Fishing

 I have always loved fishing. 

Even if you dont catch anything there is the enjoyment of being out on nature and away from the pressures of everyday life.

I had been feeling kinda flustered and under some pressure because I had a bunch of physical work that needed to be done but I was behind since my hands had not fully recovered from surgery on my thumbs. Running a chainsaw isn't on the list of approved activities during recovery and I had a 100 year olf fir tree that was dead and needed to be turned into firewood.

It was a beautiful morning forecast for the next day, so I loaded my little rowboat in the back of my old  pickup truck and drafter my daughter to be  my fishing partner, and set the alarm clock for 6:00.

This is the only time I set my alarm clock since I retired. To go fishing.

It was still dark when we hit the road, stimulated by a couple of cups of coffee.

As we came areund the corner and exited the Hiway, the sun was just peeking out from behind a light spread of clouds. A light whisp of fog was lying over the top of the lake, drifting along at the whim of a light breeze, the sunlight reflected off of the water gave the lake a slight orange cast. I stopped the truck and just sat there for a moment just drinking it all in.

With the optimism of fishermen all over the earth, I unloaded the boat and we transferred out gear into the boat. Rowing was my chosen occupation. I like the low impact exercise of rowing. Quietly dipping the oars and rotating them in aa slow and steady pace inserted me into the peace and  quiet of the scene.

My daughter put on a worm and dropped it overside, I had not even baited op, but there was a trout so eager to be caught that he impaled himself on the hook before we had gotten twenty feet from the dock.

I dropped my line over the side and went to help her boat the fish. Before I could get to her, I, too had a fish on. She had a 10" trout and I had a 8" perch. I then rowed to the south side of the lake to our usual spot. we caught and released loads of perch, keeping only the ones we figured were worth cleaning.

We were down to our last few worms ans Lisa was attending to a line snarl. her worm was dangling over the side a couple of inches over the water when we heard  splash. we were startled and glanced over where he worm hung and a widening ripple of water showed where a fish had come out of the water to try to get the bait.

we were startled when the fish turned back for a second pass. He hit the bait a second time and it flew out of his mouth. Lis grabbed her pole and tries to coax him around for another attempt. Once she hd the polee in her hand, the fish was nowhere to be seen. after she got frustrated trying to attract hi, I sggested she fix her line, which still had a tangle.

She set her pole down, exactly like it was before.

The fish came back and hit the bait for the third time. This time he hooked himself.

We looked at each other and burst out laughing.

We were out bait and I figured we had probably used up all f out luck any way, so we put away out gear and started back.

Final score 4 nice trout 25 good sized perch an incredible sunrise. Fish that actually caught themselves. A memory that will remain with me forever.

Little House

 I can't pass up a good deal.

So I bought a little house, I know it is a thing lately, but I do like the idea of a small portable living space. All of the RV type of things I have ever owned just didn't really fit my desires

We had some people buy the land next door with the intention of "homesteading" but they had no idea what they were getting into. They got ripped off by the company that cleared the land they had no idea that there was a two year backlog in new house construction. 

They bought a trailer to live in and bought a little house bare shed 15 X 30, and had it delivered. Then they finished it out. Divided the interior into a bedroom, bathroom living room and kitchen. Ran all the electrical wiring and plumbing, Sheetrocked the interior, and put some cheap plywood down for flooring. they put in a refrigerator and stove, tub sinks shower.  put in a countertop in the kitchen. Painted everything. 

Then their plans fell apart and they are going to move, so they offered up the little house for sale. They had invested over $40,000 in it, I offered them $37,500 for it and they accepted my offer.

Lets just say that getting it moved turned out to be more of an adventure than I counted on. After much sweat and cursing and frustration and a bunch more money, it now sits on my property. Not where I wanted it. but it is here.. It still needs a bunch of work, so we have been working on getting it hooked up to water and electricity.

There is no moisture barrier for the floor. so we have to pull up the flooring and add that and then put in some good flooring. They did a terrible job of doing the countertop, so that all needs to be taken out and done over, but none of those things is expensive, just time consuming.

I think that when all is said and done we will have about $45,000 into it all done. I have checked areund anf similar units, fully furnished run 60 t0 70 grand.

Should turn a nice profit.

Disappeared

 I was winding down a busy day, laying in bed, reading a book.

Thw phone rang. A phone call after 10:00 usually means bad  news.

