Improvements at the ranch

I may be able to water the garden this summer. The S.O. succeeded in pulling the old point for our shallow well. In the photo he has succeeded in jacking the pipe up to where he's been able to remove two 5-foot sections and is close to having another section almost high enough to remove. 

The well is close to the Woman Cave and provided our drinking water back when we had a mobile home. It's also one of those wells that the Health Department freaks out over -- not particularly deep so could be prone to contamination. Never viewed it as an issue for us, though, not when we're perched close to the highest point around here and are sitting on glacial till. 

Even better, that glacial till was beachfront a few thousand years ago. What is now wetland on the lower half of our property is the remnant of a pothole lake formed when the glaciers retreated. Over millennia a whole lot of water soaked into the gravel under us. Our place has never lacked for water. The problem has been getting it out of the ground. Glacial till tends to have a lot of sand in it. Sand has a nasty habit of clogging the screens on well points as well as shredding the working parts of pumps. 

Which is what happened to the most recent well a couple years ago. The sand content in the water that made it through the pump seemed to get worse until it was more like the pump was sucking mud -- the last load of laundry done using that well water had so much sand in it for all intents it wasn't clean at all. We brilliantly figured out it was time to pull the point, clean the sand out or replace it, and hope the problem was solved for awhile.

Except the point did not want to come out of the ground. The well consisted of (as far as the S.O. could recall) four 5-foot lengths of drive pipe and the 3-foot point. One of the couplings on the pipe must have gotten wedged under a rock because it would come up maybe 6 inches and stop. He tried multiple times a couple summers ago, even had help in the attempt, and the pipe would not move. We did talk about simply buying more pipe and driving a point in a few inches away from where the old pipe was sticking out of the ground, but we'd already done that once. The sand has been an ongoing issue for decades. When we put the new point in this time it's going to be, as best I can recall, the fourth one since 1973. 

The original well on the property was a dug well, really shallow, farther down the hill and close to the sauna. It hadn't been used in years so when the S.O. and I set up housekeeping in the Shoebox in 1973 he decided to do a new well a few feet away from the old dug well. He excavated a hole so the pumphouse would be basically underground and protected from freezing in the winter, and then drove a point. I think that one went down maybe 15 feet. Only problem was that in the spring, the pumphouse tended to fill with water as the snow around it melted. So then he drove another point farther up the hill and built an above-ground pumphouse. That point worked fine for a few years, had amazing water pressure, and then things began slowing to a trickle. 

We brilliantly figured out the screen on the point was getting blocked. We tried a couple remedies, he tried pulling it with no luck, and then he drove Point Number 3. Which worked fine for a few years. . . and here we are getting ready to finish pushing Point Number 4 into the ground. At least this time it's a little easier getting the point back in -- he's just shoving it into the hole the Point Number 3 came out of. It had about two feet left to go when he quit for the day. Once it's down far enough to reconnect the pump, all  we have to do is hope the old pump still works after having humongous amounts of sand pass through it for a decade or two.    

Photo is of the point following its removal. It had a long split down one side and was packed two-thirds full of sand. Not much of a mystery any more just why it was pumping mud. 

I didn't bother with a garden last year because I figured out a long time ago I can not count on rain keeping things growing. This year, of course, when I will be able to run a sprinkler it'll turn out to be the wettest summer in 50 years. 

This well also supplies water to the guest cabin so if all goes the way it should, the next guest in the cabin will have cold water on tap again.

Taking a break

I've escaped from Atlanta for a few days. Posting will be sparse.

Photo is part of Bond Falls, in Ontonagon County, Michigan, on a gorgeous October afternoon (yesterday).

Summer is officially over

. . . at least up on the tundra. The 2011-2012 snowplowing bill for the driveway at the Retirement Bunker arrived today.

The photo is an old one. Here's a view in the summer of more or less that same stretch of driveway 30+ years later. Rewilding in action.

Maybe we're really going to do it this time

We've set dates for the move back north several times since first landing in Atlanta in 2007, but this is the first time I've started selling the furniture as that date grew closer. I'm advertising on an electronic bulletin board at work -- I was a little skeptical about how effective that method would be, but I think it's going to depend on the specific item. I tried selling a china cabinet that way a couple years ago and had no luck, but this time around a small chest of drawers had potential buyers in less than 2 hours. I had to scramble after work to get the thing emptied before the buyers came over to pick it up.

I'm going to try advertising the china cabinet again. It's not really my style, but, like most of our furniture, it was a yard sale find that I figured would serve its purpose until I found the mid-century modern cabinet of my dreams. If it doesn't sell this time around, it's going to Goodwill, along with a number of other items that we won't have a use for at the retirement bunker. Moving is always a giant pain in the ass, so the less that we actually have to schlep on to the U-Haul, the better.

