Have You Ever "Made" Water Before?

Oh yeah, sometime in all this mess we remembered that we do need to have a drink of water now and then. Now in Gustavus at the Miracle Cabin, unlike in your nice warm house at home, you CAN'T just turn the faucet on and all is good. You see, here we are on well water, which is powered by a pump that was sent up some 15 years ago, which is powered by electricity. That well sits 40' or so from the house, and the pump and it's tank are on top of the well, connected to the cabin and it's plumbing by an underground line. The photo above is taken from the front of the cabin, looking out at our field, and Paul as he works on our pump!

And, speaking of electricity, this would be a good time to note that Paul and Maria have been paying the electric bill at the Nicodemus cabin for the last 3 years or so. Good intentions and offers to help have stayed as mere intentions and offers, so they've born that expense. Starting this month Tom paid the latest $25 bill and will begin paying the $15 a month or so it takes to keep the power on. If you turn it off there is a $150 or so reconnection fee so it's cheaper to just keep it on and have the breakers shut off when we leave. Thanks Paul and Maria!

For a day or so we trudged across the field to the Dewitt's cabin to fill up gallon water jugs at their outside spicket. I remember the first time I went to get water. It came out of the faucet crystal clear, though when I tasted it the flavor was somewhat "minerally". Well, to make a long story short, by the time we had brought a few gallons back to the cabin and set them aside the water had turned a nice light shade of rusty brown! Yuck....

So, we begin to use the water purification method designed by the Nics three years ago at our last "mini-reunion". So, for those of you just dieing to know, here is the "secret" formula / recipe:

First of all you put about 6 filters in the coffee maker, then you run the water through the coffee maker! (this turns the paper filters brown and yucky after only a couple of pots) Then you set the water aside to cool in various containers in the kitchen. Finally you pull out brita pitcher number one and pour the water through that, followed by pouring the same water through brita pitcher number two! Voila! Clear, fresh, clean, good tasting water! We pour that water into gallon jugs and they go in to the fridge. As you can imagine, "making drinking water" becomes a part of the daily ritual.

OK, now back to the pump! This is an old Sears 1/2 or 1 horse pump (I don't remember which) that Dad brought up years ago. We found out the hard way the first year that when overwintering the pump you have to take it COMPLETELY apart at the main juncture and drain it or you will come back to find a burst pump and houseing.

So... 3 years ago that was done... however the pump, assembly, and gaskets were left on the front porch in the sun and weather. This resulted in the deterioration of the gaskets due to UV light and general further deterioration of the pump. The gaskets practically fell apart in your hands, and were in a couple of pieces. First we tried the electrical tape, jerry rigging of existing gaskets. Close, but no cigar. Then we found a piece of surgical tubing that almost matched the gasket, taped the ends together, and crammed it in the pump. It took two of us to hold the housing together, and finally, Voila! A working pump! Paul is a pump magician!! (This is a picture of him working on the gaskets.)

Then we cut some oldhose and replaced it with new, and fixed a couple of leaks under the house, and once again we were drinking water from our own well, and had a working toilet and shower to use!! WooHoo!! Oh, and by the way, our water is WAY better than the water from the DeWitt's well, although we still used the water purification method.

And, as a postscript, it should be noted that the pump is really done, as in finished, kaput, needing to be replaced. It is working, but not efficiently, and it's days are numbered. A little explanation: The pump sits on a tank that has a bladder in it that is supposed to be pressurized by compressed air (like a tire). The pump them pumps water into the tank and the back pressure creates pressure for the water lines in the cabin or our hoses or whatever else we need water for. In the process of messing with the tank it became obvious that the bladder is shot, the back pressure doesn't work, and probably had not worked for many years. The pressure we've had is basically from the pump pressurizing our lines. Bottom line is that we need to buy a new shallow well pump.

I saw one at harbor freight for $99 on sale, but alas did not have the coin to make the purchase.

Thanks to all of you who are following this saga online, and for your responses.

Time For New Floorboards!

If you've been in the boat in the last 5 years or so you know that the floorboards are getting a bit, shall we say, "squishy". Well, since we've got to tear things apart anyway we decided to go ahead and rip out the floorboards and put some new ones in! So I unbolted the seats and we began to tear the floorboards out!


Ugghhh.... What a yucky mess it was under there! There were a couple of loose two by fours in each separate section, all of which had come loose because the styrofoam blocks that the holes were stuffed with had literally been eaten away by time and salt water. It was nasty!



After cleaning things out we found some decent plywood and began to measure for new decking and supports. Measure 3x, cut once... hopefully!



And finally, we put fresh primer on the newly cut decking and timbers, and then painted them in the exterior gray latex that the cabin is painted in. Our paint job was of course interrupted by a rain storm, so we may have to do some repaint or touch up next trip... we shall see. We didn't get it installed, but with the sandpaper strips I bought for traction hopefully they will do a good job!




