Raccoon Relocation Program & Pumpkin Artist

After Fridays nights blog we found a slight flaw in our new bird feeder.

I awoke to the sound of my poor cat Itchy frantically pounding on the inside of the living room window and evidently giving something a piece of his mind.

You see, we leave the porch light on so the cats can watch for any visiting animals and there's been many.

I walked over to Itchy's window and peered into the night, but couldn't see anything so I went back to bed. Not 10 minutes later he started back up with the ruckus and back to the window I went where, to my surprise, there was a jumbo raccoon in our new bird feeder,

so now Saturdays to do list suddenly included running to the hardware and renting a large live trap.

When picking up the trap I did receive some great information on what I should use to bait trap as well as a rash of crap about not just pulling out my 22 and shooting him.

Paper bowl with 1 broken egg, chocolate chips, peanut butter, black sunflower seeds, 1 unbroken egg and we had him in the trap by 10:30 Saturday night.

All loaded up for his road trip. He's lucky a karma conscious gun owning Buddhist spent the 8 bucks for the trap rental and gave him a nice home still in the Murmur Creek river valley.

Today Pat had all day meetings in town and before leaving she asked if I would carve the pumpkin.

and here's what she got.

There's a lot to be said for adult supervision.

Getting Ready for Winter and Knee Repair

Wow this month went by fast.

With my knee surgery looming October 10th, we wanted to get as much done as possible before it and winter, and at the top of the list was the cabin roof.

Here is the finished product.

We stripped the old shingles and pitched them into our trailer, a road trip to the Tofte dump followed.

The steel roof went up very well, we completed it on the 8th, traveled to the cities on the 9th and I had knee surgery the next day.

Before the surgery my doctor had told me to expect a 2 to 3 week heal up time but being the finely tuned athlete that I am I knew in my heart I'd be good in a week,

Wrong!

Hell it took 2 weeks just to get off the pain killers. I'm not sure when I'll be able to kick a 50 yard field goal but it's getting better.

During the 1st week as I healed, I mounted the electric motor on the auto focuser

Photo of the focuser.

Other projects on light duty included building a jumbo bird feeder.

It mounted nicely to the corner of our deck.

Also completed the computer order with our IT guy Barry, who did us an outstanding job getting our main desk top configured. We did have a small communication barrier, but the Georgia accent doesn't show up on the emails and that helped a lot.

Barry, I can't thank you enough for the help, you are a stud and there is a little something being shipped to your house that I know you"ll like.

Last but not least we also started mounting the electronics keeping the center open for the new dual monitor coming with the new computer.

Punch List, New Equipment and Georgia IT Support

We are starting to compile our punch list and can see the end of the building phase,

along with this Jim has been researching and ordering some of the remaining hardware and computer gear.

Our guide camera showed up a few days ago and Jim went with the

Starlight Xpress

Lodestar Autoguider

It's a perfect fit with our camera in both attachment and quality. I will assemble the entire camera package on the next rainy day and document it completely.

Next week will be computer decision and ordering, helping us with this we have a computer specialist in Georgia that I will call Monday.

(We call him a specialist because he's sensitive about being called a geek or nerd and we don't want to upset the big sensitive guy)

Site clean up is going well and most of the tools and saws are packed up.

Here is a few new photos taken today.

View from the road.

Front view

Pulling into the parking lot.

End wall facing the parking lot,

still looking for windows to put in that upper roof line.

We will build a board walk around the buildings.

,Back, including power box, extra conduit runs and the grounding cables for the lightning protection.

Runs between the buildings

2 for power and 1 for computer communication cables.

Landscaping, Utility Run and Roofing

Wow, it's been crazy around here

starting with two trips to the cities to get my knee surgery set up.

Mike and Joline brought the grand kids up north

for a short get away that included lots of camp fires, fishing, 4 wheeling and fun

so again the observatory took a back seat.

But then Dean showed up,

anyone who has hired Berneking knows that when he's done you're Happy.

We had a list,

"The Dean's List"

and 1st thing was to set hun's propane tank cover in place

before

After

It was nice to move it over to it's permanent home.

We built it in the driveway and it was somewhat in the way.

The big dig began at the electric meter.

Years ago when running water and power to our cabin we back filled this part of the ditch with sand and a marker post knowing we would have to re-dig in the future.

This ditch is 6 foot deep and running up our driveway, the depth was needed for the water line.

