Workin' Workin'

On Monday and Tuesday, I got to be a mason's helper again and I'm learning so much about the process that will be used to build my basement. Hey, guess what!?! I decided to build a full 8 foot basement. It'll be a bit more pricey than the other foundation options I considered, but probably the very cheapest way to double my use-able square footage.

Monday we worked some more on the dugouts at Pine River Backus School. It was a pretty mellow day, as far as masonry goes, which means it was still a fair amount of lifting heavy blocks up rather high.






Tuesday, on the other hand was a hard day. Nathan had told me we would be building concrete forms and pouring a footing in Walker. That was true. What else was true that I didn't learn till the building we were working next to had thick dust billowing from within was that we were also the demolition crew for a day. Now here I must say I had the really good fortune to not pick up a sledge hammer, maul, or any other implement of destruction the entire day. A cement block wall was smashed out by hand, and I took zero swings at it, THANK GOODNESS!!! They took one look at my arms, my biceps about a quarter the circumference of a normal mason's wrists, and assigned me to bucket brigade. My duty was to haul five gallon sized buckets full of broken concrete pieces out to the trailer, hoist them up about shoulder height, and dump them over. The professionals had the buckets filled faster than I could dump them, so I made many trips back and forth to put a wall in a dump trailer. We stopped at a weigh station on the way home and the trailer tipped in at 60 trillion pounds. It had really good tires on it. Somehow, my arms didn't fall off.




Here you can see the trench and foundation footing form we worked on early before Nathan tricked me into real work. The soil here was the sandiest I've ever seen; it was just like beach sand at the ocean in Northern California!

Today, Wednesday, I took a day off from masonry to do some very important business (I slept in). Once I'd taken care of sawing all those logs, I headed up to Bemidji with Paul to begin the process of getting electricity to my cabin. I spent $50 to become a member of the local electricity co-op, another $350 for the wires to be installed underground from the road to my cabin, and $300 more for the meter base, interior breaker panel, exterior sub-panel (to use while I build), and an exterior outlet in an enclosed box. It felt hugely successful! Once again, business in Bemidji was totally painless. I have an appointment on Tuesday to meet a guy at my lot who will stake out the route the power cables will be buried in the ground. Then it will be about two weeks till they come out and actually do the job. In the meantime, the excavator says my basement will be dug by Friday and Nathan says he'll build forms for the footing on Saturday. Then Joel and I will be there when the concrete truck arrives which hopefully will be Tuesday or Wednesday.

Besides the electricity business, Paul and I each made a purchase while in Bemidji. He took me to a place called the ReStore which is a used materials outlet that benefits the building project Habitat for Humanity. I scored a really cool retro light fixture for 10 bucks. Paul says it's totally authentic and looks just as ugly as that stuff people had when he was a kid in the early seventies. Picture to follow soon. They had tons of great house stuff for so cheap! I almost bought a tub/shower combo and bathroom sink, but figured it was a bit premature. Not to be outdone by my groovy bathroom luminary, Paul bought a brand new riding lawnmower for more than I spent on my bicycle, but less than my truck cost. It's a really nice machine and he's a guy with a whole lotta lawn. He began mowing 4 seconds after we arrived in Becida and was done with his whole yard like 6 minutes later with a smile on his face. Picture to follow on that one too I think :-)

After we got all our errands done, I got to have a little visit with Curt and met his wife who will be here from Florida for a few weeks. Tonight we are staying in Becida, and tomorrow Paul will drop me off in Walker to work with Nathan again at the construction/demolition site. If I survive that, I'll spend Friday helping the new preacher of the Nazarene church in Backus move into his new house. I'll keep ya posted...

The Crow Wing, Cranes, and Kites

Gosh, is it Tuesday already? Man, time is just flying by!

Sunday was lots of fun: First I went to church with Paul and his whole family including 6 kids, his wife, Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Lee, Walter and Uncle S.L. I had fun singing and there was a sermon on faith that I liked even though it was a little hard to pay attention because I was kind of tired.