Thanks to all who are following this little tale, and please, your comments and replies in whatever form are welcome.

We've Got To Do WHAT With The Boat Trailer?!?

OK, the shed's down, the wood is stacked, and our boat is free. Sort of. Well, actually there's a hole or two in the bottom, the engine hasn't started, and it's still sitting on a rusted out, busted up hulk of a worthless trailer. Now what?

Time to get that boat up off the trailer. We groan and grunt and lift and prop and begin to set the boat up on timbers to get it off the trailer. Jack it up a little here, shim it a little there, and slowly but surely the boat starts to rise!

Finally there is enough clearance, and with many manly noises we drag the trailer out from under the boat and hoot in triumph!

I think this pose of Keith's is my favorite! Well done! We conquered the trailer! Sort of... kind of.... anyway, you either know what I'm talking about or you don't!

As we continue to prop up the boat and shim it into place we notice water pouring out the bottom (look closely!), and it's not coming out of the plugged hole where that is SUPPOSED to happen. Paul starts planning his patchwork to fix the largest of the two holes that we found.

Looks like this is the culprit. The aluminum was sheared right off by the weight of the collapsing shed.

Definitely time to get rid of the trailer and find a new one!! And last, but not least, I leave you with a close up of Paul's excellent patchwork on the bottom of the boat! Perhaps he'll tell the story of where the patch came from!

Salvaging What We Can

Boy, how do I convey just how much WORK it was to tear apart the shed? Can't do it I guess, even pictures don't do it justice. But finally the boat stood free of it's former wooden prison and salvage work began to take place. You can see in this picture that the Canvas top has begun to be repaired and is now more or less bent back into place. Thanks Keith! Again, it's not done yet, but a little bit at a time...

Anyway as we continue to dismantle the shed we piled boards to one side that were not rotten or did not have dry rot, and we began to stack wood on another side that was salvageable. Alas, the salvageable pile was much smaller. The picture below is of Paul standing beside a pile of wood that was carefully stacked about 15 years ago and covered to protect it from the elements. Looks good, right? Nope. Almost that entire pile was worthless, with most of the boards having dry rot in them.

Below are about a half dozen large rough cut 6x6's that survived the years. They are part of Paul's plan to build a permanent structure that would house a boat and at least one truck, maybe more. If Paul writes up his plans and the cost I'll post it on this blog. I THINK materials are 2 to 3 grand, which is a steal, but I'm not sure until I see Paul's list. **Paul, can you get me something to post here?

What couldn't be salvaged began to be stacked in a large burn pile. It hasn't been torched just yet. That's for later. To be continued....

And Now The Work Starts

After somewhat recovering from the shock of the collapsed shed and enjoying the relief of a basically intact main cabin, we brought our stuff in, took the food we brought out of the cooler and popped it in the fridge after a bit of cleanup. OK - now, what next? It's time to get to work!

We begin to prepare ourselves mentally for the task of taking our collapsed garage apart, digging the boat out, and seeing what we could salvage. So, off to work we went! I know it took the better part of the next day to demolish that shed and get the wood moved off to one side. It was crazy! The duct tape held TOO well, and the nails and plywood did NOT want to come apart! Plus there was little to no leverage to pull stuff apart with, and no working chainsaw to just massacre the thing with.

We started with the left side of the shed, ripping the roof apart piece by piece, exposing the pile of covered wood and tools one the left hand side, and beginning to expose the boat that was on the right hand side.

Now with the left side torn apart we start to uncover the boat, taking care to not damage Old Ugly any worse than she already is!

Paul decides to make a fashion statement with the thick moss that covers every square inch of the roof! Looks good on him, don't you think?

OK, enough fun and games, now back to work!

Piece by piece the roof comes off, fighting us for every inch of boat exposed. The damage to the canopy and to the windshield becomes starkly apparent as the roof comes off. The crushing of the fiberglass cowling on the 90 Horse Johnson Outboard is clearly visible.

Finally, after long hours and much sweat, the boat and woodpile stand clear of the collapsed garage, and now the real work and damage assessment can continue. The story will continue - thanks for following along.

Disappointment & Relief

We slowly got over our shock at the collapse of the garage and turned out attention to the cabin itself. Thankfully everything looked basically intact with no obvious signs of vandalism or bear intrusion! I think each of us kind of expected the other to have the key so we made some, ahem, "entry improvisations"!

Below is the scene that greeted us as we came through the door. It might not mean much to some of you, but seeing the inside of the cabin in great shape and untouched just as we left it brought a huge sigh of relief from me at least! I can't describe to you just how good it looked to be "home" and to have home in one piece.

