Trenching and Graveling

About 10 days ago I got a call from Bruce Gunderson asking when we were going to trench the water and power line in. The reason he called was because he was going out of town November 12th and would be out of town for at least a week. I asked him to call Glenn Anderson and one thing led to another and they said they could do it Tuesday, November 10th. This was really great news because getting this done now could make the difference between starting construction next year or the following year.

Here's a great picture of Peggy and Floyd toasting the new cabin. I believe they are as excited about the cabin as the rest of us are. And as you all know, it's all about legacy.

We started at about 8:00 a.m. We spent some time figuring where we should trench. Should we trench east along the fence to the path through the woods and go straight south, should we go along the driveway and through the yard between the garage and wood shed or should we go along the north side of the drive way, turn south by the power pole and along the east side of the driveway and then east behind the wood shed . . . which is what we did.

The significance of this picture is to show you the white flags next to the well. We aren't totally sure how they got there but however they did, we are greatful.

Here we are just getting started. This first part was kind of putsy since we had to expose the well pipe to install the pitless unit.

This is Bruce Gunderson drilling a hole in the well pipe where he will install the pitless unit.

Yup, this is what it looks like.

A steel band secures the unit to the side of the well.

Here's the finished product.

Here Bruce is installing the power cable. He also had to label this well. When you walk by sometime you can see the blue label secured to the top of the PVC pipe.

This is what the process looked like. Glenn's son Matthew ran the backhoe. The bottom of the trench is between six and seven feet down. To keep the dirt from filling in, Matthew also had to create three foot trenches on either side of the deep trench. When the trench was ready Floyd and I put the water and power line in the bottom of the trench and shoveled dirt on top. We did this in case during backfilling a rock wouldn't damage either the water line or the power cable. Since Floyd and I were able to do this, Glenn's other son, Pat, was able to haul gravel as you will see in the next pictures.

This is what Pat did all day. It takes about an hour per trip for each 8-10 ton load of class 5 gravel. Pat had to kind of hustle since the truck doesn't have headlights. We asked him to gravel the driveway and into the yard and to put 6" of gravel on the cabin site. You can see the piles on the site but I don't know if that's all of it or not. You can see the gate on the right side of this picture.

Looks pretty good, right? What beautiful weather!

I think we need a deer warning sign.


I tried to show how much was done before Floyd and I left.

As you can see we didn't have gravel at this end of the driveway when we left. You can see the direction of the trench. If you look closely, I think you can see the ID tag on the well.

This picture is looking west as the backhoe is moving east. We cleared out space south of the woodshed to bring the line straight into the cabin site.

You might remember seeing a water line on the west side of the cabin site. Here we've connected the water line from the well to the line that was poking out of the ground on the west side of the cabin. The shallow trench wa for the power cable.

Here's Floyd standing next to the trench. You can see the stakes to approximate the west edge of the cabin. I spooled off about 50" of power cable that will allow us to connect to the west side of the cabin. We thought this would be better than burying it under the cabin.

It really was a fun day. We got a ton of work done and another major step closer to the cabin.

Bob

Deer Hunting

An amazing season! The weather was great and there were more deer than normal due in some part to not much hunting this past season.

Here we are hanging one of the eight deer shot the first day.


A short clip showing the team in action.


Up goes another deer. Since the weather in the 50s, we were pretty quick to get the deer processed.


And another deer.

11 of the 16 hunters

15 of 16 hunters

You can tell it is pretty warm, check John Baker in shorts!

I think we all had a good time. If anyone has more pictures they would like to add to this blog, someone can help me add them as a blogger to this site or you can send the pictures to me and I will add them.

Bob

Tom Baker's Cabin Layout Sketch

This past Wednesday Tom was at our house for a Sanner Reunion planning meeting and brought these plans along so I thought I would put them on the blog. The footprint is the same as the gambrel style cabin. This cabin also has vaulted ceilings on the south 20'. First floor has three bedrooms, a full bath, a utility room and kitchen. Tom's logic is also to have space we can enclose and keep heated if necessary.

