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