After church a bunch of us floated down the Crow Wing River on tubes and inflatable rafts. Heather set the whole thing up and it was nice to see her for the first time this visit. Isaac joined us with his family too. We had lots of fun and all the little kids were surprisingly amiable.


Kaitlyn (anyone know the correct spelling?)


Malachi

I didn't want to damage my camera, but imagine a mellow river banked by lush green, winding its way south. I did have my camera with me while riding in Heather's pick-up afterward, and she offered to stop when I got super excited about seeing a pair of sandhill cranes. I am so pleased with the zoom on my new camera! I think sandhill cranes are my favorite birds and this was the best in person viewing I can remember. They seem magical to me with their enormous delicate frames (wingspan up to 8 feet!), curious eyes, and strangest of rolling R calls.


This may be a young one, though it was large, because what I read online said they are brown until they become adults and then turn more greyish. They always have that tell-tale red on top of their heads though.


I saw these at the same place as the cranes. Heather says they are Turk's Cap lilies and what I looked up online seems to confirm.

When the tubes were deflated and our soggy bodies were loaded up, we all headed over to Aunt Lee and Uncle Ronnie's house for supper. They had a delicious spread including pot-luck dishes from the attendees. There was a really nice gentle wind blowing after dinner, so kites came out and kids of all ages went to the freshly mowed hay field to play. I was a bit disappointed I didn't bring my new kite. It's always in my car but I didn't realize I'd have a chance to use it when I rode out with Paul after church. Luckily it's breezy often here so I'll test drive it in the near future.


Hannah


Caleb


Ethan


Sarah with Caleb


Rachel with the prettiest kite of the day


Uncle Ronnie


It's impressive that Paul can still run with the dogs like this because in dog years, he's 266.


Three generations of typical Burnses: Isaac, Uncle Ronnie and Malachi working when they should be playing

By the time the kites were reeled in, I felt quite drowsy and mellow, but never too tired for a game of 42. Competition was fierce; Uncle Ronnie and I were up 5 to 2, I think, but Paul and Isaac came back for a 7 to 6 win. It was a perfect end to a really nice day with the family.

Lot is Cleared!

Wow, I feel like at the end of most days here, I think to myself, "Today was a perfect day." They just keep coming. My days are often so full here, I could never write about everything. For instance, today I woke up in Becida, drove an hour to church in Backus, am blogging in between, and will go float the Crow Wing River on tubes with my cousins this afternoon before we all get together for supper. I'll have to omit details...

Yesterday, Saturday (but really beginning Friday night), the "short" version:

The previous night, Friday, I had gone to Cass Lake to fill up the bed of my truck with shingles. I got nearly enough for my whole cabin for $125! Acquiring them was a scary excursion to the backwoods trailer house of a couple of drunk guys who seemed like they were probably axe murderers. It turned out they were harmless drunks who were rather cheerful about helping me load 1,000+ pounds of shingles. Only when I returned to Backus did Paul reveal to me that Cass Lake has more homicides than any other place that he knows of in Minnesota.

Anyway, my truck was over-laden still Saturday morning, so I borrowed Paul's Subaru to go buy my new stove for the kitchen. I got a really cute little four burner cabin-sized stove in excellent condition for $25. I think it might have been an even better deal than the shingles. It's nicer than the one in my house in California for which I paid $250. I hauled it back to Backus and we loaded it on Paul's trailer along with an all-terrain vehicle Paul has called the 5 wheeler (for obvious reasons). We attached the trailer to my pickup-full of shingles, thus comprising the heaviest load my truck has ever hauled. I would have been very hesitant to attempt it, but Paul was confident Truck Norris could handle it. He was kind enough to drive though.



We headed up to Becida where we met Sid, the guy who is Paul's neighbor and is building a log cabin (pictured half-built in a previous blog entry) on a lot he bought from Paul. Sid and I seem to have all that in common. The three of us went to Paul's to pick up some windows Paul had laying around and said I could use. This is an amazing opportunity: Sid happens to be in the windows business and said these two giant 5 foot by 6 foot windows Paul just offered me are valued around $500 apiece. Wow, score, I really hope they work out! Sid and Paul were really helpful with loading and unloading the windows and shingles at my lot.





