Trip Date: May 18, 2022
Find this SpotI am trying to piece together the details of this trip as it is a month after. If I recall, this was the trip that I went up a day later than usual, on Wednesday, as Bob was bringing Marya up for the first time. We had been talking the week before and he just mentioned that she wanted to come up. I said I was planning on it too, but could easily postpone a day. By the time I got up there about noon on Wednesday, they had almost finished all of the framing of the cabin.
After I got unloaded and set up, we all had lunch and caught up. The cabin really looked different all framed. It was great having Marya up, not only because she was new to the Hill, but also, as Bob’s wife, it was important that she come and hopefully enjoy it. At the very least, take enjoyment from how much Bob loves this place and how much work he has put into it and into his own cabin.
After lunch I helped them work on the cabin and eventually it became a 2 person job, so Marya was released from the crew. We knocked off about 4:00 and Bob got cleaned up as Marya and I chatted in the kitchen. They were pleased with the RV and the bed and had slept well. Marya made a delicious tostada brew and we feasted with many fixings and toppings. I assume it was early to bed after the long first day.
They left the next morning and I was excited to get to the floor installation and the paneling of my cabin. It was a little daunting as I had not done any of this work before, but I felt confident I would get it. Bob gave me some advice on starting the floor, so I got to it. It was the only place I needed to really be careful and notch around the front door. As much as I wanted to leave that to the end and get some repetitions in and make some early progress, I decided to follow his advice, but it was painful. I hadn’t really done much research or watched many “How-to” video’s so I was totally winging it and resorted to reading the directions on the packaging.
I screwed up a half dozen or so board before I got the first course down, and I decided to live with some egregious mistakes that should end up underneath the bed and out of sight. Once that first row was in place, it was smooth sailing. I made enough more mistakes that I ended up one row short of flooring. I reluctantly accepted I would have to buy another package of flooring just for 2 and a quarter boards, and have to finish it next time. After lunch, however, and a few beers for better thinking, I scrounged through the excess pile in the back of the truck, took the longest pieces, and made a last row, even though a couple had to just be nailed to the subfloor with tiny finish nails.
It looked really good despite the few bad cuts, rough last row, and how much the fine dust really showed on the dark flooring. I was stoked and it was early, so I started on the thin paneling. Despite putting up the first sheet with the “back” showing, I did amazingly well cutting around the windows and door. I loved the material; it looked great and was easy to work with. Thin enough o be light and easy to handle, but thick enough to take a cut and nail or screw. I worked until nearly 7:00 but I used all the material I had.
I have no recollection of the night, but I do recall being excited to get to the 1×8 Blue Pine boards. I bought these from a great guy up out of Placerville named Fred. He was a fourth generation old time that worked in the woods his whole life and ran a mill on his property. Steve Storelli and I first answered a Craig’s List ad for free firewood and came up to his place for a massive load of Cedar and Oak mill ends and the rounded outer edges of the first log cuts. We got a fantastic load and had a great visit. We returned a time or 2 more, and I came up to him for these boards as well as all the boards I used to build the arbor around the shed at home as well.
I had planned on using these boards as an accent wall in my cabin for a long time. They have sat at home for a long while, and then over wintered on the Hill. Finally, I was getting to use them. They were still in pretty good shape having been decently covered all these months. As Bob taught me, I had to clean up one end first so we could start with a straight edge, and then measure and cut from there. I made quick work of the first few rows, coming up the 4 feet or so from the floor. These boards were a solid inch thick, but being Pine, were light and easy to work with. Since I never expected to get this far, I didn’t have the 2 inch screws I planned on using, but fortunately, I happened to have a box of 3” screws in the tool box that I had just tossed in there.
I wasn’t rushing the work, I was just making really good progress. This being leaving day, I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish the entire wall, but I could at least get past the window. Like the door on the floor, it was the only 2 cuts I needed to notch out for the window. Some of the gaps between the boards were bigger than I wanted but it didn’t matter. It looked great, and with the bed and dresser back in and the curtains I got from the Farmer’s Market lady, it was going to look great. I made a decent cut in the first board to go around the window, but I opted to make another, guestimating I had enough material. I went back outside to try again.
This cut was marginally better than the first, but would have to do. I sank the first screw in the corner to hold it in place, then went to the end of the board, just about in the middle of the 6’ x 3.5’ sheet of dual pane glass. As I gently leaned against the wall below the glass, I was suddenly blown back halfway across the room with a ringing in my ears, my body shaking from the sudden explosion. It took me a minute to collect myself and make sure I was alright. I looked around to see if there was damage elsewhere to help me find out what had happened. It felt like a bomb had gone off.
My mind sort of recalled at that instant the glass shattering and as my stare came back to the window, I saw all the cracking in the window and heard it continuing to crack all the way across the pane and into smaller and smaller intersections. I went outside to look at it from the back, and that glass was still intact, but I could see and hear the cracking continuing on the inside. It was like the sound of walking on ice, and the crush of your foot against the crystals or an iceberg calving from a distance echoing through the ice. The cracking continued for over an hour, but the glass never fell out or into pieces.
The look and sound of the glass was mirrored in the head. I was crushed. How could these incredibly good 2 days come crashing into reverse in a fraction of an instant? I was shook. I called Bob and left a pathetic message on his phone. I wanted to rage but resisted. The inside pane was now totally flexible to the touch, like a spider web. I thought with the wind coming almost exclusively out of the West directly into this massive window, I should board it up, but I didn’t want to mess up the outside. I hoped that we could contain the damage to the inside, which in my mind was still under construction, and that wouldn’t be too bad. I resisted the fear of having to pull the window out from the back or having to remove and replace and repaint the exterior trim.
I decided against probably the smarter move of boarding up the window from the outside and instead opted for boarding it up from the inside. At least this might help contain the thousands of glass shards that had just been cut from the intense cracking. I used a few of the remaining pine boards and covered it up, packed up my things and left with my head hung low and my tail between my legs. My brain was splintered into a thousand shards. I could understand how it happened or why it happened, but I was pretty sure it did happen. Fuck me.
To help ease my pain by bringing some to others, I decided I would set up our first attempt to eradicate the mousies. Mike and I had been talking for a while about how to get rid of the mice. We didn’t want to do poison or try anything that might catch/injure anybody else, like the snake or fox or birdies or lizzies. Mike eventually told me about a YouTube video (where else do people get information these days) where the guy filled a 5 gallon bucket about half way with water, and strung a beer can across the top on a wire with peanut butter on it. Apparently, the mousy goes out on the beer can to get the peanut butter and because he/she/they are not proficient at log rolling, they spin off the can into the drink and drown.
I had all the materials with me and so I rigged the contraption up, slathered the can with peanut butter, and stood back to admire my work. It appeared to me a mousy may have difficulty getting up the steep sides of the bucket, so I built a little ramp for them. Much satisfied with my modification, I left Hart Hill both glowing from my victories, but agonizing over my defeat.
Hart Hill; Marya’s First Trip Up Photo Gallery
