June 24 - Siding Continues

 Jim has been busy residing the east side of our building.  Soon he will complete the fire block soffit vents and then it will be my turn on the scaffolding.  My job is to caulk all the knot holes and cracks in the siding and then prime and paint.  After that is completed, Jim will add trim to the windows and I will caulk, prime and paint again.  I will be happy with this project is completed because it slows up down on other projects that are in the wings.  

As the siding slowly disappears from the basement, Jim starts thinking about adding drain rock and concrete to the basement floor.  I would love that too, since it is no joy to go into the basement in winter and have to rummage around in the dirt.  I would also love to get the attic rafters out of Orinda and onto the basement wood storage rack (they are going to be added to our attic to add better flooring for storage - currently we are on 2/8s with plywood on top.  There are lots of "gaps" where you have to be careful not to step.  And if we get the rafters and flooring in up there - it may be an incentive to add a staircase for easier access (instead of our pull down attic stairs).  

Between May and now, we have also taken our new dog Taylor on a few water experiences.  Unfortunately, he is not a great swimmer like our Quincy was.  He will swim - but his preference is hiking.  We have taken  him to Lake Valley a few times and down to the North Fork of the North Fork at least once.  Also he has been swimming at Fulda Bridge a few times.  

And we have been on a few explores with our neighbor Adrian.  He is a true adventurer.  He found a beautiful falls in the "North" burn zone and also found a path down to the Monumental Spires.  We have now visited both locations and are hoping to go to each and spend some time there this summer. Below is one of Adrian's photos from the Spires. 

There are currently two properties for sale in our little community.  One - is the cabins across the street.  They have been for sale for over a year and we are hoping with the newly reduced price that they sell soon.  The other is an off the grid cabin down by the Fulda community.  It is a reasonable price and includes 15 acres and a septic and well.  We are hoping for new neighbors soon.

The girls and my mom with be up for the 4th of July and we have plans for others people to visit now that the pandemic is under control. And next year we hope to finally host our family reunion.

May 10 - Siding the east side

Jim has started siding the east side of the lodge.  He has put up the scaffolding, torn down about 1/2 of the old siding and installed 1/3 of the new siding so far.  Luckily this side of the lodge was in much better shape than the west side.  Goes so show, never install 3/8 inch exterior plywood right over old worn out tongue and groove siding (with no vapor barrier between).  Anyway, on the east side, he did have to reset a few windows that were installed incorrectly and we had to order a new window that we had installed - but had broken on the sliders.   So, more window trim to purchase and we will run out of siding before we get to the back of the cabin.  When I originally ordered the siding, we did not have the screen room and the snow room planned for siding - alas.

It appears this year will be a dry drought year at the lodge.  We have had no rain in May and little rain in April.  A sign of global climate change.  As a result, we have more cedars to remove this fall and a lot of branch clean up this spring.  Looks like Cal Fire will be putting the burn moratorium in to place a lot earlier this year (we have already had many "no burn" days).  

At the beginning of our adventure with the Emigrant Gap Lodge, we usually had snow up and over the roof for many days in winter and the snow lasted outside until Mother's Day.  Those days seem to be gone.  

We plan to take a ride with the Polaris soon up to Sailor Ridge Road to look for the remnants of our Air Mail Beacon (from the times prior to radar, when big concrete arrows and lighted beacons were used to guide air mail planes to the west coast).  Here is a photo of a google maps search that looks like a likely area.  

I did find a wonderful websites that lists the arrows and some of the beacons in the sierra.  Here is a page that confirms that we did not have an arrow at Emigrant Gap (it was located at the Blue Canyon Airport) but we have a map from the 1930s that establishes that we did have a beacon at the highest point of Sailor Ridge.  

And I recently found some additional historical information about the Gap.  My section about the 1840s includes information about John C Fremont and his expedition to California and through Emigrant Gap.  The reference was from a 49er who traveled to California and called out a few of Fremont's topographical references in our general area (though I am not sure where between Emigrant Gap and Colfax/Grass Valley these would have been.  The first - the members of the expedition set up camps to explore the areas of the sierra.  While at one of these camps near us, they stripped a large cedar of its branches and raised a flag.  The flag could not be a US flag since the land that was being surveyed actually belonged to Spain.  So Fremont's wife crafted a special flag for him to use.  Here are tow examples of flags that Fremont used in his California expeditions.  Additionally, Fremont wrote about a huge tree that a person could use for shelter.  That tree was somewhere between Emigrant Gap and Colfax/Grass Valley and unfortunately was burned to the ground when some "shelterers" lit a fire inside and burn the core of the tree. 

