Yesterday I went to Becida Community Church for the first time with Paul and his whole family. There was fun singing and a pretty good sermon on hearing God. Apparently, the glitzy, flashy angel business and burning of bushes is rare, and we should allow in more subtle messages. Many of the locals I've met around here attend that church. Two of Constable Bob's brothers were even in the band!
Recently, I met Paul's friend Bryan who is a local residential contractor. Paul and I stopped by a house he was building last week and he showed us around and it was really neat to see a building in process. I'm always looking for ideas. We saw Bryan at church and he invited me over to have lunch, as Paul and Melanie were planning to barbecue with him anyway. His family was so welcoming and the his house was amazing. Not only did I get some design inspiration, but he also took a look at my drawings of my own cabin and basically answered every single question I had about my building. Not only that, he also offered to help me build my stairs if I get stuck, and he offered to sell me some needed materials for cheap, as they are used! Wow, I can't believe how generous and helpful everyone has been to me so far. On top of the rest, Bryan said he has some logs I can just have which were cleared from the area one of his homes is being built! Today I saw Constable Bob at Sid's and Bob said he'd help me mill the logs into lumber. That would be so neat to be able to make some boards to use; I'm very excited thinking of it!
After lunch yesterday, I went back to Backus and in the evening and had a meeting with Nathan about my basement. He explained to me some plumbing and electrical considerations as they relate to the masonry in my basement, and also helped me iron out a couple design kinks around my dormer. He figured out how many cement blocks I'll need based on my wall dimensions, minus the windows. Now I'm up in Becida again and will be at my lot tomorrow when the blocks for my basement arrive. Between my meetings yesterday with Nathan and Bryan, I've got a pretty solid handle on my general design and floor plan. Now I'm dreaming of exterior paint colors.... Please comment links to any pictures of your favorite color schemes you may find online.
Today, Monday, I woke up and headed up to go fishing with Paul, his two sons, his friend Tim, and our buddy Curt. Tim lives on a 40 acre lake that is completely encompassed by land owned by his family. In other words, it's a private lake and even bears the name of his family! I arrived after everyone else and by then they had a bunch of large mouth bass and one big ol' northern pike. I caught a couple bass around 15 inches long and it was so fun and relaxing to be out with them catching fish. Tim had a nice big pontoon boat and he even made the pontoons himself. He's a fiberglass worker who makes really nice canoes.
Here's Tim holding up that big northern. Look at the mammoth size of that fillet!
Tim is not only a canoe-maker, but an artisan of many other crafts as well. His skill set includes the making of bows, arrows, bow strings, knives, baskets, his log home, and I can't wait to see what else. I'm really hoping I get to see him at work with his crafts at some point this summer. Here is a box of wooden bows Tim made by hand. He says he uses many different kinds of wood. Of the local woods he uses, he named ash and one other type I can't remember.
When I asked to see his bows, Tim predicted I'd like this one best and boy was he right! Many of the bows have a beautiful leather grip and some other small embellishment. This one however stood apart; it was covered entirely on one side with snake skin! Not only was it the best looking one, in my opinion, but it had the most wonderful smooth, cool texture to it.
This is Curt cleaning our big pile of fish.
This picture is pretty grody, but I'm of the opinion if we're going to eat meat, we should take a look at where it comes from once in a while. Fish is delicious and good for us, but kinda yucky between the lake and the plate.
We all had a nice visit at Tim's and a wonderful lunch put on by his wife Faith. When we'd had our fill and the fish were all cleaned, Tim and Faith sent me on my way with about ten large fillets of fish and a quart jar of some spicy peppers I mentioned I enjoyed during lunch. I went back to Paul's, tuned his banjo, played a bit and had a little nap. Joel returned home from his first day at his GIS job in Walker, and so we fried up fresh fish for dinner at his place next door. Fish, salad, and Dustin's homemade bread made a perfect end to the day. The kids are getting less shy of me and as ever, the company was lovely.
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