The lot itself was quite a sight to see! Wow, Randy did great work in such a short time. There is about an acre cleared now where my yard will be and I could see so much better the subtle contour of the land. Joel brought his family over, and he and Paul helped me decide the location for my house. We got out a tape measure and some spray paint and marked approximate corner locations for my cabin. Now I can really start to see it all in my mind. I began to picture how the kitchen would be here and the loft would face this way. It was really great, except Paul kept staring at me while I was in my imaginary bathroom. I'm gonna need to build some walls I guess.

Right now the soil is very muddy and that may delay excavation of the basement for a few days. We have had some thunder storms which have brought a couple inches of rain in the past week. It's supposed to clear up soon though. We were able to drive onto the lot with the five wheeler which was great because it had a bed on it so we could haul out shingles and windows.

After dropping off my good junk, we went to look at some timber on the driveway easement to Paul's neighboring lot. Sid needs to harvest more trees for his log cabin. He is going to rent a portable band saw mill and offered to let me use it to mill some boards if I want to use some of Paul's trees in my cabin! I'm really excited about that and hope I'm able to take up his offer.

Once the trees were selected, we went back to my lot and marked out the cabin site.




If you look closely (click to enlarge pic) Paul is standing "inside" my house and three orange stakes are visible at the proposed corners.




Then here are some pics of my cleared yard and building area:

This first one is where the driveway wraps in off the paved road



This shot I took from 20 feet up in a tree while sitting in Paul's deer stand.



Here is my cousin Joel at my lot with his daughter Piper



It was really exciting to hang out at my lot and be able to see it with new vision. While we were looking at timber to cut, Paul and Sid told me a bit about their friend called Constable Bob. In the evening, we ended up getting invited to dinner at the home of the very same person. They had made him out to be a big, loud, gruff man's man. I was imagining someone rather brash, but Constable Bob turned out to be a very gracious host who tends his home with unparalleled fastidiousness and attention to detail. It was immaculate and so picturesque. See for yourself.









I was served a delicious meal of beef stew that included the following home-made items (and the beef came from a neighbor's cow): strawberry jam, dill pickles, fresh warm wheat bread, and a first for me, pickled herring (surprisingly good). I offered to help clean up, but Bob responded, "Oh no, you sit right there, I've got a wife..." and then proceeded to do all the clean-up himself. His wife Meg was so sweet too, and what a wonderful cook she is. Bob cleaned up in a whirlwind of a rush, and we had just enough time to check out his old baby blue diesel Cadillac before he rushed off to go fishing with Sid. I was invited along, but declined so I could get some laundry done. I was assured I was making a terrible mistake, as they were bound to catch a ten-pounder without me. I'll join them for fishing soon, no doubt. As we were all getting into our repspective vehicles to depart, I could hear an excited voice faintly in the distance, "C'mon, let's go get 'em! There's a bunch of fishies 'bout to die."

An Adventure every moment! Also, my cousins may be crazy.

I have lots of news since Wednesday, and hardly a moment to share it here! I did end up working in masonry for my cousins Nathan and Isaac on Thursday and then Friday as well. On Wednesday night, Paul worried me by saying, "Oh you'll have lots of fun tomorrow," while wearing a grin that said, "You will be tortured." When we arrived to the job site, the cousins' employee Lije got out of the car and said, "Uuuuuuuugh, today is gonna suck..." The first half of the day was not so bad; every once in a while I would shovel a bucket half-full of cement and then deliver it to the masons as they added mortar between cement blocks. I also did a bit of smoothing the mortar joints as the progressed. Pretty mellow. Then when the concrete truck arrived midday, Issac, the soft-spoken one turned to me and said, "Welcome to my nightmare," and then he laughed a little. The rest of the job consisted of shoveling concrete from a wheelbarrow into buckets which were then lifted from the ground to the top of the 8+ foot wall, and then poured down into the spaces in the walls over and over and over. And over. My job was to shovel the concrete into buckets at first. After a few minutes, Nathan asked me if I'd like him to take over bucket filling to rest my arms. I replied, "Um, I think I'll hold out for about another five minutes." What Nathan heard me say was, "I would love to do this exact same task for the rest of the day. Please let me shovel concrete forever." So after about seventeen thousand shovels-full, my arms went numb, then my brain went numb, then I left my body and had a nice little day dream about swimming in the cool lake that I knew was 100 yards away, though blocked from my vision, most literally, pun intended. Then an extra-salty drop of sweat ran into my eyeball and the searing pain brought me back to hell I mean reality. Just kidding, it was actually pretty fun, if you can believe that. My body held up better than expected, but I did have a little daydream about a swim. The wall we were building was for the basement under an old house that had been jacked up. I am planning to have my basement built in a very similar fashion, so it was really exciting to see the process and know a bit about how mine would be done. And my cousins have agreed to help me with my house, so it felt particularly good to help them out too.

