Snettisham 2010-2

Snettisham 2010 - 2: Little Projects
May 21-24

Building the attic hatch on the deck

After the first trip to the homestead, I spent a weekend in town, still unable to muster enthusiasm for the summer. I felt discouraged, as though I would never progress at the homestead or do any of the other myriad things I typically enjoy during the summer; I just couldn't get excited about any of it and I'd already experienced pre-trip stress that felt more like August than May and I knew that visitors were going to take up much of my summer. I thought I'd probably head down the following weekend, but was further consternated by the invitation of my parents to the Taku cabin during the same time. In the end, I followed my instincts and chose the homestead with the intent to make serious progress, possibly staying till Monday in order to do so. Maybe that would cheer me up. By the time Friday rolled around I'd fueled the boat and most of the food was purchased. At lunch I hustled around the house gathering things, packing, and stacking everything neatly in the garage for a hasty departure; on the way back to work I stopped by the store to pick up some fresh bread and a few other items. When 4:30 rolled around I scurried home and loaded up the back of the truck, finally remembering to put in the paddle, net, bucket, and a few other items that had yet to make it into the boat. At 5:00 I made it downtown for a quick PBR with Chris et al. at the Alaskan before driving over to the harbor. I was a little worried about leaving all my gear in the back of the pickup (which is open) while at the bar, but no one appeared to bother it. It took two trips with a cart to get my gear to the boat; I snapped a quick photo with Nigel in the boat before pulling out at a few minutes before six.

An hour later I was at Pt. Arden and managed to have a quick telephone conversation with Chris; 20 minutes later I was at Taku Harbor where a small black-fluked whale dove near at least half a dozen circling eagles and quite a few gulls. I spotted two more whales farther south, one close to the mainland shore and the other close to Admiralty, and two more inside Snettisham. There was a light westerly chop at my stern so the going was pleasant enough and I made it to the homestead before eight. The river was flat calm and serene when I pulled in and as I anchored the boat a myriad of harbor seals cruised in, all watching me (or so it seemed). They pulled in around the stern of the boat (as though interested to see it return again) and watched me haul my gear up the path to the lodge. Once when I made a loud noise about six of them splashed at once and disappeared beneath the water. It looked like a fine time for a kayak, but it was late and I was exhausted and hadn't yet had dinner. So I stayed inside, heated up some delicious vegetarian chili (I'd forgotten to turn the range pilots off when I left the last time, so cooking was an easy step). Before I satisfied my own hunger, however, I cooked up some sugar water for the hummers and let it cool, hanging them out after dinner. Then I headed to bed early and...

....over twelve hours later managed to drag myself up again, having enjoyed a wonderful night between clean flannel sheets on my childhood bed. The first thing to do was finally fix the big leak next to the water system's lower valve at the back of the lodge. The poly pipe was too thick for a leatherman to be cut through efficiently, so I resorted to a bow saw that bites effectively through the plastic. First I detached the valve from the rest of the hose upslope (which was an easy cut straight through the pipe), then slowly cut off 1" pieces of the pipe that wrapped around the coupling connected to the valve, twisting it around the coupling as I went, until I finally slid the last section off and the valve coupling was exposed. Then I heated up water, poured it in a metal cup, and soaked the end of the remaining hose in it before slipping it on the coupling again and tightening it down with a hose clamp. Back at the top of the water system to turn it on I took some time to dam the main runoff area to the right of the olive barrel with large rocks, then small rocks to fill in the gaps, until the water level had risen several inches. Only a few drops dripped here and there between the filters behind the lodge; the process had taken some time, so I was glad I hadn't tried to tackle it on the previous trip.

As I worked on the hose I began to think about all the little things I'd wanted to do but never taken the time. Perhaps number one among them was changing the oil on the generator. Although I'd intended to do so many times, I was always consternated by the strange square shaped plug (making standard sockets nonfunctional). The locations of the plugs (one on each side) were also puzzling, situated right above the metal skids that support the generator so the oil has to flow over them before dripping down into a container. I needed something relatively flat to catch the oil under it and settled on an old rusting skillet. It worked beautifully, as the whole generate could sit on top of it. I spread out a garbage bag, grabbed a rag and some paper towels, placed the generator on the skillet, and started working on the plug. After a few minutes I gave up on one of them. Still not convinced that I was even unscrewing the right thing, I went to work on the other one with a wrench and eventually budged it. Sure enough, black oil started flowing after a few turns, drooling all over the treads before gathering in the skillet. In the end, it was highly successful. I tidied up the main body of the engine while the oil was draining, and managed to pour in just enough fresh oil afterwards to meet (but not exceed) the full line.