Here are a few URLS that provide information about Fremont's expedition:

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/HNS/Domwest/mcauley.html

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/AAZ9580.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext;q1=John+C.+Fremont

http://collections.theautry.org/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=record;id=M231780;type=101

file:///Users/Carol/Downloads/Diary-of-John-Markle-1849-Letter-to-the-Donner-Trail-Marking-Expedition-from-Wendell-Robie-1940-1.pdf

https://www.octa-journals.org/merrill-mattes-collection/the-travels-of-a-gold-digger-enroute-to-california-john-a-markle

https://www.archives.gov/nhprc/projects/catalog/expeditions-of-john-charles-fremont

http://collections.theautry.org/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=record;id=M231780;type=101

March 12 - New Dog, New Deck (Material)

 We lost our dear Quincy during the COVID crisis last year and have been missing him greatly since then.  Last month, Carol finally felt ready to think about a new dog for our immediate family (and hopefully a host for our cabin to our extended family).  We looked at a labrador mix who was very loving, but his foster handler felt that Carol would not be able to walk him (he was a stray for his first 6 months of life and he was very determined and as a mix with a rottweiler - very strong). Next, we saw a 10 month german short hair/coonhound mix.  He was also very loving, but very active and a bit crazy.  Additionally,  he was very very cute.  So, we decided to take the risk of lots of training and adopted him.  His original name was not to our liking, so we renamed him Taylor (for Zachery Taylor, in keeping with our presidential dog history). Taylor likes to get loose from his leash and run wild, likes to bark at people and cars.  He came to us with little training.  In the 3 weeks we have owned him, he has learned his name, has been mostly house broken, has learned to come when called (most of this time), how to sit and lay down.  We are working on other aspects of his behavior. 

And tomorrow, we pickup more used Trex decking that we will be using to replace the old wood decking/fire escape on the back of the lodge. The top wood on the original decking is just worn out (though the structure is still sound).  We will store the decking until the snow is gone from Emigrant Gap.  

And finally, Jim and I have completed our two shot COVID vaccines and are feeling much safer because of it.  We are hoping they expand the shots to people 30 and older so that Katie can get her shot soon.  Mary Beth has gotten her first shot (she is a teacher and will be returning to the classroom on March 29th).  Mom and Pattie have gotten their shots.  So this year is already looking a lot brighter than last. 

 

January 18 - A Wind Storm

A major wind storm hit the sierra with gusts up to 135 mph at the summit. At Emigrant Gap, our building shook from the winds, we woke to a loose roof panel on the screened in porch (Awahnee Room), trash cans and other items not weighted down went down the hill, every tarp off every covered thing in the yard. We faired OK - but our neighbor lost a good section of shingles off his roof and a huge dead cedar fell into the road heading back to the off the grid cabins. So, before we left the cabin for home, we cleared up the mess outside, screwed down the roof panel, picked up our neighbors shingles and put them in their entry way and moved the big dead tree off the road. When we return to the lodge, there could be snow again - so we may not be able to clear up any more of the mess until the snow is gone. Not much snow left at the lodge and we are again in a drought. Hoping for snow tomorrow. In Orinda, we lost roof shingles, branches off our trees filled tons of trash cans, a roof panel came off the tree house and we lost the side tarps on our portable garage. We will be cleaning up from this storm for a while. photos will be added later. The pandemic continues and we have not been able to have visitors at the lodge (just family, and than is feww and far between). And we have a new president and vice president. Hoping for better days.

January 11, 2021 - Christmas has come and gone and a new year has begun

Goodby 2020. We were so glad to see you end. Now to get through the dreaded COVID pandemic and start healing the rift in our country. By the date of this post, you can tell that it is after the January 6 attack on our nation's Capitol Building. A horrific sequence of events was played out on national television. Most of us feared for the well being of our duly elected represenatives, senators and vice-president. Unfortunately, in the melay, 5 people died. One was a police officer trying to protect and serve. Another was a protester, climbing through a broken window to gain access to the Capitol Building interior, reason unknown. There have been many arrests and many calls for a historic second impeachment of our president. It is a black day in American history and we are still embroiled in a huge rift in our nation which, in my mind, will take a long time to heal. I am saddened to see friends and family separating over differences. I am hoping that a thourough investigation will be completed soon and we will be made aware of all who are responsible for this catastrophe. Just before Christmas, Jeremy, Jody and the kids stopped by on their way home from Montana. It was great to see them prior to the holidays. The kids were so excited about their adventurous trip and it was wonderful catching up with our nephew and niece.

Christmas was small (Jim, the girls and me). We invited our neighbor Adrian and his son Adam over for Christmas eve dinner and had planned to spend some time with our neighbors Jim and Lisa on New Years eve until I received a call that one of our extended family had contracted a mild case of COVID. That moved us into quarantine mode (since we had seen her recently) until we figured out the timeline of her visit (with face masks, of course). Our risk was exteremly low in contracting the virus - but we are unwilling to take any risks with our friends and neighbors.

Since then, with the state mostly on stay at home orders, we have been staying at the cabin and the Orinda house, only going out for groceries, gas, small shopping visits, etc. I can't remember the last time Jim got his hair professionally cut and I have been to the doctor, dentist, etc. Christmas brought back fond, and sad memories of our dear dog Quincy. I miss him every day and and still having trouble talking about him even in this post.

