Pamela Anderson Weekend
I`ve had a Pamela Anderson weekend (big bust); cold, windy weather and snow derailed my construction odyssey, and I wound up returning home with nothing accomplished.
Friday night I went to Lowes and purchased the materials needed for roofing my cabin, then made the trip down into the Ozarks. It had been windy all that day, and by nightfall it was blowing harder than Al Gore at a Global Warming convention! Driving required a tight grip on the steering wheel (which is entertaining on those deserted wilderness roads) and I didn`t arrive until after 10 p.m. Of course, the cabin was cold and I had to light a fire immediately, a fire which smoked so badly that I could have cured bacon on my easy chair. (If smoke preserves meat, I should last a long time, indeed!) Also, many of my kerosene lamps were empty and had to be refilled in the dark. Temperatures continued to drop, and by midnight it was very cold-a fact made quite plain to me since I kept having to go outside to suck oxygen. Generally I light the fire several hours before going inside, and it has time to build up some good coals which reduce the amount of smoke, but Friday I didn`t have that luxury. Also, much of my firewood was obtained from the great storms we had last summer and last in January, and they aren`t seasoned properly.
It got COLD and my fire wasn`t putting out enough heat, so I was chilled most of the night. It wasn`t that uncomfortable in bed, but when I woke I knew I wouldn`t get much warmer. By the morning I had a sore throat from the smoke, and felt pretty lousy. The wind had dropped off a bit, but it was still quite breezy and cold when I emerged from my shack. I debated taking a drive in the hopes that the wind would level off, but it showed no signs of stopping and I wasn`t going to be able to put put that roof on with the wind. I could have worked around the cabin; the place is a mess and I need to do some serious housecleaning, but I was numb from the cold. When a heavy snow started falling, my spirit died and I decided to just head for my nice warm home with my nice warm wife and nice warm cats. I did not regret the decision.
For new readers of Birdblog, the Ozark Hilton is a one room tarpaper shack in the woods deep in back country. I scrounged the materials to build it out of dumpsters and back alleys here in St. Louis, and have spent very little money building my luxury resort. I had hoped to find some decent metal roofing, but haven`t had any luck, and the cabin has been covered for three years with plastic tarps. (They are starting to leak-again-and so I decided to break down and actually BUY something!) Cinder blocks with a toilet seat act as my bathroom, pallets make a front porch, I have a butcher-block countertop someone had pitched in an alley on a couple of steel barrels outside for a kitchen. Water has to be brought in (which is why I wanted a steel roof; I could harvest rainwater) and I have an Indian-style wigwam made from bent saplings which I use as a storage building. My road had originally been a logging trail, and I have to be careful driving it, since there are still small stumps which can blow out a tire; I did precisely that one time, and it was a bear changing it on that sloping cowpath! No electricity, no gas, no phone, no roof over your head when using the ``privy``.
My wife has long since quit going there with me, she being the more sensible of the two of us. I made her spend my birthday at the cabin a while back, and had brought my two cats (who had mixed reactions); Blackberry, my three year old black Bombay was carsick through the entire ride but enjoyed himself once there, while Goccia, a 10 year old American Red Shorthair, didn`t mind the ride but hated the accommodations. He kept trying to hide under the cabin, and pouted the entire trip. Actually, I suspect he showed good sense because that night I heard a very strange, large creature outside. It started with a high-pitched birdlike sound which descended into a lion-like roar! If someone had told me a dinosaur was out there I would have believed them that night! I suspect it was a bobcat, or a mountain lion (they`ve come back into Missouri) and that critter didn`t like two invading cats on his turf. I`ve never heard this beast since, although there are plenty of other creatures to enliven my stay; possums, mice, rats, armadillo, coyotes, deer, etc. I haven`t encountered any bear, although I am on the other side of a valley from Bear Mountain. (Missouri has some little black bears, and I saw one once coming out of a cave while on a canoe trip.) Once I picked up a a roll of tarpaper from inside my wigwam, and I felt a hairy head which immediately brought Goccia`s fur to mind, so I began petting it, only to find a large rat jump out of the roll and scurry off into the woods! I`ve had wasps settle in with me, and one who decided to adopt me. He used to come and sit next to me on my futon in the evenings. I upset a next of yellowjackets once, too, and they chased me a mile, stinging me numerous times! I can`t say I blame my wife for not wanting to come.
When I`m not working on the place I sit and read, enjoying the peace of the wilds. I actually have a neighbor at the bottom of the hill, a lumberjack who lives there fulltime, so I don`t worry too much about something happening. It would be nice to have a phone, though; I really should have gone to the hospital when I suffered the attack of the yellowjackets. I`m always worried about breaking a leg-and the roofing job scares me for that very reason. It has to be done, but I`m no spring chicken and a fall from the roof could be fatal to a man by himself. THAT was why I wasn`t going to work on that in the wind!
So, I wasted my trip this weekend. At least I have the materials down there to get the job done the next time. As far as I`m concerned, a visit to my cabin is never truly a waste, and I always feel better after a visit.