The next task was one I'd identified the night before while lighting a little fire to warm up in the evening. The ashes inside the wood stove were building up, so I started scooping them out with a plastic cup into a handy box. I scooped and scooped and scooped! The slope of the ashes rose from the hole in the front of the stove precipitously toward the back, building up perhaps six inches or more! As expected, I pulled out a couple handfuls of nails, but was surprised to find that I'd apparently burned two joist hangers as well. I gathered all the ashes in a garbage bag, thinking that I might use them on my garden back home.

At some point I stopped and had some lunch, as I'd skipped breakfast, sitting on the upper porch enjoying the sunshine. I heard some intense squeaking from just below, but looked down to find nothing. A moment later it happened again, squeaking and scurrying, and this time I could see the tarp covering the siding below wiggle a little and figured that there was a mouse or vole squabble inside.

Then I tried to start prepping the windows for trim. Back when I was installing the hemlock paneling (two years ago), I'd started out by cutting each panel to fit around the windows. Half way through I got lazy when someone suggested that I could always just go back and cut them out after they were up. Laziness is rarely rewarded in situations like this, and I wish I'd taken the time to cut them then. Anyway, the end result is that the paneling at the edges of the windows overlaps some of the windows by as much as several inches. These need to be cut out before I can add trim. I thought it would be a perfect job for a sawzall, but it wound up vibrating too violently against the flexible paneling, and I had trouble keeping the blade on track and not cutting through the soft 2x4s behind and too far into the paneling. I decided to bring down my jig saw for the job.

After using the outhouse, I decided to clean it out a bit, as everything inside had a thick layer of yellow spruce pollen, including myriad spiderwebs. I spent some time sweeping the whole place out and making it somewhat presentable. From there I grabbed a pair of hedge clippers and trimmed a bit, starting with a lovely alder growing about ten feet in front of the new deck. It hurt to cut it down, but I want to maintain an unadulterated view, and that alder was only going to grow. I also trimmed around the benches near the camp fire and along the boardwalk path toward the first cabin, alternating hedge clippers and machete. I also swept the path, removing the winter's accumulation of twigs and leaves as well as the spruce pollen.

One of my goals this summer is to move both the stack of lumber currently on the deck (mostly hemlock paneling) and the nearby stacks of lumber that have been there since the first landing craft arrived. The original stack has grown into two unwieldy, inaccessible piles, and are an eye sore now that the area around it is shaping up. I found a spot on the mountain side of the path just before it turns into the boardwalk which, though not quite level, is wide and lacked major vegetation. I cleared away devil's club and salmonberries and made a wide open area that I think will fit all the lumber. After that I decided to take a break. The day was hot and spectacular. I grabbed a blanket and a pillow and lay out on the deck, eventually stripping all my clothing off (I was there alone after all). It was wonderful and the brisk breeze that had blown all day helped cool me off and keep the bugs away. Hummingbirds had found the feeder by the time I'd showed up that morning, and swept in every few minutes to feed. There was at least one male and one female, though I suspected two. While laying on the deck, the male chased a female from the feeder and proceeded to make his territorial display where he flies straight up into the air, then dives down, making a "pew pew pew pew" sound as he reaches the bottom of the curve. He did this quite a lot last summer, but from this vantage point I could follow him all the way up before the dive, where before he had always disappeared into the sky before his dramatic reappearance.

After sunbathing I moved forward on a crazy plan that I was hatching. I'd always hoped to hook up water to the four cabins, and had even begun to lay out pipe between the back of the lodge and the first cabin when the water system was just set up, but consequently had so many problems with the main line that I abandoned the plan. Now I had a better one. I'm not sure why I thought that splicing in a line at the lodge and bringing water nearly horizontally to Cottonwood Cabin was a good idea, when I could splice in from farther up the line a shorter distance away with guaranteed pressure. I even had the tee connector fitted to a valve to work with. So I found the end of the pipe near the cabin and started pulling it through the dense alders and devil's club for repositioning. As the pipe is probably 100 feet or more, this took a lot of back and forth along the line to pull one section through at a time. Eventually I had it all jumbled up behind the cabin and started hauling it through the considerably less dense vegetation uphill to a spot I'd identified as a good splicing point. Again, this took some walking up and down to work it all the way up. I wasn't quite ready to make the splice, so I took a break from work and did my COASST survey on the beach. At the water's edge I watched a large group of male red-breasted mergansers (mature and immature) resting and frolicking in the river (see photo to left). I didn't find anything on shore more interesting than a shrimp carcass, but I did note a patch of grass cut short by something (probably bears). In front of the lodge, the meadow was flush with shooting starts.

