A New Ceiling for Rental Cabin #3

Last fall, we needed to put a new roof on Cabin #3.  That cabin was there since the 40's and as a kid, my brother Bernie and I put at least two new roofs on it years ago after our dad had done the same prior to that.  It finally developed a leak and I patched it but the whole roof was shot.  I decided to insulate it and put a layer of osb sheeting over the top.  Curt and I did that last fall.

I discovered that there were five layers of rolled roofing on that cabin!  The roof itself was simply made out of ship lap pine and that also made the inside of the ceiling which had turned that really dark brown like old, varnished pine usually does.  While walking around on the roof on 66 year old boards we were careful to make our feet bridge two boards while walking to prevent cracking or even going through an individual plank.  I'm always amazed that lumber from 66 years ago still even has structural integrity.  The boards were still springy and after a ton of running around, not one even cracked a little.  I don't think any type of plastic would have held up the same.

I installed a simple framework, laid down the foam insulation, nailed down half inch sheeting and roof edging that I had to build for this job and put the felt layer on along with the shingles.

Upon inspection of the inside, I could see where some of the nails we shot down in the framing became an issue and I decided to put in a new ceiling in the spring.  Well, spring sprang and in between rain, snow and bad weather, I videoed a condensed version of that particular job along with the end result.  It turned out OK.

While I was sitting in Cabin 3 tuning my radio I happened to look outside the window at the spectacular view of blue water on Jasper with a backdrop of wilderness while an eagle soared overhead and one of our loons protested in the distance.  I said to myself, "yeah, I could live here for a week or two!"

It's a pretty cool place.

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Sucker Spawning in Jasper Creek

It was Sucker Fest at Northwind Lodge on May 5th and for about two days.  I was working in Cabin 3 when I went down to Jasper Creek to to see if the suckers had come up the creek in the morning.   None were present.  A bit later in the day, they decided this day to be their day.

The water was low in the creek to begin with so the suckers were pretty shallow.   Suckers like hot weather if they can get it in the spring in northern Minnesota, and they will usually pile up in the creek.  There were some bunches of males and females - males have a subtle to not-so-subtle stripe on their sides and tend to be a bit smaller.  Sometimes, it is hard to tell just by looking at them.

I  went down to the creek with my sidekick, Delilah leading the way and the video sums it all up.

The next day, the temps dropped into the 40's and then freezing and the suckers completely disappeared from the creek.  Then, somebody pulled the beaver dam out of Jasper Creek up at the culvert of the highway and the water became very high.  a major temperature drop combined with fierce rapids pretty much shut down the sucker spawn for 2015.  What you see in the video was the spawn for the season.  This is a good thing as we'd like to see sucker numbers drop as a lake will only support so many pounds of fish and every sucker removed opens up a space for another game fish.

Delilah had fun while it lasted.

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Felling a Big Spruce

At least this time, I didn't have to do the felling.  A two-man crew with a big fancy boom truck  came in a took down a hefty spruce that died due to lighting and was right next to the power line.  They were on contract for our electrical co-op here and their efforts were much appreciated.  My chainsaw bar isn't big enough for the job and theirs was also even a bit on the short side.  It was a shame to have to take down a tree of that size, but either we do it now while in control, or have it fall later while out of control.  It was easily in the range of the power lines and with 7,000 volts running through it, touching the lines is less than desirable.  The tree had to come down.

I haven't yet decided what I'm doing with it but I'll be doing something.

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