A couple of other things:

1. I received the bill from Bruce Gunderson for the well activities so far this year; $2545. I sent this on to Russ for payment.
2. We are still hopeful Glenn Anderson can trench the waterline and power cable from the well to the cabin before freeze-up.
3. I just sent dues notifications this afternoon.

Hope you are all doing well.

Bob

MEA Weekend

We got back from Lancaster last night and I thought I would blog an update to Sanchijebanobe.

First, I brought up a 1000' spool of wire that will be used when Glenn Anderson trenches the waterline from the well to the cabin. We actually need about 550'. The balance we will sell to Bruce Gunderson. The cost of the spool was $311.95. Russ, I'll send you the receipt for this wire. I talked to Glenn Sunday night. He says he has two big jobs ahead of this small job. He's hopeful he can get the trenching done before freeze up.

Additionally, on Monday Floyd and I talked to Jamie Pearson to see if he would be interested in quoting the materials and construction of the shell including the concrete. He said he would try to do this for us. Today I sent him a copy of the materials estimate I have from Menards.

Earlier this year I asked Menards if they would provide a materials estimate for this structure approximated in the picture below. This quote ($23,609) includes the materials for the shell of this structure including engineered trusses. As you can see the windows and doors are likely not what we would end up using. Any additions would increase the cost; dormer, additional shed roof, windows, etc.

The goal of this process is to have a best estimate of the construction of at least the shell and concrete by our annual meeting in December. Also in our annual meeting we need to develop a plan to pay for any work we approve.

Menards building rendition.

Some of the Stands

Jeff's new stand in the northeast corner of the 80


Improvements in Matt's stand - insulation and OSB board along with a shelf (left corner, a hanger for his Mr. Buddy heater, and an indoor/outdoor thermometer.


Tommy Baker's stand - west end of pasture

Russ's stand in the middle of the pasture

Tom's stand

Tom getting ready to take a small tank of propane to his stand.

John's stand in the northeast end of the pasture.

Some game cam pictures

Here's a timber wolf in the northeast corner of the pasture who just happened by three minutes after the picture below this one.

The biggest buck seen by any of the game cams this year and likely being trailed by the wolf.

Spike buck by Jeff's stand

From the gate cam, this is a button buck scratching his buttons.

This is also by the gate.

We put some apples by the pond. They didn't last very long.

All trail cams have been refreshed; clean memory and fresh batteries. We currently have six cameras out.

Hope you are all doing well.

Bob

Cabin Update - October 4th

It was a fun time up in Lancaster and Bemidji . .

Sue and I decided to go up to Lancaster this past Wednesday and stay there until Saturday when we would go to Travis (Haskell) and Amy's wedding in Bemidji, spend the night and go home Sunday. We just got home and I thought I should update this blog with the recent activities.

The Lost Moose

On the way out to the camp Friday I saw this moose as I turned south on the road that goes to Lake Bronson. I happened to see the moose and happened to have the camera with me so I snapped some pictures. It's been about 5 years since I saw a moose in this country. It was very nice to see that there are some moose in the area. Byron Chrisopherson was coming from the south and the moose went east into the woods in front of us. Byron called the moose a "lost moose". He had never seen a moose in this country.


Looking for tracks . . .

During well drilling Floyd had noticed some very large deer tracks. In fact, Floyd said they were the biggest tracks he had seen in his life. .

We did find its tracks and took these pictures

The Well !!!!!!!!!!

Here's the picture of our well. Floyd will tell the story better than me, but after drilling three times unsuccessfully at depths from 165 to 253 feet, we found water at less than 40 feet. I think they started seeing hope at about 20 feet and they stopped drilling at 40 feet.

Floyd is so happy with this result. The well is 42 yards west of the power pole and about 160 yards from the new cabin site.

What is this??

Bruce Gunderson stopped drilling at 40 feet because the drill bit hit something hard . . . coal! Doubtful we can make a million bucks but we can say we have coal filtered water. The small rectanguar piece in the middle is actually petrified wood.