I was really feeling fine till we had to clean up a lot of heavy equipment at the end of the day. By then my body was fatigued and it was hard to carry stuff and not fall over. But we got it done, and then I fell asleep sitting in an upright position. That was funny. Did I mention that we left the house for work at six (AM) and returned home at 9:15 (PM)??? That's enough to tell you my cousins are a little nuts. But just in case that doesn't convince you, then they borrowed a trailer and brought in bales of hay with their dad till 11:30 at night. And we aren't talking the nice big ones you need a tractor to lift, they were stacking and hauling the lovely little square bales you get to pick up with your hands (they ain't light)!

Thank goodness it rained this morning so we were forced to sleep in. The rain was so soothing, thunder claps and all, that I just hunkered in for an extra hour. At ten it had cleared so we headed down to Pine River-Backus school to work on building dugouts for their new baseball fields. That was really exciting because that's where I always struck out, I mean "played baseball" in 10th grade. The work was relatively easy compared to the previous day. Sand was moved with a Bobcat, and I didn't have to shovel for more than an hour total the whole day.

While I worked away the hours the last couple days, I worried that the excavator might not progress on my lot without me present and pressing. I had told him I planned to be gone to help out with the masonry so I thought he might not work during that time. Boy was I wrong!! I never heard from the excavator, so I had my cousin Joel go take a look for me. His report: "Your driveway is in with gravel on it and the whole lot is cleared with all the tree stumps pulled out. It kind of looks a bit like a mud pit."

I couldn't believe it, while I was gone, Randy (the excavator extraordinaire) was secretly doing tons of work in a really short time! When I heard that, I felt like I'd been given bonus days in life where I could accomplish two things simultaneously in separate locations. Maybe if I go to work full time as a mason's helper my house will build itself! Pictures of my developing lot will show up here shortly.

Last to report, I have found some incredible deals lately and I'm so excited about it! SO excited. Today I bought enough shingles to probably cover my entire roof for $125. Tomorrow morning I have an appointment to purchase a used kitchen stove, exactly the kind I was looking for, in good working condition for $25!!! Plus, Melanie tells me by purchasing used goods and salvaging materials, I'm saving the planet. I was being so environmentally conscious, and I didn't even know it... For my wood stove, my cook-stove/oven combo for the kitchen, and all my shingles, I've spent a grand total of $300. That makes me happy.



Isaac is like, "Here, let me build this wall much taller so passing buckets of cement doesn't get too easy." Or maybe he was thinking, "This hurts me more than it hurts you..."



Digging the dugout...



You've always wondered, and now you know what a concrete form looks like.





Soon, the little Jon Wheelers of the future will have this place to sit after they strike out. If you just went, "awwww," inside, don't worry, I loved it. To me the next best thing to playin' and winnin' is playin' and loosin' :-)

P.S. I decided not to buy that gray house below. It was a one story, manufactured home with 2x4 (as opposed to 2x6) frame walls. Once again, I'm resolved to build my own!

Breaking Ground

Oh my gosh, today was amazing!!! I haven't the time to tell much about it as I'm working for my cousins a long day tomorrow doing masonry. Long story short, my culvert went in, I got six loads of dirt delivered by a dump truck, the excavating company sent out a Bobcat, and I now have a 30 foot wide approach to the property that goes in at least 100 feet. Remember, I just began attempting to get my permits two days ago!