Taking a break, back whenever

Heading out for a couple weeks. Posting will be sporadic.

Summer's over

The 2010-11 snowplowing bill for the Retirement Bunker was in the mailbox yesterday.

Enclosed with the bill was an announcement of a new state holiday:  Shake Your Mailbox Day is October 23.  Michigan residents are encouraged to go out to the side of the road and give their mailboxes a good shake to see if they're sturdy enough to survive being buried in snowbanks.  "If you can shake your mailbox, it probably needs maintenance." 

Boys, toys, and railroads

There have been very few times in my life when I've envied other people their hobbies, but a day in August 1998 was one of them.  A question Lisa asked about the railroad tracks that cut through the Retirement Bunker acreage when I did the Rewilding post inspired me to go looking for these photos:

Lisa asked if there are still trains.  The answer is yes, but not every day -- and the fact trains weren't running run daily 12 years ago made it possible for Wisconsin Central to accomodate this group:  coming up the tracks from the direction of beautiful downtown Herman, Michigan, is a parade.

Motor cars.  Railroad motor cars lovingly restored and maintained by people who love one particular aspect of railroad history.  What an amazing hobby. 

And what a great way to spend a summer day in the Upper Peninsula, cruising along the (at that time) Wisconsin Central tracks.  I'm not sure just how many miles they were allowed to use that day, but they started over towards Marquette, drove to Baraga, and then drove back again.  Photo below is the back end of the parade as they head up the grade to Summit.  It's a 10 mile continuous uphill grade with a number of long stretches at 3%, which makes it, for a railroad, quite a hill.  It's one reason trains always go through our place really, really slowly, regardless of direction. 

All the cars were two-man, the type used by track inspectors, not section crews, the same general type my father used for many years as part of his job.  I did not, however, see any cars with Chicago & Northwestern decals in the parade. 

I'm not sure just when the railroads stopped using specialized motor cars and switched to pick-up trucks modified for use on either pavement or rail.  The Old Man retired around 1983, and was using a truck the last year or so that he worked.  From the viewpoint of the workers, the trucks were a huge improvement.  (Among other things, it's a heck of a lot warmer in a pickup in January than it is in an unheated motor car with canvas sides.)

Below is a early '50s photo of the same stretch of track shown above right about at the point where that last motor car is:

The fact they lost it right over the creek makes me wonder if an old wood culvert caved in.  Whatever happened, the passengers on that train were definitely going to be a little late getting to Houghton.

Rewilding

Back around the time of World War I, the S.O.'s grandparents bought a railroad 40 in upper Michigan.  It had been logged over for white pine so qualified as a "stump farm."   Over the following decade, Matt and Susanna patiently cleared the stumps and, because at least half the property was wetland, ditched the swamp. (The lines for the ditches are still visible in aerial photos.) Family folklore says that it took many years to clear all the stumps -- they were still digging them out and using them for firewood in the late 1920s. End result:  not quite 40 acres that were basically wide open cow pasture and hayfield with a little bit of woodlot retained on the rockiest and/or boggiest bits.  The building is the sauna, sitting out in the open, a totally cleared area.  The photo above was taken in about 1953.

This is a view taken a couple years ago of where that sauna was. 

I do have days at the farm when I miss the view of the railroad tracks. 

Ten years ago

I've been wandering down Nostalgia Lane this week, going through a stack of old 3.5 inch floppies ("legacy technology") and transferring the contents to CDs or DVDs.  My personal computer no longer includes that size drive, and it occurred to me that it wouldn't be long before I wouldn't have access to one though work either.  I had files going back to my grad school days on those floppies, so I decided to go through them and see if there was anything worth saving.

Turned out there was, and I just don't mean the 17 or so "back up" copies of the dissertation. I found copies of letters I wrote back in the '90s (and I'd like to thank my younger self for reminding me so vividly of why I don't miss teaching snot-nosed undergraduates all that much), personal photos taken in the early days of digital cameras, and other gems. 

The above photo (which the S.O. is going to be annoyed that I used before he could) was taken almost exactly ten years ago, in early winter of 1999.  I must have used the digital camera I had the use of during my brief tenure as the editor of a limited circulation monthly newspaper (a contract job that lasted, if memory serves me right, for four issues).  The camera was huge, not a whole lot different than trying to tote an oversized brick around, and used actual floppies, the 3.5 inch ones.  At its highest quality setting, a person was doing good to take more than 2 photos before running out of memory.  But it was great for desktop publishing -- straight from the camera to the computer with minimal hassle. 