When I came back I decided to start work on cleaning up the lumber. With no clear plan I uncovered the second stack of lumber to the side of the lodge and started sorting through it. I've grown weary of storing lumber that has little or no potential for use, so threw those pieces (rotten or broken) off to the side. The rest of the lumber I placed according to size in small stacks nearby in the firewood staging area. Most of this lumber was generously donated from the marbled murrelet ADF&G camp. When I got through the good lumber and started to hit more rotting scraps, I quit. On the way back to the lodge for dinner (50 feet away), I decided to start fixing the section of boardwalk just off the deck. The first piece was level and secure, but after that I had an unattached section in two angled lengths that were catawampus. These I pounded and pried apart and, just as planned, one of the sections nuzzled up pretty well to the existing section at the proper angle (about 40 degrees) and there was ample room on the end support of the existing piece to attach this new one. The new section passed over the remainder of the soggy land and onto dry forest floor. I did a minimal amount of digging to level it out and stopped for dinner. I made a sandwich of bakery French bread, avocado, and brick cheese and ate it with wine on the porch. Porch gazing is always entertaining in some way. This time I was amply rewarded. As I enjoyed my dinner, I heard rustling in the bushes to the right--too fast for a porcupine, too small for a bear....I watched eagerly to see what would emerge, as the sound was clearly coming in my direction. Moments later out popped a wooly black mink with a short tail who slipped under the porch. I jumped up, grabbed my camera, and stood in wait on the opposite side. Sure enough he emerged again and I snapped a quick picture (unfortunately a little blurry). He jumped onto the boardwalk and I was just focused for a second photo when Nigel caught on to what was happening and chased it away.

After dinner I put some water on in the hopes of making an easier hose/coupling release than I was able to do outside earlier. When I'd first intended to bring water to the cabins I'd put together a tee coupling attached to a short length of hose and a valve, and this system has been waiting there for me to use (and was part of my inspiration to further work on the water system). However, it had one connection that I needed to remove. While the water heated I returned to the boardwalk and nailed in the new section. There's an uneven gap between the two boards that I can't fix easily, but it's an enormous improvement. Back inside, I poured hot water into a tub and soaked the connection for a few minutes. After loosening the hose clamp, the hose slid right off. I had another valve available, which would be ideal for the bottom of the new line, but lacked the fittings for it to connect it to the pipe, but that would be easily enough to add later. I lit a little fire, as it had cooled considerably, and ate some ramen and hot chocolate there before moving to the couch and then the bed to work on the trip report from the first run.

Olive barrel catchment before damming	Olive barrel catchment after damming	Water spraying through a bear bite in the hose
Draining the oil from the generator	Mink!	The new hose spliced into the water line

The next morning I rose at 9:30 to greet another dry, if overcast, day. I'd left a rake leaning against Cottonwood cabin, so the first thing I did was rake the paths around the first two cabins, which doesn't make them much more functional but does make an amazing aesthetic improvement. I then raked around the lodge and up to the outhouse before heading to the top of the water system to turn off the water, dropping the tee and valve system at the appropriate spot along the way. Back at the splicing site, I used the bow saw again to begin a cut. I was trying to avoid getting doused by the water that needed to drain out, and cautiously stopped after cutting down half an inch or so. The cut made fascinating breathing sounds, whistling out air at great force in pulses before the water came squirting out. It took a long time to drain, so I eventually stepped closer and tried to continue cutting to make the hole larger. When the water stopped coming I finished the cut, then ran back to the cabin to heat water, returning with the kettle full of boiling water, a metal cup, and two hose clamps. The pipe in that area doesn't have very much give, so I found it very awkward to bend the bottom end into the cup full of water. Nevertheless, it did the trick, and it slid over the first coupling. I prepped the uphill side a little better and had equal success. Then I ran down to the lodge

to pick up a third hose clamp for valve side, hoping that the water was still hot. This pipe was easy to manipulate, as it wasn't connected to anything yet. Before I knew it, the system was in place. I hiked back to the top, turned on the valve, and waited until the system filled and pressure built back up (evidenced by water spraying from the bear bites); it took less than a minute. Back at the splicing site I really didn't know what to expect. Would the water make a 90 degree turn on its downward charge to fill this second pipe? I slowly turn the valve....and was rewarded with a satisfying and surprising gurgle and gush and watched the pipe lay down as the water sang through it on the way to the cabin. I turned it off and tried to take a video, but it was less dramatic the second time. I ran down to the end of the pipe, now between the two cabins, and saw water spraying out at pressure. It turns out that the duct tape at the end was actually covering the opening, so I had to approach the jets of water to remove it. The result was a full gush of water from the end of the hose (see photo nearby). Brilliant. Having no valve there, I hiked to the top and turned it off.