Here are some quick pics:

I Bought a Graveyard!

Another perfect day today! Remember how in my blog yesterday, the lady at the highway department wasn’t going to be able to give the engineer my application till the next day?? Well she did, and he came out promptly and I happened to be on the property when he arrived. It’s all happening so fast!!!

I called Randy the excavator this morning and told him I was coming up to Becida and I’d be available forever until he could meet me. He told me to call him when I got close and he’d try to make it out to my lot to take a look.

So three hours after I got out of bed, I was standing there telling the guy where I wanted my cabin to sit. It’s looking like I can get all my yard cleared of brush and stumps, my driveway installed, and the house site excavated for under $2000. He suggested I move my driveway over 50ish feet so he would not be working too close to the above-ground electrical box. It also made my driveway nearer to the house, shorter, and therefore cheaper. As we stood there evaluating it, he said, “I’ll dig anywhere ya want me too, as long as it ain’t over there where them people is buried.”

Apparently, there are graves on my lot! My cousin Paul told me that before I bought the place, and now a few other people have told me so too. There is an area where the ditch along the road is filled in supposedly near where someone’s buried. There is no grave marker and I’ve heard a different story from each person who knows about it as to whom is buried there. The tales vary from one grave to three, and most people say one was an infant. Another person told me it was a mother, child, and a one-armed plow driver.

I was a bit worried that the county might have a problem with me constructing a cabin in the area. I was thinking the highway engineer would wonder why I didn’t just put my driveway right where the ditch is filled in there. I asked Paul, how should I answer if the guy asks me why I don’t use that obvious spot there. He said, “Well, just tell him that’s not where you want it.” That seemed kind of flimsy to me since my original plan was for the driveway to be right next to the gravesite.

Just as Randy and I were finishing up, the engineer showed up, less than a day after I submitted my application! He turned on a rotating orange light above his cab, parked in the lane (there isn’t a shoulder), and lumbered over to us wearing brown overalls over a ratty, threadbare, gray T-shirt, topped off with an orange baseball cap. Randy greeted him and they were obviously friends, which I thought was certainly to my advantage. The guy looked where I had placed the driveway marker stake, turned to me and said, “Good thing you didn’t put that on top of those graves over there.”

I replied, “I guess there are no secrets in this place!”

Then Randy chimed in, “Not when you’ve been around here as long as we have,” and we all had a good laugh.

The engineer kind of scratched his head as we all pondered the fact that it’s pretty stupid to put in a culvert right next to where the whole ditch is filled in. But the engineer reasoned that on a really wet year, it could fill up between the two filled-in places and flood my land. He said at that point, it would be the county’s responsibility to deal with, so we decided to go with a culvert. After he and Randy talked for half an hour all about how weird the weather has been this year the engineer said, “OK, I’ll getcha a pipe. We’ll have it here in the next day or so.”

As we walked back to our trucks, I said to Randy, “Man, I’m glad he didn’t make a big deal about the gravesite.”

Randy replied, “Well, what could he do?” like the only possible option was to allow me to do whatever I please. I imagined to myself in other parts of the country where I sometimes reside, they might red tag my project, and charge me a million dollars to move graves or turn it into an unbuildable historic site. But I just smiled and said, “Yeah.”

I’ve been here four days and I’m amazed I’ve been able to get this far into the process so soon without prior coordination. I have no idea how soon Randy will be able to build my driveway and excavate, but the lot should be ready and legal to dig within two days!

I’ve been staying with Paul in Backus, but tomorrow I plan to head up to Becida and start staying there most of the time. The culvert will require a little bit of assembly, so I want to be there to do the work as soon as it arrives.

Also, I’m once again considering purchasing a house to move to my site. I want something about 20 by 24 feet with a loft above, and I found a house for sale for $3500 that almost meets those criteria exactly. It’s 24.5 feet by 22 feet plus has a little pop-out entry area. The floor plan isn’t as open as I’d like, but perhaps I could change that later. I’ll give a call in the morning and maybe go see it if it sounds good. If it’s as nice as it looks, it might be a really excellent value. Here is a picture.

