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Snow Shoe Weather

Tom, Elmo and party were there the weekend of 1, 2 and 3 April. The only info I have for that trip was they "repaired" the well pipe under the sink that feeds the hand pump. It was just a patch of black electrical tape.

Mike and Terri made a trip to camp on April 7, 8, 9 and 10.  I showed up around noon on the 8th, Friday.  There were some muddy bear paw prints on the door and the cushion on the single chair was chewed up pretty bad.

We had to re-do the pump pipe repair because the pump kept losing prime. I removed the black electrical tape and put some rubber sealing tape on the hole which seemed to hold prime better, at least overnight.

Friday was rainy all day and slowed to a misty drizzle by evening.  Outside temps never got below 37 degrees or above 42. The yard was getting mushy We watched the rain and birds in the yard. Lots of water running down the tire tracks. No work got done.

Bird pecks around in the leaves.

Saturday was cloudy. Mike and I raked leaves and cleaned out the drains under the road and driveway. We also raked leaves by the well to get the water flowing better. The leaves were damming up the drainage flow and the yard was getting soggy.

I brought a different pump to use to fill the big tank from the spring. It works much better than the one I tried last trip. It's submerged in the spring right now on a temporary basis. I dropped a concrete slab (paver block) on the bottom of the spring for the pump to stand on and not suck up too much sand. It still has to have generator power to run but filled the big tank in about 10 or 12 minutes. We weren't counting.

No priming necessary because the pump is under water. We jury rigged some 1/2" inch black pipe to get the water up to the tank. We left everything sit so it will be ready for the next use.  I'll figure out how to make the connections more permanent next trip.

The long term plan is to bury the black pipe between the spring and camp tank when the weather gets warmer. The RV water hose idea is out the window.

Also, after looking at the ram pump, all that was messed up is the pump tower and feed line. I'm thinking about fixing it again and running 1/2" inch pipe up to the spring right next to the 1 1/4" pipe coming down from the spring and keeping both of them in the water as much as possible.

 That way they won't freeze if the water is running. Then I'll put a valve on the spring end (inside the spring) to allow the Ram pump to feed the tank or if the spring is running low, plug in the electric pump and switch the line to it.

Mike cleaned up the pile of cut wood and stacked it in the wood bin. I helped a little.

We found a mouse in the power plant. We finally chased him out by spraying the little bastard with flea and tick spray which I think blinded him cause I caught him square in the puss with a good squirt! Later we tossed some rat poison into his nest. We also put some poison blocks above the porch and upstairs ceiling.

We found this Miller High Life can full of shotgun slug holes across the road in a pile of shotgun wads and debris when we were raking leaves. Whoever it was burned the shell casings in the fire pit but left this crap lying on the road.

We left camp in good shape about 8:45 AM Sunday April 10th.

End of month wood cutting trip

Several guys decided to head out to camp and cut up some of the timber that's lying on the ground around camp and stock up the wood bin. I'm taking the re-built Ram pump for the spring water.

So far Frank, Mike and Rich are on the list and will be there Friday. I'm heading up either late Friday or early Saturday morning, I can't leave here till after 5 PM on Friday.

Food issue seem to be covered, everyone is bringing something. More later