Looking back down the ditch with our bundle in the middle. The bundle includes a power cable, water line and two empty conduits.We then sand padded and insulated the bottom of the ditch before back filling.

The ditch by the meter was sand filed and layered,

this hole has propane line, water curb stop, 2 water lines, 3 eclectic lines, 2 empty conduits.

At this point we split the ditch into two paths.

The 6 foot deep ditch turns right and ends at a water hydrants, the shallower ditch runs across to the warm room and still includes a water line that will drain back to the hydrant.

This is the same corner you see 2 photo's up with the hoe parked on it,

we had some lager boulders on site that Dean pulled out and placed to build the corner of Pat's large terraced rock garden.

It ended up being a nice large garden.

Upper corner of the garden with water hydrant.

Now came the landscaping around the warm room.

Over the build we had been backing right up to the warm room door and this pulled a lot of the rock and soil from the front of the building, so Dean continued the rock wall around the front,

this allowed for a wider, level path around the building and more planting space.

There is now a parking area to the right of this photo.

The path from the parking area goes right by the blocks, Dean found a nice flat rock to support the post.

(it's level, bad photo)

Pat and I also installed the steel roof on the warm room, we just need to trim it out and I'll put a photo in next time.

Fishermen Picnic, Wood Shed and Pantry

Well the observatory took a back seat

to a few things on the honey-do list and the annual Grand Marais Fishermen Picnic.

The 1st honey-do build was a wood shed but not just any wood shed.

This magic wood shed is

11 feet long, 5 feet high, 3 feet deep and packed full of wood.

Here is the magic part,

this is the view from the back of that same full shed,

it's empty and actually a cover for our propane tank.

Pat has always hated the look of that big tank and this was our solution! We had used this technique before on our cabins mechanical room.

This fake wood shed covers the plumbing and water heater.

The 2nd task was a kitchen pantry,

which in itself shouldn't be a big deal, but when you live in a 420 sq ft cabin things get a little tight. To over come the shortage of square feet we now have a living room pantry and no more front closet.

This is the summer view of our new pantry with the front door open.

Door closed winter view of pantry, we are thinking that maybe a dancing hula girl beaded door curtain will dress it up nicely.

(at least that's what I'm thinking)

I also spent 4 days exhibiting the tracks and observatory at our fishermen's picnic.

We put the rodeo back on it's tracks and displayed it over the long weekend.

As you can see we got a spot down in "man's world": portable wood mills, large outdoor wood boilers, lumber jack chain sawing, log rolling, field mowers, wood chippers and ATVs.

Lucky to have a ice cream truck and climbing wall close by,

seemed like big crowds all weekend and the truck received a lot of attention, hopefully we can get a few track sales later in the year.

Still waiting to get the power cable dug in. I just got the steel roof to the site today so we hope to be done roofing this week. Sorry for the slow progress but summer is short and the list's of things to get done are long.

Metal Roof, Lightening Rods and Road Restrictions

Wow it's just short of a month since my last blog, life has been hectic.

Mid June we ordered the metal roof for both the cabin and the warm room, it showed up early July on the back of a very large semi truck.

Well to get to our private road you must drive a county road that still has the road restrictions on and this truck was way over the weight limit. Dean, our friend and dirt contractor, was kind enough to let us unload at his shop were it still sits in a big pile.

The road restrictions are also keeping Dean from getting our power cable and lightening protection installed along with our final landscaping, hopefully we can finish it all by the end of July.

A new view of the front.

We have been completing the fence and flower details

Work inside went on as well, here is what we decided for finish on the computer desk top.

Here is the sitting bench with pad.

Fridge, microwave oven, coffee maker and wire storage rack.

View looking from just inside the door toward the front window and computer desk.

Black Flies, 3 Birthdays, a Wedding, Dock Repair and Boat Launching

Sorry for the 19 day gap in blog'en but between

dock repair, pontoon boat launching, 3 birthdays in Minneapolis, visiting grandchildren, a wedding in Omaha, along with multiple trips to Home Depot, Fleet Farm and Northern Tool all ending today with a down and back run to Duluth for a friend, we've been a little busy.

Even with the worst black fly hatch in years making it very hard to work outside without going crazy, we did get some observatory work done.

Full front view
click any photo to enlarge
door trim
window flower box and trim
we tiled the bare wood vertical beam
close up of tile
installed the cable lights over the desk
close up of the lights

We were able to save the 32 foot straight piece of dock but the L shaped end was completely shot.