Happy Summer!

Monday:

Today I was very excited to do what felt like the very first step in the process of building my cabin! How fitting that I should begin the process on solstice, the very first day of summer.

This morning I got up at seven and I must still be “jet-lagged” because it sure felt like 5. For Father’s Day, Paul’s family gave him a new tackle box filled with all kinds of lures and fishing gadgets and allowed him a day off from normal family obligations to fish the hours by as he pleased. He invited me along and we met up with Joel a few miles from my lot at Newman Lake around 8:30. We put in and fished for trout for about four hours.



Pictured here is a family of common loons, the Minnesota state bird. Joel told me you can tell the male is the one on the left because he has a bigger head than the female. They make a call as eerie sounding as their red eyes are eerie looking. Joel was a little concerned about getting too close to them because sometimes they get aggressive if they feel threatened. Luckily, I have a good zoom on my camera and we escaped unscathed.

Not only that, we caught three trout apiece, plenty for a nice dinner! Joel showed us how to clean them and we headed back to the DNA lab in Becida. Before departing, I saw a small flock/herd/gaggle/whatever of swallowtail butterflies.



We also saw some local folks on horses. This guy rode his horse right into the lake and the horse started hopping all around and then laid down in the water with the rider still on its back. I tried to get a picture of the horse playing in the lake, but I was slow on the draw. Here is a picture of the scene anyway and I like to think of the rider on the left as having a pretty good suntan, for a Minnesotan...



Toward the end of our fishing trip, I started to feel a little antsy that I might not have enough time for what I needed to do today. My fear was unfounded however, and turned out to to be a result of California conditioning. See, I'm basically programmed to believe that when I deal with government entities, there will be lots of unnecessary steps, red tape, long lines and grumpy workers who are tired of dealing with irritated customers. What I forgot to take into account is that almost everyone here is "Minnesota nice". It's like what they are known for.

So we went about 35 miles down to the county building so I could apply for an address and a permit to build a driveway. We arrived at 3:30 and there was no line. Barb was there and said never mind that form I was about to fill out in pen, she would put all my info into a computer typed document for me while I waited. I paid $50 for my address which includes the county coming out to put in a permanent reflective sign with my address on it. Then Barb gave us directions to the highway department where I could apply for a driveway permit: "Do ya know where da Faith Baptist Church is? It's just across from theer." We got to the highway department a few minutes before closing and I submitted my application for a driveway. She regretted to inform me she wouldn't be able to give my application to the engineer who would inspect my site until.......... tomorrow, as if that were months away and I was about to yell at her for it. Oh how different things are here. I forked over the $100 application fee which includes an 18 inch diameter culvert (water pipe) 36 feet long, provided and delivered by the county. If I were to purchase such a thing in California, it would cost hundreds for the culvert, not to mention delivery fees. When I handed her the money, the lady behind the counter said, "Ah, small bills, I like you." I could only respond genuinely, "I like you too," as I was so grateful the process was so easy!

So Paul and I headed back up the 40 miles to my lot, and I drove my $100 stake into the ground where we decided my driveway should be. I felt like I was staking my claim, and struck a pose to say so.


Afterward, we headed back to the DNA lab and had a wonderful trout dinner with Dustin and the kids. My new friend Curt came over and ate with us and it was nice to chat with him because he's headed out of town for a week. We grilled the trout with their bellies packed full of lemon slices, fresh garlic, and herbs picked right from Joel and Dustin's garden. After my trip to the county buildings, the meal seemed triumphant!

Sitting and enjoying the company, we were soon visited by a character named Ernie. He had a white beard, long hair pulled back into a ponytail, a T shirt with the sleeves cut off, and tattoos all up his arms. I've heard he makes really beautiful art from anything he can find. His handmade knives are said to be exquisite and I hear he wastes nothing. I thought the highlight of my day was placing my driveway until Ernie started telling us about Jesus, UFOs, and a conspiracy theory concerning the world’s most powerful battery that the energy companies don’t want you to know about. I can't remember how it was all tied together, but what I took away from it all was, watch out for bigfoot, she is looking for a male companion. Ernie seems to be a local legend around here, and I can't wait to see his hand craft work.