Our first bottled water

Floyd asked Bruce if he could collect some of our water in this bottle he had with him, and Bruce said, "sure". As you can see, the level is down a bit since Floyd, Peggy, Sue, Ray Johnson, and I had a taste. The taste was great! There was maybe a very slight iron taste and something that's easily filtered if we think that's necessary. You can also see how clear the water is. WooHoo!

So what's next?

Dick had a good idea. He suggested we should try to get the water and powerline trenched from the well to the cabin yet this year. With that in mind, here's what we decided to do:

1. We called Bruce to see if this would be possible from his vantage point and he said yes. He just asked Glenn Anderson to give him a call a day or so before he needed to install the pitless unit and the submersible pump. The pump, by the way is 220 volts and draws 4.5 amps per leg. Bruce said he would also call with the wire size required for the160 yard run from the cabin site to the well.

2. We called Glenn who is also very busy this time of year. He said he would try to get this done this year.

3. Finally, we called Gopher 1 to locate utility lines. The only utility that needs to be located is internet. This will be done Tuesday morning, either Peggy or Floyd will meet this person out by the cabin.

The flow from this well is somewhere between 10 and 20 gallons per minute which is more than we would need to service the cabin.

Hopefully, by our annual meeting we can define the cabin construction.

We had a great time at the wedding and reception. So fun to get together with folks.

Bob

Spring-Summer 2009 Update

I thought it would be appropriate to update this blog with what's been happening these past four months:


Around Memorial day a friend of Dick's came up to the cabin site to "witch" for water. He's done a lot of it around Melrose and it didn't take him long to "witch" veins as well as his preferred site to drill the next hole.

Check these first set of pictures.

This picture is looking east. You can see part of the drain field and in the lower left and upper right you can see the white flags designating the width of a water vein.


This is a picture looking at the south side of the cabin site. This and the next picture will show you a rock in the center of the background. Near it are three white flags. This is the location suggested for a well site.


A closer picture of the flags and the rock.


Here's part of the crew that was up here; Matt with Kyla, John, Dick, Floyd, Nick, and John

Here a second set of random pictures from when Sue and I were up this past week. We were able to "ATV" anywhere we wanted, so the water has gone down significantly. I would still like to fly over the area from the west side of the county to our side just to look at the ditches and rivers draining this area. Maybe I can take some pictures as well.

We painted the locator rock orange so it can't be confused with any other. Since it is pretty dry in the area now, Floyd thought Bruce might be able to back his rig next to the rock and dig the third hole. I talked to Bruce last night. His daughter is getting married August 22nd and between now and then he has some work to wrap up. After the wedding he said he would give Floyd a call and they can go out to the cabin and decide when Bruce could get started. Assuming it was dry enough, Floyd thought Bruce would be able to back up to the site without moving any trees and without having to add fill/gravel . . . cross your fingers.

I reloaded the five trail cams; one by the crossing, one by the pond, one south 0f the cabin, one northwest of Matt's stand and one between Matt's and John's stand.

Here are some additional pictures:

This is looking southeast at the east end of the 80 looking towards Matts stand. I'm trying to show the food plot from last year. The vegetation is clearly different from what is on the rest of the area. I just don't know if it will attract the deer. The trail cam is on the right side of this opening as you are turning south so it should be able to show us.


Here's the rock with blaze orange paint. I just thought it be easy to describe for anyone not familiar with the area. I also painted the cabin corner stakes blaze orange as well thinking it might be easier to see with the web cam.

I took this picture for a couple of reasons. The first was it serves as a fair indicator about how much water is in the area. The second was to show all the tracks around the pond. These were mostly deer tracks.

Here's Susan on the ATV. Behind her is a trail cam looking south across the pond. It will be interesting to see what pictures we get from this. With regular batteries the camera will take pictures for about two months.

Here's Matt's stand and the progress of adding a stairs. We would also like to do this with John's stand. We are hoping two build one or two additional stands before deer season.


Sue and I also mowed the grass and put some oats in the feeder by the cabin. We mowed in front of the feeder to make it easier to see from the web cam.

So . . . that's the report. I'm hopefull that Bruce will soon be able to drill the third hole. I'm also hopeful, as I'm sure you are, that third time's a charm. If you have any questions, please give me a call or e-mail.