It was my friennd and neighbor from up the road.. He said the police were caanvassing the area, asking if people had seen or talked to another of our neighbors, Dan Brewer. He had not been seen since early in the day, when she had said said goodbye and went into town to run some errands. Dan was supposed to go over to a friends place to help work on a tractor. This was at about 9:00 in the morning.

His wife came home in the afternoon, and Dan was not around, so she assumed he was still over helping with the tractor, so she laid down to take a short nap.

When she woke up from her nap, Dan was still not around, so she called the friends house to see if he was still around. He was not there, in fact he had never been there that day, had never called or showed up.

she began calling the neighbors and friends. Still no Dan.

She called thee hospitals then the police.

The police came out and started contacting people in the in the neighborhood. We border on the Olympic Forrest, so the police put up a helicopter who ran search patterns in the area. About that time Search and Rescue was brought in. They brough in a whole group of volunteers to hit the brush and do a search of the woods. A couple of people  brought drones but by that time it was getting dark so they called off the search for the night, but were back as soon as it was light.

They searched for a couple oof days, but they found no sign of Dan. The weather had been nasty with mixed freezing rain and snow, and low temps at night. After three days, it became a recovery search as opposed to a rescue.

It haunted me that maybe he had taken a fall and could not get back on the trail, was maybe laying in a ditch somewhere freezing stuck in a ditch with a broken leg or something. 

After a couple more days with absolutely no sign of him, they called off the search.

It still haunts me for some reason.

Near and Deer

 Several years ago I plaanted a couple of espaliered five-in-one apple trees. That is when all the limbs are trned to grow along a single plane. If done properly the trees are amazing looking.

I got interested in doing this because we stopped at a Dairy Queen in Raymong, Wa., and along the northern property boundary were a series of espaliered junipers. I had never seen anything like it and it stuck in my brain.

When I was visiting a local nursery i came across these two five-in-one apple tree starts that had been espaldiered, so I had to have them.

It tkes several years to get appreciable results. This spring, the two trees were beginning to look really nice. They had formed a living fence. When in bloom it was pretty spectacular.

And then it wasn't

I live on the edge The Olympic National Forest. 100 yards to the south of my driveway there is a sign that says "PAVEMENT ENDS". The area is inhabited by bear, coyotes, cougar, eagles elk. And deer. Lots od deer.

I had installed an electric fence around the orchard. Three cherry trees, the two apple trees, a couple of hazel not trees. Five feet high. It seemed to be working until it didn't.

I came home from a trip and all thhe blossoms and most of the vegitation had been eaten by the deer. Man was I pissed.

So I now have built a deer fence around the two trees. Seven and a half feet tall. Maybe in a couple of years it will approach the level it was before deermagedon.

The end s near

I have been working on getting the propeerty line adjusted between us and our neighbors to the South for almost a year.

As a recap, when we had the property line sutveyed between the two properties, it turned out that the prior owner had drlled the well on the neighbors property. It has taken until now to reach the point where I am sure things will work out. I just hired a real estate attorney to write up the legal mumbo jumbo to register the property line adjustment with the county.

All I have to say is that the process is WAY to involved and expensive. But at least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Water woes II

 Never be too quick to declare victory against the Fates prematurely.

We were sittng and eating lunch when we saw a man we did not know enter our back yard and start setting markers  out in the yard. We went out and not so politely told him to get off of our property. He explained that he was a surveyor setting out the boundaries betwewen our property and the lot next door. The problem was, he was putting the stakes out in my back yard.

We had a strongly worded confrontation. I basicly told he was trespassing and if he continued I would defend my property. I told him at the very least, he had neglecteed to inform us who hw was and what he was doing.

When the dust settled it turned out he was a surveyor hired by the people who bought the property next door. It turns out that when the previous owner had his well drilled, he drilled it on the property next door. What a maroon!

When we were purchasing the house, I had specifically asked the previous owner where the boundary was between the twp pieces of property was, and he pointed out a ditch and said "Just figure the other the other side of the ditch", there being a three foot deep four foot dee ditch four drainage across the south sid of the property. Planted on my side of the ditch is a line of mature trees, obviously planted at the same time the ditch was dug. Also the trees were non native species.

I happen to know a little about the law, and was sure that the ditch , having been accepted as the boundary between the two pieces of property for atleast twenty years, could be claimed by me by the principle of Adverse Posession the State of Washington would grant me title to the slice of land. As a last resort.