Happy Father's Day, Now Get to Work!

Sunday:

I woke up tired after several days of inadequate sleep due to the amount of fun I’m having. Determined to not miss out on anything, I washed my face in cold water, just like Grandma taught me, and staggered out to meet the day. In Minnesota on Sunday, we go to church. I wanted to go this day because I was pretty sure I’d get to visit Aunt Lee and Uncle Ronnie, because it’s just part of the culture here, and because I love a good sermon! I was not disappointed on any of these three items. I got to see Aunt Lee and Uncle Ronnie finally and caught up with my old youth pastor who was very endeared to me when he asked me how long I’d been home now, referring to Backus of course.

The sermon was really great too and they even had a fun rock band for contemporary hymns. The pastor is preaching in the interim until the new one starts up next month. She spoke about the genealogy of Christ and tied it into his legacy, leading into a poignant speech about using one’s imagined legacy as a sort of barometer to measure one’s present morality, grace, or piety. What will people experience when you die? Will they be relieved, or might they remember you lovingly and with gratitude?

After the service, I accidentally invited everyone over to Aunt Lee and Uncle Ronnie’s for Father’s Day. Oops, I’m such a heel sometimes.

While the rest of the clan went to Sunday school, I went back to the house and made some yummy pea soup for the returning congregation of eight Burnses. In the evening, everyone accepted my invitation and I and twenty-one of my favorite cousins descended upon Uncle Ronnie’s home where I lived in tenth grade. Uncle Ronnie said grace before the meal and gave a really lovely speech about how he had planned to spend Father’s Day napping on the sofa, but instead he was so pleased Jon invited everyone over so he could slave over the grill in the heat of afternoon. I was like, “You’re welcome? Er, sorry???" True to the legacy they've created, Aunt Lee and Uncle Ronnie really were the most gracious of hosts; the food was delicious and we had a lot of fun playing our favorite domino game, forty-two, a family tradition spanning innumerable generations. Many stories were told, we laughed a lot, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves, particularly little boy cousins who discovered modern man’s greatest achievement: the pooper scooper. May the legacy of little boys live long!

Everyone is SO Nice Here (aka Did I Ever Tell You About That Time I Bought a Mattress in San Francisco?)

Saturday:

Ah, what a fun day I had! I awoke in Backus and had a lively show of many colorful bird species eating at the feeders in the yard at the Burns'. The weather was sunny and cheerful. My cousin Paul offered to take me up to see some cabins his friends have and to see my land. Because it was the weekend, I was unable to begin the process at the county building department so I had the whole day to just enjoy myself here before I really get to work.

We headed up toward Becida where my lot is and made our first stop at a log cabin Paul's friend and neighbor Sid is building (pictured above). Sid was absent, but I met Bo who was peeling logs for Sid's cabin. Bo is one person who lives next door to Paul in a community living situation. My cousin Joel built a cabin on Paul's land in Becida a few years back. Later, Paul sold a piece of land with the cabin Joel built on it to the Pemberton family who are Christian Missionaries with a mobile ministry (http://freedomseed.org/) who now call Becida their home base (as seen above). So the Pembertons moved in and started adding little cabins around the main cabin and have made a really nice place of it all. While I build, my cabin, I'll be staying at Paul and Melanie's place, so I'll be next door neighbors with the Pembertons and all the various people in their little community.

After we saw Sid's progress, we headed on over to Paul's place less than a mile down the road. Once we arrived there, my cousin Joel came by for a visit because he lives in a little house with his family in a building shared by Paul's DNA sequencing lab (http://www.nwdna.com/) that is on the same property as Paul's house. Joel has been running that business while Paul is running an assisted living facility with his family in Backus.