Friday night I went to Lowes and purchased the materials needed for roofing my cabin, then made the trip down into the Ozarks. It had been windy all that day, and by nightfall it was blowing harder than Al Gore at a Global Warming convention! Driving required a tight grip on the steering wheel (which is entertaining on those deserted wilderness roads) and I didn`t arrive until after 10 p.m. Of course, the cabin was cold and I had to light a fire immediately, a fire which smoked so badly that I could have cured bacon on my easy chair. (If smoke preserves meat, I should last a long time, indeed!) Also, many of my kerosene lamps were empty and had to be refilled in the dark. Temperatures continued to drop, and by midnight it was very cold-a fact made quite plain to me since I kept having to go outside to suck oxygen. Generally I light the fire several hours before going inside, and it has time to build up some good coals which reduce the amount of smoke, but Friday I didn`t have that luxury. Also, much of my firewood was obtained from the great storms we had last summer and last in January, and they aren`t seasoned properly.
It got COLD and my fire wasn`t putting out enough heat, so I was chilled most of the night. It wasn`t that uncomfortable in bed, but when I woke I knew I wouldn`t get much warmer. By the morning I had a sore throat from the smoke, and felt pretty lousy. The wind had dropped off a bit, but it was still quite breezy and cold when I emerged from my shack. I debated taking a drive in the hopes that the wind would level off, but it showed no signs of stopping and I wasn`t going to be able to put put that roof on with the wind. I could have worked around the cabin; the place is a mess and I need to do some serious housecleaning, but I was numb from the cold. When a heavy snow started falling, my spirit died and I decided to just head for my nice warm home with my nice warm wife and nice warm cats. I did not regret the decision.
For new readers of Birdblog, the Ozark Hilton is a one room tarpaper shack in the woods deep in back country. I scrounged the materials to build it out of dumpsters and back alleys here in St. Louis, and have spent very little money building my luxury resort. I had hoped to find some decent metal roofing, but haven`t had any luck, and the cabin has been covered for three years with plastic tarps. (They are starting to leak-again-and so I decided to break down and actually BUY something!) Cinder blocks with a toilet seat act as my bathroom, pallets make a front porch, I have a butcher-block countertop someone had pitched in an alley on a couple of steel barrels outside for a kitchen. Water has to be brought in (which is why I wanted a steel roof; I could harvest rainwater) and I have an Indian-style wigwam made from bent saplings which I use as a storage building. My road had originally been a logging trail, and I have to be careful driving it, since there are still small stumps which can blow out a tire; I did precisely that one time, and it was a bear changing it on that sloping cowpath! No electricity, no gas, no phone, no roof over your head when using the ``privy``.
My wife has long since quit going there with me, she being the more sensible of the two of us. I made her spend my birthday at the cabin a while back, and had brought my two cats (who had mixed reactions); Blackberry, my three year old black Bombay was carsick through the entire ride but enjoyed himself once there, while Goccia, a 10 year old American Red Shorthair, didn`t mind the ride but hated the accommodations. He kept trying to hide under the cabin, and pouted the entire trip. Actually, I suspect he showed good sense because that night I heard a very strange, large creature outside. It started with a high-pitched birdlike sound which descended into a lion-like roar! If someone had told me a dinosaur was out there I would have believed them that night! I suspect it was a bobcat, or a mountain lion (they`ve come back into Missouri) and that critter didn`t like two invading cats on his turf. I`ve never heard this beast since, although there are plenty of other creatures to enliven my stay; possums, mice, rats, armadillo, coyotes, deer, etc. I haven`t encountered any bear, although I am on the other side of a valley from Bear Mountain. (Missouri has some little black bears, and I saw one once coming out of a cave while on a canoe trip.) Once I picked up a a roll of tarpaper from inside my wigwam, and I felt a hairy head which immediately brought Goccia`s fur to mind, so I began petting it, only to find a large rat jump out of the roll and scurry off into the woods! I`ve had wasps settle in with me, and one who decided to adopt me. He used to come and sit next to me on my futon in the evenings. I upset a next of yellowjackets once, too, and they chased me a mile, stinging me numerous times! I can`t say I blame my wife for not wanting to come.
When I`m not working on the place I sit and read, enjoying the peace of the wilds. I actually have a neighbor at the bottom of the hill, a lumberjack who lives there fulltime, so I don`t worry too much about something happening. It would be nice to have a phone, though; I really should have gone to the hospital when I suffered the attack of the yellowjackets. I`m always worried about breaking a leg-and the roofing job scares me for that very reason. It has to be done, but I`m no spring chicken and a fall from the roof could be fatal to a man by himself. THAT was why I wasn`t going to work on that in the wind!
So, I wasted my trip this weekend. At least I have the materials down there to get the job done the next time. As far as I`m concerned, a visit to my cabin is never truly a waste, and I always feel better after a visit.
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 6:46 AM
1 Comments:
Thanks, Mattias!
As to the proper storage space for my beer, I have discovered a wonderful and very convenient spot; it sits about 6-8 inches below my neck and holds all the beer I can drink! :)
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