Since I now have new neighbors, I didn't want to get off on the wrong foot. When I met them they seemed like reasonable people. I figured we could work something  out.

I aproachd it from the angle that neither one of us had created the problem, and we needed to work together to find a mutually acceptable solution. Things went back and forth for several months. I finally came up with a solution where each of us ends up with the same square footage.

We are doing a boundary line adjustment. It is of course a very complicated and expensive process, But it needs to be done properly. I don't want any complications down the road. It was imperative that I gain title to the well.

So here it is six months later and the solution remains some undefined distance in the future, 

The guy that did their survey won't work with me. That's OK with me. The dude told several lies to the people next door, so I dont trust him any further than I could throw his transit.

Turns out the Olympic Penninsula is undergoing  a great expansion right now,nand every surveyor in the county is wrapped up for months. After a couple of months I ffinally signed a contract with a surveying company. The process is hideously expensive, unreasonably complicated, and takes too much time.

SO I am now obligated to  follow through with the process.

In the end it will cost me something like ten grand, but my conscience is a hard master.

At least I will be able too sleep at night and look at myself in the morror.

Water Woes

 I love living out in the country. We are about five miles from town (Sequim, Wa. Pop 4500). 

It is very quiet out here, We are seranaded by coyotes frequently. Deer wander through the yard, and I have a little war with them about who has grazing rights to the garden. The Sequim elk herd wanders through here a couple of times a year.

The major drawback had been Water. We have a well, which is rated at 6gpm, which is adequate for a regular sized ramily. The water is high in rust and calcium. it leaved a hard white deposit on things. But that has not been the major problem. Shortly after we moved in, rhe pump failed. Since the well is 180 feet deep, it needs a pretty poweful pump. To pull all the pipe and replace the pump wes a couple of grand.

Thw pump was 20 ywars old, so no big deal if it wears out every 20 years.

the next year, in August, the well got down to the point is startd sucking up air. Water supply up here on the side of the hill, water supply is really hit or miss. While our well is rated at 6gpm, there is a well next door that is about a hundred feet from our well that is rated ar 20gpm. Across the road and up a little the neighbor drilled two that turned out dry. The people up behing drilled twp wells ro get tw0 gallons a minute.

This summer, for the third time in fivr years, we started pulling air in the lines. I decided that it was time to address the problem, so I started calling around to find a plumber to work with. I went with the people that put in the new pump a couple of years earlier. Mind you, skilled tradesmen are in great demand out here. It took me at least a month to convince the plumbers that yes, I wanted to proceed, and yes I could afford it. By the time all was said and done, the tank did not arrive until early November. I had been trrying to get someone to build a pump shack and do the wiring. This included digging a 95 foot long trench to run the wiring through. There was already a 220 volt line running to the existing pump, but it was 12ga wire, and it would require at leasr 10 ga. 

I could not find anyone to build the pump shack, so I decied to do it myself. Not a big deal. I started looking at prefab building, and not only were they expensive, they were not very robust., so I decided to design and build it myself. so I did.

The plumbers don't do electric, and the electrician doesn't do plumbing, and neither one digs ditches. so I was promoyed to chief ditch digger, as well as conttractor and carpenter. The building got built.

Then there was the ditch.

The soil here is not conducive to ditch digging. There is about two inches of duff anderlaid by a layer of compacr clay and gravel. Think of it as concrete. It cannot be shovelled, it has to be broken up. I have a six foot prybar, pointed on one end I used to break up the clay so it can be shoveled. This is all a part of a natural drainage, so the ditch fills up with water as you work. It is cold, nasty work. but it got done.

When the tank first came in, I got an estimate for the electrical work, and set up a date for Feb 9th. The electrician showed up, but could not complete his work, because the plumbers had not communicated their requiremens, so he had no idea what amperage and how many circuit breakers were needed. the plumbers came a couple of days later and bitched that the electrician had not completed the elecrical work. I told them to go ahead and do everything they could, set up the tank and fill it anf get ready for the cutover.

One of the decisions I made early on was that I wanted to install a whole house filtration and water softener system. Kinda expensive, but worth it in the long run.

So here it is six months later, and I am out ten grand. The work is not complete, The iron extractor unit is being run off of an extension cord, and the water softener is not hooked up. The electrician is scheduled to come back on March 2nd.

I have filled in the ditch, and we don't have to worry about running out of water anytime.

Progress.