Then Paul and I walked over to see what was happening with the Pembertons and I got all inspired by the cabins they have over there. They had progressed a lot since I saw the place last year, so it was really exciting. My favorite part was seeing a spiral staircase they had in one of the cabins. I talked with Tony who is the father/grandpa in the Pemberton family and his wife Tracy showed me around. They were very welcoming and Tony told me to come by any time. Then I talked a while with another Paul who is married to one of the Pemberton daughters who I don't think I've met yet (or at least haven't hung out with). Their place is really beautifully landscaped using a lot of rocks they dug up right on the spot. They also have done a beautiful job of using local wood, logs, and branches in their cabins.

While at the Pembertons', I also met Randy who lives just down the driveway from Paul about a quarter mile or so. Randy has a tractor service, so he'll probably be the guy I hire to do the excavation at my property.

Once we'd had a nice visit, we headed to the lab and I got to meet Joel and his wife Dustin's newest family member, Piper. I had fun catching up with their family (3 kids now!) and we made tentative plans for dinner once I start staying up there. Outside the lab, there was a trailer camper occupied by my newest friend Curt who is retired spending his summer in Minnesota and his winter in Florida. Curt showed me a device he recently acquired which has a brass bird on a little hinged bar and it pecks at another bar which sets off a trigger to hammer on a blasting cap which then engages a wheel that spins around and has a dial on it. The distance the wheel spins around measures the strength of the blasting cap. It was all very bizarre and interesting!

I can't believe how many of my new neighbors I got to visit with all at once! It was really fun and I'm looking forward to living next to all of them in the coming months.

An aside: as I write this, I am enjoying Malanie and her daughters practicing singing harmonies somewhere far off in this giant house!

After we met all the neighbors, we pressed five miles north to my lot. I can't believe how much the vegetation has grown up in the year since I last saw it!!! What I had thought to be a field of brush turns out to be mostly young poplar trees! This is great news for me because it means I have very fast growing trees all over the place which I can choose to let become a mini-forest, or I can cut back for a cleared yard area. I saw many surprising things there including a delightful variety of wildflowers.

I saw two of my very favorites, wild iris and columbine (pictured), as well as wild roses, daisies, and Indian paintbrush. On top of all that, a few miles from my lot, we were treated to an apparently uncommon sighting of the Minnesota state flower, the showy lady's slipper, which is a really pretty wild orchid.

I finally made a decision as to where to locate my house on the lot, and thus where to locate the driveway. It was a tough decision, but it was time to act! I picked a nice spot far enough north of the grove of tall poplar trees to let in plenty of light from the south but near enough for a nice view. Poplar trees are locally known as "popple" trees, a correct alternate spelling/pronunciation for a plant completely unrelated to this toy I desperately wanted and received for Christmas from my dad when I was in third grade. Dreams do come true. The house site is set back from the highway a bit and screened in on that side by a row of conifer trees.

After visiting my lot, we took a short trip to Bemidji before heading to Lake Hattie for some sun-fishing. There we met back up with my newest friend and future neighbor, Curt. I got to fish with Curt in his boat along with my little cousins Rachel and Sarah while Paul took Hannah and her little brothers Malachi and Caleb. Curt was so nice to teach me about fish and fishing, and had the deftness of character to not make me feel like an idiot for asking questions as stupid as, "is this a left-handed fishing pole?" He just said in his mellow Wisconsin accent that reminds me very much of John Goodman's voice, "Ya just gotta turn it over." I learned the difference between a bluegill sunfish and a punkin' seed sunfish (pictured below), what a perch looks like, and how to grab that fish I can't remember the name of without getting stabbed by the barbs on its fins. I caught a bunch of fish; from a 2 inch perch (my biggest perch yet...) to a bluegill that was also too small to keep... Rachel was the champ in our boat landing several sunfish that were plenty big enough for Curt to take home to eat. Tired and happy, we headed back to Backus to recharge and find out what adventure Sunday might bring.

In case my day wasn't wonderful enough, I got to use Skype (free internet video phone) for the first time with Lynea in the evening. It was so sweet to see her face and hear her voice, all without even needing to get my neck all cramped up holding a phone!

Here Sarah is helping Malachi who "accidentally" got a bit wet in the lake....