Back in the lodge I proceeded to do more domestic chores, cleaning all the odds and ends that I'd stuck on the windowsills and which made the lodge look cluttered. It made an amazing improvement, and I finished up with looking for a place to hang the mirror. I decided on a spot over the in the corner near the sink and the dry food storage and while there, noticed the stack of art I had in the corner. I decided it was finally time to put more of it up! So I looked through it and chose the pieces that I wanted to keep for the lodge, then loaded up and carried them to Cottonwood Cabin along with a hammer and some finish nails. I chose a few pieces for that cabin along with a nice wooden peg coat rack, then hauled the balance to the next cabin, and so on, proceeding to place all the items in my stack (all gifts from people over the years). I hung those that needed a nail, but kept searching for the box of tacks to mount the others, which I was certain I'd find in one of the cabins. I wound up back a the lodge where a few searches turned them up (after I'd given up), so I went back through and tacked up the posters in each cabin, also carrying a broom and sweeping each one inside and out. The cobwebs on the outside

were particularly conspicuous, each covered in a fine layer of bright yellow spruce pollen! I also removed a lot of items that were better suited for storage at the lodge than in a guest cabin, and generally tidied them up. I also mounted the "forest face" bear on the tree at the edge of the lodge to surprise people out of

the corners of their eyes as they walk up. I wouldn't say that the art on the walls necessary match or compliment each other, but it seems to work in a wildernessy sort of way, and at least the art is up and the cabins are cheerier! On the way back I took the tarp off the second outhouse for the first time in two years and swept it out as well.

Back at the lodge I used some large finish nails that I'd found to nail in the final piece of cedar wrapping on the porch post that had ripped out last year when the hammock collapsed under Chris and I (having not rescrewed the hook in far enough after the cedar wrapping was installed). The I started work on the hatch for the attic. Last summer, Chris and I had installed the hemlock paneling on the ceiling, leaving a large hole in the center for access to the attic spanning two spaces between joists and six rows of panels. I measured the width carefully and found that it varied panel to panel more than I hoped. Rather than try to match its inconsistency, I decided I'd try to make it square and hoped that the uneven gap wouldn't be noticeable. So I set up sawhorses on the deck and uncovered the lumber stack there, searching for straight pieces. I cut six lengths as well as four pieces of 2x4s for the backing (two on each side of the center joist). Fitting the 32" tongue and groove panels together was surprisingly difficult, and I wound up cutting two additional pieces to swap some out and make it work. Finally, I nailed in the back and wound up with an extremely heavy, if attractive, hatch cover. I then measured the length of the opening and found it a couple of inches shorter than the hatch I'd made, so I trimmed it a little, then attached the hinges and the latch. Unfortunately, although I managed to get it to the top of the ladder, it was too heavy and awkward for me to actually lift into place, so I'll have to wait for help to see if it actually fits and to attach the hinges to the ceiling.

After that I finished with the cabin improvements by rolling up the existing blue rug in the lodge and carrying it to my cabin so my old dog Nigel doesn't have to slip around on the painted wood floor all night when he isn't interested in his dog bed (or thump down on the hard floor when he lays down). Back at the lodge I laid out a red oriental style rug that I'd picked up at a moving sale to replace it. I also gathered a few additional items from around the lodge for storage in the attic, further cleaning it up.

