Quick Trip

So life has been kicking our butt a bit, so getting up to the property has been challenging the past two years. I thought semi-retirement would afford me more time to do work up north, but sometimes life just won't cooperate.

We finally had a weekend open, and planned to take a one-nighter trip. We had a bunch of "stuff" in our garage at home that needed to get up to the property. Additionally, I am working on the solar system for the utility building, but had many of my crimpers and components up north when I need them at our home.

We departed around 9:00 AM and had an uneventful trip. We stopped at Ski Hi outside of Baraboo to get some apples and other goodies. We landed at the property around 1:00 PM.

Mission #1 was to get the battery installed for the camper. Mission #2 was to clean up the hundreds of stink-bugs that infiltrated the building. O..... M..... G.....

We unloaded our "stuff" and positioned it the best we could. We worked on some organization of the building, but we have a ways to go. You put something "here", only to change your mind and re-assess the entire storage setup.

I did some additional brush clearing at the split, and knocked off another 20' of clearing. This is the area where we will plant our birch tree grove. Lorraine went to work on the stairs. We try to clean them (blow off / sweep off pine needles, racoon poop, etc.) every time we are up there.

It was perfect weather, and we were able to do our light work without breaking a sweat. We went into town for supper at Cinco De Mayo, and then back to the property to just chill with a fire. We were in bed by 10:00, and I had a really good sleep.

I was awake by 6:00 AM and out the door to get a fire going again. That worked for a bit until the wind decided it wanted to blow, and it was stronger than I felt comfortable with so I had to spread the fire out so it would stop burning. I think Lorraine got up around 8:00 AM. Burritos for breakfast, and then do most of our packing to head back home.

The leaves are all down from the trees now, which allows us to "see" the property better. I took Lorraine down to the valley floor (near the utility building) to show her where I wanted to cut the trail to the fire lane. She had never been to this part of the property and agrees with me that it is a beautiful place. It is one of my favorite spaces on our property and was much easier to see with the vegetation cleared.

I also wanted to talk about tree house location and plans, enclosed screened-in structure above Small Halls' Creek, what we need to accomplish at the water (more stair bagging... both lower level and then to stairway). After this, we spent some nice time up on the stairway deck before moving towards the future cabin location in the NW corner of the property. She was surprised at how far it was from the North Clearing to the property stake, showing just how much land we have by the water.

We want to start clearing driveway and cabin locations soon. But there is still major Derecho damage from 2021 to get cleaned-up in that area of the property.

We did our final cleanup and packing, and headed out around noon.