Fourth Annual Family Campout

Actually, it should be the Fifth but the kids were unable last year and I was still out of work. So - we made it twice the fun this year!

Monotropa

These two pics are from the previous weekend. The monotropa have nearly completed their lifecycle.

Setting up camp

Heather, Hollie, Lance, and Amber arrived Thursday afternoon and immediately started setting up their tents. The snack table was laid.



Jas'n, Jamie, Haydyn, victoria, Bella, and Eian got in Friday afternoon.

Nature walk

Actually, the little salamander, an eastern newt (Notophthalmus viridescens), was found under a piece of rotted wood as Amber was clearing the path to her tent site. The next day (Friday) was beautiful so we decided on a nature walk. You never know what you will see; a stone that looks like dinosaur skin or a beautiful orange moth.

Weenie roast

After the nature walk, we roasted some weenies over the coals. Then Lance and I prepared a pork shoulder for the smoker. Carolyn soaked some beans. When we were done with the roast, we put the scraps into the beans and set them on the stove to slow cook.

Target practice

The kids really love learning to shoot.

Drying In the Workshop

I purchased wavy board siding from a new source: Roger Chastain. He's in the cabin-building business in Collinsville, AL. These boards are much thicker than the previous wavy board. I wondered how that would work with the corners.

 

At the back of the workshop, reaching the gable end would require two 30-foot ladders or scaffolding and at least one beefy helper. So I decided to pay professionals to put it up and finish the gable ends. Extra expenditure but worth it. They came Saturday AM, ready to work. They decided to finish the walls first then erect scaffolding to do the gable ends. Here they are, left, putting on the housewrap. 

Then they added the corners (smooth edge to butt the boards to) then began the boards.


They were very careful to pick through the boards and find the right piece for each spot. The widest boards are 16-18".

The unfinished space at the top of the wall is going to be windows. I put them up high for ventilation and to keep as much workspace as possible. I already framed all this. See the two high little windows in the gable end? More ventilation. For wintertime use, I'll have a woodburning stove.

At the end nearest the road, I'll have double doors (4' x 10' each) so I can back my trailer up to it to unload things. And maybe a ramp. Here they are, finishing up on Sunday afternoon: I will need more siding! They have another job during the week but will be back Friday and Saturday for another big dent in the project. Hooray! After all these years, I'll soon have a workshop!

Trimming of the Glim*

Well, we have been using the cabin for several years now so I guess it is about time to finish the interior trim. The wavy board was left over from the exterior siding project and lovingly cleaned and stained by Carolyn. The planks used to trim the ceiling were ripped from the wider pieces of wavy board siding.




Another project involved protecting my batteries from the ravages of rodentia. For a reason not known to me, some creature with rodent-like teeth has been gnawing on the lead posts of my batteries. So I decided to build a box to protect them. While I was at it, I also made some jumper cables to tie the batteries together.



Our mushroom experiences this month included a delishous breakfast of scrambled eggs and black trumpets. The other mushroom (the gray one on the right) turns out to be a "false morell" - NOT good to eat. I'm glad we checked with the club first :)



Speaking of mushrooms, here are a couple of specimens of an unusual plant form - Mycotrophic Wildflowers. The genus is Monotropa and the species is either Uniflora or Hypopithys. These plants do not have chlorophyll but rather take their energy from sub-surface fungi which in turn gather their energy from tree roots.




Lastly in the nature set is a most welcome visitor, the black and yellow garden spider (Argiope aurantia) or "writing" spider as my father used to call them. Insect eaters like spiders and birds are always welcome around my place - just not inside it.



*About the title - "trimming of the glim" is a lyric from a song that my father used to sing to me as a child. Many years later, I would learn (from the Internet, of course) that the song was "Eddystone Light". It is a fanciful song about a lighthouse keeper. The 'glim' probably referred to the wick which was burned in the days before electricity. The wick would be trimmed to make the light brighter and thus more easily seen. I'd like to think that finishing the trim makes my little cabin shine brighter.