I breathed a very thankful Hallelujah to the Lord and we began to carry the few things we had brought with us inside. The saga will continue!

An Unexpected Surprise

Some of you remember the last picture ever taken of Dad. It was taken the afternoon before he passed away. It is a classic "Dad" picture. He is in his overalls, looking a bit disheveled but with a smile on his face. He is standing in front of our "garage". Well, it's actually not really a garage - it's more a makeshift lean-to.

The priority when the cabin was being built in 1993 was, understandably, to make the cabin, not a garage for the boat and vehicles. So kind of as an afterthought a two stall structure was built for the vehicles and miscellaneous odds and ends. Sitka Spruce poles were sunk (6 or 8 I beleive), a 2x4 frame was built, and plywood was put on top to keep the rain off. The roof line was rediculously flat. I'm not good with angles, but there was barely any tilt to it. The plywood roof overlapped, and the seams were literally sealed with DUCT TAPE!! Boy, if there was ever a classic "Nicodemus" structure, this was it.

Everyone who looked at this "garage" wondered how in the world it would make it through a Gustavus Winter, where, I am told, 4 to 5 feet of snow fall on the average. And being near the water in Southeast Alaska (think Puget Sound on steroids or Puget Sound like it was 250+ yrs ago) it is HEAVY snow. But stand it did, for 15 Winters!!!

We got off the plane, fineagled a free lift from the Taxi driver (another story), and were dropped off at the driveway about 100 yards from the Cabin. As we walked into our "front yard" this is what we found.

After 15 Winters the "garage" finally collapsed. It's funny, what broke was not the roof (which we had expected because of snow weight) but rather the posts that were holding the structure up. Apparently the poles finally rotted in the ground, and the shear (not sheer - look it up) weight of the structure caused the poles to break off and essentially the whole structure went over sideways (which you can see from the angle of the center pole in the picture).

One side of the "garage" had the boat in it, the other had wood that Dad had bought and accumulated hopeing to keep it out of the weather for a future more permanent structure to be built. When the poles broke off at ground level the roof landed on the next highest structure - OUR BOAT!!! As you can see from the above picture the canvas and aluminum top was immediately "schmushed", and the windshield was bent and the windows cracked and broken. If you'll look at the picture below, what little that was left of the trailer bent under the weight of the roof - I'm no mechanic, but I don't think that tires are supposed to run at that angle!?!

But now, the REAL question - "Did the motor survive?" We wormed our way back into the downed structure to look at the motors. As you may be able to see below, the center line of the roof is resting on the top of the 90 horse Johnson, the entire weight of the roof being supported on it and the windshield up front. The fiberglass case of the motor is cracked, but at first glance it does not seem to have gone beyond that to the motor "innards". Whew!! Because the motor was properly put up and supported it did not hit the ground under the weight and nothing else on the motor is touched. The next picture is the boat from the other side.

Wow - Shock, relief, disappointment, and more relief, all at the same time. All this, and we aren't even inside the Cabin yet!! Whew!! What can be salvaged? Can anything be saved? Those and more questions will be left for the next post.

Thanks for coming along on the journey!

Headed For Gustavus - June 23rd, 2008

Paul, Keith Carpenter and myself all headed for Gustavus June 23rd. We traveled at a greatly reduced rate thanks to Keith's generosity in buddy passing us up there. We spent about 6 hours in Juneau - a place that we've all grown to love as well, being the gateway for us to Gustavus and a pretty cool berg in its own right.

Some of you may remember that Dad and Uncle Dan worked in Alaska in the late 30's or early 40's I believe, and Dad made a commitment to Christ at the AG Church in town and was baptized in Auk Bak.

Above is a shot of the Mendenhall Glacier, with Paul, yours truly, and Keith.

We met Dave Mitchell, an online acquaintance from http://www.nwdiveclub.com/.

Dave owns The Scuba Tank, the dive shop in Juneau. When we told him we were going to be killing 6 hours in Juneau he took off work, picked us up in his truck, and drove around showing us the sights, talking scuba diving, showing us his store and just having a great time. Buying Dave lunch was a small thing to do and doesn't begin to cover his kindness and generosity to us. Thanks Dave - and hope to dive with you someday!

A couple more hours to kill and we were winging our way on in to Gustavus. Good to be "home"!

Although I must admit, I had a good deal of trepidation about what we would find when we got to the cabin. It had been 3 years since we had been there. I suppose I've inherited a bit of Mom's tendency to worry some, or "borrow trouble", so I was pretty concerned about the cabin. An invading bear & a few squirrells would have been a welcome sight, quite frankly. Given the isolated nature of things folks breaking in, vandalizing, or helping themselves to our meager belongings was a very real possibility.

In my next post I'll start sharing what we found!