Then there was the end of the ceiling. The final gap is narrower than a single panel, and Chris and I had left it last fall after our Herculean ceiling installation. Given that I knew it would be tricky fitting the tongues in the grooves in that narrow space, I decided to go easy on myself and cut all 4' pieces. So I measured and cut the first span, ripping it to about 3" wide, and managed to install it with little trouble, jamming it in by hammering up wedges of scrap lumber between it and the wall. Even the finish nails went in with ease. So I went back and measured the rest of the sections (which got slightly narrower toward the back) and cut and ripped the rest. Before I installed them, though, I went back outside with the rake and raked around the third cabin, my cabin, and their neighboring paths. I hadn't intended to rake that far out, but after walking the tidy trails I'd cleaned the day before, I found that I was much less satisfied with the twiggy ones elsewhere on the property and wanted them equally as clear. While at Harbor Seal, I walked out on the point for a few minutes through the trees, ending up on top of the sentinel rock where eagles and other critters like to eat. There was shelly scat and part of a dungeness crab shell there. I also noticed the attractive branches of a young spruce tree with lovely upright cones and catkins that I wanted to photograph (see photo nearby). When I gently touched one of the catkins, it exploded in a cloud of yellow pollen of unexpected quantities for so small an origin. I took some videos of me jiggling the branch to show

just how much pollen a few catkins can produce! Juneau has been inundated with spruce pollen this year, covering everything for days on end and moving in waves across the mountains.

Back at the lodge, I went back to work on the ceiling. The next four pieces went in with varying degrees of success, but they all went in sufficiently with the use of wedges and on most I remembered to start the nails on the floor so they had less distance to go before biting (small finish nails are hard to nail straight, especially over the head). The last piece turned out to be 16" short (oops) so I recut that piece, cleverly using the remains of a piece of paneling that had turned out to be soft and pliant and easy to work with. It was a little long, but there was enough space over the last panel on the wall that I was able to jam it in. Finished with the ceiling at last!!

I took a break and had dinner, gazing out at the river where I'd finally confirmed that at least two whales were feeding, lunging on and off. I'd also watched a grebe feeding (probably an immature red-necked grebe) in the inlet all weekend. That night the river was flat calm like when I'd arrived and the seals were massing on the other side of my boat, staring at the shore and beckoning me. I was exhausted and really didn't think kayaking was the best idea, but the more I watched them (apparently) watching me, the more I felt compelled to go and visit them. I stepped outside and saw one seal about ten feet from shore, which clinched it for me. So I drug a kayak down to shore and in a few strokes was in the middle of the river surrounded by seals. I'd never had such concentrated seal watching and took a shot at some videos. One thing I discovered is that the panicked splashings aren't always precipitated by the

seal actually poking its head noticeably above water as I assumed--I saw many splashes where I didn't see the seal at all. Either they caught the slightest glimpse and immediately dove dramatically, or perhaps the splashing has nothing to do with me at all! I also saw seals poke their heads above water alarmingly close (for them) and crash back under water. It seems as though they can't tell where I am when underwater and behave as though they are daring themselves or each other to get close, without knowing how close they'll actually come. Once toward the end I heard a splash and looked to the left where a seal had just dived about four feet away in a whirl of chaos. A moment later a decided thump hit the boat--it's possibly that a big wake from the dive slapped the boat, but it was a single, distinct bump, and I suspect it was the seal against my kayak. After 20 minutes or so I left the seals (numbering over a hundred I'm sure) and headed back to shore.

The next morning I had just a few tasks to do before cleaning up and heading to town. First, I wanted to do a bit more work on the pile of lumber I'd been sorting. I'd pulled out all the nice lumber from the ADF&G camp, but left behind a hodge podge of this and that, some usable, most not, much of which had been there for quite some time. I came across a few stacks of nice small pieces of plywood from the camp, which I added to the "save" pile nearby; the rest I dug through and stacked neatly against the nearby alders for burning. Having found so much useless lumber I'd come up with a plan to dispose of it--either cut them up for burning in the wood stove, or burn them on the beach in a bonfire. By the end I'd uncovered the crates that the lodge windows had arrived in that are sitting on the last cabin pallet.

My final task was to build a shelving unit that came from the ADF&G camp. They'd been kind enough to bundle three of them together along with their hardware. As I had several just like it, it didn't take long to figure out it fit together and I assembled it on the deck in the sunshine. This shelf transformed the unruly pile of shoes on the floor into a tidy area with ample space for additional items. Thoroughly delighted with the progress over the weekend, I packed up, swept, washed the dishes, and headed for town. On the way I swung between Mist Island and the mainland to explore and try a few casts at the mouth of the little creek that drains out there. As I turned in I passed dozens of male harlequin ducks on the rocks in several groups and dubbed this unnamed nook "Harlequin Cove." I shut down a few times and tried to cast, but the wind was blowing so hard that it drove me to shore too quickly and I soon decided to head back to town. At the opposite end of the cove I was startled to see what appeared to be two masts protruding above the water. They turned out to be two logs, but how they came to be almost vertical is a mystery; no reef is apparent even at low tide between them and shore.

Shooting stars in front of the lodge