Dry River Bed

I went for a quick run with my brother around the CCC ponds and then up to the lower boat dock on Fremont.  I noticed a set of moose prints across the new road base on our driveway as we headed out.  Last evening a yearling moose ran right through our backyard as I was blogging and I suspect the prints in the front are from his return trip.  On our run we saw many usual birds and also a few unusual ones.  A very large osprey was screaming at us when we ran passed the dam.  A great blue heron rose out of one of the CCC ponds as we ran past.  They always look like I imagine pterodactyls in flight.  A little bit of off trail running scared up a ground nesting bird, the Killdeer.  My brother had to identify it for me, as I could only guess that it was a member of the plover family.  It looks and behaves quite similarly to the snowy plover which I saw many of on the coast of California when I lived in Santa Maria.  We also saw a recently dead coyote behind the rocks in the parking lot of the boat dock.

Completed dry river bed

New trellis

Today was spent on a myriad of small tasks rather than a single large one like our logging yesterday.  I didn't really work with Lil today and she was incredibly productive without me.  She put together a new trellis on the old pergola.  She drilled 16 holes in the 8 pieces of heavy duty steel strapping we will use in the post footers tomorrow.  Finally, she laid the last couple tons of stone for the dry river bed, which was completed today!  My mother was inspired to install the dry river bed by a neighbor who had a smaller one installed.  Today that neighbor dropped by and requested that I come by with TomTom tomorrow to enlarge her dry river bed.  My tree removal jobs in Denver are starting to pile up, but I will probably take this job to make a bit of extra money and because it is convenient.



Kian's bench

Kian cuts bench legs

Kian cut down his first tree yesterday and we thought we could use it to make some furniture.  I marked out the log at 16 inch intervals and put him to work with the handsaw to cut bench legs.  We selected a nice trapezoid from the scrap pile and cut 1.25 inch holes in it.  Then we ran a hole saw through the ends of the legs Kian cut to get a flush fit.  Kian pounded the close fit legs into the bench seat with a heavy rubber mallet.  There was quite a bit of tree left so we used it as a backing piece.

 

Yesterday Dad talked to the landscaper who failed to remove the wire cage containing the trees.  The landscaper claimed the cage was biodegradable.  I think buried 12 gauge wire is biodegradable around here in not less than a thousand years.  In the mean time, the tree roots were restricted by the wire.  I hope my parents do not use this landscaper again.

 

Patrick helped me move the last 6-8 logs to the jobsite.  Wet 18 foot logs only 7 inches in diameter can be incredibly heavy and unwieldy.  Digging the last few holes for footers in the rocky landscape was a welcome relief.  Our final task of the day was to go down to Pinedale lumber and pick up all the hex bolts, washers, nuts, and lag screws for this project.  Because of the irregular size of the logs, this ended up being a detailed measuring and planning task with many pieces of hardware.  I hope we completed it correctly.

Materials finally fully transported to job site