Read Online One man’s wilderness by Mr. Sam Keith, Richard Proenneke - Free Book Online
Authors: Mr. Sam Keith, Richard Proenneke
supper.
June 29th
. The growing season is definitely at hand. The blueberry blossoms are starting to fall, and soon I will have to check on the young berries.
Today’s thought was to put hinges on my windows. I need a three-legged stool and a book-rack type of shelf to store books, camera gear, and clothes. This last project would take some doing as it would require three shelves three feet long, ranging from fifteen to twelve inches in width. Lots of ripping to turn out that much lumber.
The job was done, with a good-feeling right arm to prove it. The rustic rack has a lonesome look. It needs filling. That will come soon enough.
I thought for a spell about a roof-jack to take the stovepipe. That is important. A man thinks better when he’s working. Beneath the thirty-five inch overhang in front of the cabin I augered holes into the logs and drove in pegs, good hanging places for stuff better off outside than in. I’m still figuring about that jack.
Tomorrow is Sunday. I will go someplace.
June 30th
. A third of the way down to Emerson Creek, the wind blew strong in my face and it was a real battle to keep headway in the chop of the water. I had my knees spread wide against the canoe bottom, and I had to put back and shoulders into the job to make the creek. Those sourdough pancakes must havea high octane content. I had come down to prospect for suitable stumps from which to fashion wooden hinges. Steel hinges are better, no doubt, but it is interesting to see what one can do using only material from the forest.
While foraging among the uprooted trees, I noticed wolf tracks mixed in with the caribou tracks, and I thought of my plaster cast. I would have to check that out. I couldn’t find the hinge stock I wanted. The trees were too big. I would have to try another department of the lumberyard another time.
What I did find, though, on the trek back along the creek bed to the canoe, was a squarish, pale orange rock. I have a feeling it will be the center rock in the arch of the fireplace.
I noticed the boss hunter’s plane came in today. He didn’t stay long at his cabin, just long enough to check his camp for supplies he would need when he brought in the trophy boys during the sheep season. I wonder if the big rams feel that first stir of uneasiness? Do they know the difference between his plane and Babe’s?
The wind I fought before, now helped me home. Wind and fire. Help you one minute and kill you the next. All depends on the time and place.
July 1st
. This morning I fashioned a box for the plaster cast of the wolf track. I sawed off the end of a cabin log and made a two-and-a-quarter-inch slice for the box, and a one-and-three-quarter-inch slice for the lid. I hollowed them out with the wood auger and chisel and now have a neat box. I will mix some plaster, pour it in, then bed my cast in it and let it set.
That roof-jack for the stove pipe, I’ve been thinking about. Select the proper location, and nail a cross tie to support the two roof poles. Reinforce the base of the roof-jack to make it wider and stiffer. The pipe will be installed so it will stay there without wires. A few sheet metal screws should do it.
Time to put the tar paper over the roof poles and fasten it down. Not forest material but I had better use it.
Later: The tar paper project is off. Heavy rain—a good soaking, one to replenish the forest sponge.
A problem. How to clean the million tiny chips and grains of sawdust out of the gravel on the cabin floor? An idea. Pack all the gravel back out and toss it into the lake. The chips and dust stayed on the surface and drifted away. I shoveled the gravel back on the beach, let it drain, and packed it back again. Clean wall-to-wall gravel once more.
July 2nd
. The lake is like a sheet of glass.
My roof poles are too wet for the tar paper. This gives me a chance to go prospecting again for some hinge timber. I figure I need the butt end of eight small trees to make four sets of
June 29th
. The growing season is definitely at hand. The blueberry blossoms are starting to fall, and soon I will have to check on the young berries.
Today’s thought was to put hinges on my windows. I need a three-legged stool and a book-rack type of shelf to store books, camera gear, and clothes. This last project would take some doing as it would require three shelves three feet long, ranging from fifteen to twelve inches in width. Lots of ripping to turn out that much lumber.
The job was done, with a good-feeling right arm to prove it. The rustic rack has a lonesome look. It needs filling. That will come soon enough.
I thought for a spell about a roof-jack to take the stovepipe. That is important. A man thinks better when he’s working. Beneath the thirty-five inch overhang in front of the cabin I augered holes into the logs and drove in pegs, good hanging places for stuff better off outside than in. I’m still figuring about that jack.
Tomorrow is Sunday. I will go someplace.
June 30th
. A third of the way down to Emerson Creek, the wind blew strong in my face and it was a real battle to keep headway in the chop of the water. I had my knees spread wide against the canoe bottom, and I had to put back and shoulders into the job to make the creek. Those sourdough pancakes must havea high octane content. I had come down to prospect for suitable stumps from which to fashion wooden hinges. Steel hinges are better, no doubt, but it is interesting to see what one can do using only material from the forest.
While foraging among the uprooted trees, I noticed wolf tracks mixed in with the caribou tracks, and I thought of my plaster cast. I would have to check that out. I couldn’t find the hinge stock I wanted. The trees were too big. I would have to try another department of the lumberyard another time.
What I did find, though, on the trek back along the creek bed to the canoe, was a squarish, pale orange rock. I have a feeling it will be the center rock in the arch of the fireplace.
I noticed the boss hunter’s plane came in today. He didn’t stay long at his cabin, just long enough to check his camp for supplies he would need when he brought in the trophy boys during the sheep season. I wonder if the big rams feel that first stir of uneasiness? Do they know the difference between his plane and Babe’s?
The wind I fought before, now helped me home. Wind and fire. Help you one minute and kill you the next. All depends on the time and place.
July 1st
. This morning I fashioned a box for the plaster cast of the wolf track. I sawed off the end of a cabin log and made a two-and-a-quarter-inch slice for the box, and a one-and-three-quarter-inch slice for the lid. I hollowed them out with the wood auger and chisel and now have a neat box. I will mix some plaster, pour it in, then bed my cast in it and let it set.
That roof-jack for the stove pipe, I’ve been thinking about. Select the proper location, and nail a cross tie to support the two roof poles. Reinforce the base of the roof-jack to make it wider and stiffer. The pipe will be installed so it will stay there without wires. A few sheet metal screws should do it.
Time to put the tar paper over the roof poles and fasten it down. Not forest material but I had better use it.
Later: The tar paper project is off. Heavy rain—a good soaking, one to replenish the forest sponge.
A problem. How to clean the million tiny chips and grains of sawdust out of the gravel on the cabin floor? An idea. Pack all the gravel back out and toss it into the lake. The chips and dust stayed on the surface and drifted away. I shoveled the gravel back on the beach, let it drain, and packed it back again. Clean wall-to-wall gravel once more.
July 2nd
. The lake is like a sheet of glass.
My roof poles are too wet for the tar paper. This gives me a chance to go prospecting again for some hinge timber. I figure I need the butt end of eight small trees to make four sets of
Similar Books
Now Wouldn't You Like to Know
Curtis Bennett
A Brother's Honor
Jo Ann Ferguson
The Collar
Frank O'Connor
Targets Entangled
Kennedy Layne
Powered
Cheyanne Young
The Fall (ATCOM Book 2)
Jennifer Lowery
A Marriageable Miss
DOROTHY ELBURY
Different Seasons
Stephen King
Face to Face
Ellery Queen
Prairie Tale
Melissa Gilbert