlie cam back and punched the well on down another 20 feet to get water.
May 30
Steve and I set the 2 x 10 floor joists.
May 31
Steve, Kari, and I started laying the 1 1/8” plywood subfloor.
June 1
The subfloor continues, it is hard work each sheet is 105 pounds.
June 2
Eric Johnson brought our windows and Tom’s dozer on his barge. Tom is going to work on our ramp with his dozer so that he can load the drilling rig easier.
Tom has the ramp is in really good shape now. He is on his way down river making several stops to drill wells.
June 3
We are heading back to town today. I took the boat to Alvin Millard to rebuild the impeller. Turns out the one that is in the boat is not exactly the right one. I got on the internet and had the correct one shipped from Marine Power in Louisiana. No point putting the old impeller back in. We will just hang out until it gets here.
June 8
The impeller arrived yesterday after 5 so Alvin is going to install it this morning. Alvin is Mr. Hamilton impeller if you need yours reconditioned.
Impeller is in, back home to get Kari, Thor, and the boys so we can head for the Silty Slough.
June 9
Kari and I finished the decking and started framing the crawl space walls. Treated lumber framing with treated plywood covered with bituthane waterproofing membrane.
June 10
First 20’ section is ready to hang under the deck. Fairly easy with the help of Mr. Kubota.
June 13-15
We ran back to town for a doctor appointment and a root beer float from A&W.
That’s about enough for now. Sorry if it is boring. I didn’t have time to politicize and tell you exactly what I think. I will try to post more soon, some rainy days are coming.
Take care, stay safe and healthy.
Thank you Lord for watching over us.
I’ll be in touch.
Blue skies!!
The View from the Outhouse 