We were living up on the tundra that year, trying to stay warm in our aging shoebox of a mobile home, while we both lurched from temporary job to temporary job.  The editing gig came along right about the time my unemployment checks were running out, so it was good timing even if it didn't last long.  It meant being able to avoid driving up to Houghton to re-register with the temporary employment pool at Michigan Tech (not that I ever minded any of the various temporary jobs I've held at Tech -- being the football coaches' temporary secretary for approximately six months was more fun than any office job should ever be) while keeping my fingers crossed I managed to find something more permanent.  Being unemployed in upper Michigan is one of those things that qualifies as a mixed blessing:  it sucks being broke, but it also means not having to be outside busting through snowdrifts before dawn.  Our road never got plowed before either I or the S.O. had to leave for work -- it's been the last one cleared for many, many years. 

Which is, of course, one of the reasons we owned a snowplow ourselves.  We pay Baraga County for driveway plowing every year (including this one, even though they got told they don't have to plow because no one's at the farm this winter) so we can stay on the list (once you're off the list, you can never get back on), but even with the county keeping the driveway open, when you live in an area that gets, on average, over 300 inches of snow per winter, it is good to have a personal plow, even if it is mounted on a piece of junk like that Jeepster.  The plow itself was not a particularly good one, if memory serves me right.  The S.O. didn't notice the missing roof much.  He kept himself warm with curses, either at the plow or the plow vehicle.

A year from now he'll be back at it, out there in the cold shoving snow around with a vehicle that looks like it should have gone to the crusher a couple years ago.  The major difference will be we'll be retired, no ties to the U.P. that would keep us there all winter.  I wonder how many plowing days it will take before he decides being a snowbird isn't such a bad idea after all?

Heading north

I'm about to disappear for about a week.  No work, no internet, just a couple good books and the S.O.

Update:  Wish me luck. The S.O. just reminded me to pack my mittens because snow is predicted for Sunday.  Quite a change from Atlanta where we're still running around in flip flops. 

Packing

Charlie and the S.O. are leaving for Michigan later this morning. They're spending the summer up on the tundra; I'll be stuck here in Atlanta sweating and cursing the smog. Thanks to accepting the 90-day detail with the journal, I can't take annual leave until July.

I'm not sure which of them I'm going to miss more. Granted, Charlie is Tammi's dog so he's usually not here, but I have been enjoying the early morning walks with him.

The S.O., on the other hand, cooks.

Heading for the bunker

Looks like I'm going to be able to escape on annual leave this weekend after all. I wasn't sure if the project manager would be willing to see me disappear for a full week, but she bought my argument that I needed to burn my credit hours now because I'll be earning lots more as we get closer to the final deadline for The Document. This is one time when having the ankle bracelet helps -- I will supposedly be in touch if she needs me.

I did not tell her I'm heading for a place where there is no internet. I will have no way of doing anything other than reading e-mails on the BlackBerry, and if I'm lucky, I'll discover there's no cell phone coverage at the farm. Any actual editing will have to wait for my return -- and even if there was an internet connection at the retirement bunker, it wouldn't help with work. I've never done the work-at-home paperwork with Large Nameless Agency so do not have the nifty little piece of technology (LNA calls it a "key fob") that would allow me to access LNA's networks from anywhere. And I will never do the work-at-home paperwork. I know some people like the idea of working from home, but I like to keep a nice sharp line between "work" and "not work."

Of course, the down side to no internet for a week is I'm not going to be able to feed my blog addiction. The sun had better be shining and the fall colors spectacular, or things could get ugly.

Wish me luck with flying the surly skies of Northwest. I'll be changing planes at ground zero for employee discontent (Minneapolis) so am not anticipating that stage of the trip being much fun.

Retirement bunker

Found myself thinking about the retirement bunker this afternoon. Here's a view looking down the hill towards where it's going to be:This is what's there now -- the former back porch for a ratty mobile home that (since the shoebox is gone) has been elevated to the status of The Camp.
The Camp comes complete with a north elevation that's tarpapered. Definitely the epitome of Yooper camp architecture.
I was pleasantly surprised by how fast the area where the trailer used to be greened up. I had visions of it turning into a patch of pigweed instead of mixed grasses and white clover. Not that it matters much when we're about to disturb it again with excavating for the bunker, but for the short term I'd rather look at timothy, brome, and clover instead of pigweed and nettles. The Plan calls for the S.O. completing Stage I of the bunker this summer. Now all we have to do is come up with a common definition of Stage I -- my definition leans toward "foundation in, rough framing done, roof on, windows in, and only interior finishing work left to complete." His definition is more like "stakes in place to indicate more or less where to start digging."

The little boxy thing in the upper left is a pumphouse for a shallow well pump. . . and, for purposes of climate comparisons (the U.P. vs Atlanta), those trees behind the pumphouse are apples, they hadn't bloomed or leafed out much yet, and I took the photo the second week in June.