This weekend, Jim and Katie finally got to go skiing at Sugar Bowl. We were supposed to also ski today - but plans were changed. Jim has started to work on wiring in the basement (we have one plug down there and a few lights - a real problem with working on projects in winter). I have started working on spackling the windows that needed to be reset with the siding project and finished setting up an antique bookcase/desk in the "girls" room downstairs. I have also been busy setting up and tearing down Christmas.

We are fortunate. We are healthy, we have food on the table and wine in the bar. Our kids are doing ok. We have two homes to shelter in while this pandemic continues. Though we do get cabin fever at both, we have beautiful country around us to enjoy. No photos this time. Happy New Year.

December 9, 2020 - Late Winter Equals More Updates to Cabin

If there is anyone left who does not believe in climate change, please take an extended visit to the Sierra. Millions of trees are dead in our national forests from the Pine Beetle Blight making the forest a tinderbox for fire. The lack of snow in the high sierra is alarming and weather has continued to be unseasonably warm. And we are hearing the dreaded "drought" word again.

With the warmer climate, Jim and I have continued our fixer projects later in the season than usual. The west side of the cabin is completly resided now with one coat of paint (second coat will be next year). Scaffolding has been taken down and loaned to our neighbor. Cleanup of all the debris is done. All reusable plywood has been stacked and covered with tarps for winter.

Jim has also completed the roof over the game room deck. I have been busy with our annual branch burning in our firepit and being Jim's helper whenever I am at the lodge. I also did our annual firewood splitting and stacking and cut up some small logs for firewood at home. I still have a lot of indoor work to complete (drywall patching on two downstairs bedroom window sills from the residing project, painting, inside trim work) but that will wait until I return to the lodge after the Christmas Holiday.

Our neighbors have been busy as well. The "other" Jim is busy working on the shed he inherited from the previous owners of his cabin. The shed was left as a shell, clad in plywood and chipboard and Jim has added roofing, siding and is working on getting a deck added (it is on the hill so access is tricky). Adrian is working on limbing his trees and removing his (and some of our) chain link fencing from the property and basically cleaning up and setting up his cabin. He is also our "resident adventurer" and has found ways to access the Mountental Spires and trying to locate the ghost town by the Hellester area. His amazing photo of Spires below.

Few guests at the lodge and less adventures due to the COVID crisis. We are hoping for a vaccine approval soon. The election is a hot mess. I am clearly just tired of the mess and would like us all to focuss our attention on healing the country now.

Jim is bringing home the Polaris this weekend which is a sign that winter is about to descend on the lodge. Snow expected next week. Let's hope it is enough to get us out of thie dreaded drought.

September 27, 2020 - The Year Continues to Challenge

It took me a while to learn how to update our web pages after Google changed it's format and rules. The web design tool for Google Blogspot has been simplified quite a bit, removing the capability to use different font choices, spellcheck and headers. In the future, I will see if there is an option to use html tags to add these back into the site. But for now, since Blogspot remains free, I will continue to use it for our pages.

So here is what has been going on at Emigrant Gap since our last post.

Jim ordered some planks for our scaffolding and has started working on the west side of the building, adding Hardie Panel to the lower 9 feet of the building.

Above the Hardie Panel, he is removing the old tongue and groove siding and resetting all of the windows. Whoever installed the lower floor windows originally, placed the fins on the outmost plywood siding, causing them to leak. As he removed the windows, he added one new plug outlet to each bedroom. He also pulled the old insulation out of the walls and added new. The last window on the wall unfortunately did not have any header or side 2/4 to keep it in place (how it managed to hang as long as it did is a mystery to all of us). Jim fixed that, but had to open a lot of the wall in that room (more drywall in our future).

Jim also added a deck to the game room (where the sliding glass door was added in July). And our wonderful neighbor at the school (Adrian) was taking down his back chain link so he decided to take ours down as well. This was a huge and wonderful change and I can not wait to get back to the lodge to see it.

I have been working on fixing the towel rack in one of the downstairs bathrooms. We have had a lot of trouble keeping towel racks tight to the drywall. We have tried all kinds of molly bolts - but have had not success. So I decided to add a chair rail to the bathrooms that have the most trouble. No photo of that yet - but I will add it as soon as I get it painted.

I also expanded our stone patio a bit and worked on gathering more patio stones to add another patio on the deck side of the house. To get patio stone, I have to drive back to some sandstone outcropping by the campgrounds and look for road kill rocks (basically rocks that have split and fallen down to the road). It takes quite a while to find these rocks so more often I augment with Craigslist purchased or free rock. On the last trip back to the campgrounds, I drove about 4 miles on a dirt road, picked up about 5 “pavers” and unfortunately hit something that blew my left front tire. Since I had no cell phone reception, no way to change the tire (I was on a very narrow road on the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere), I had to drive the truck back with the failing tire. I made it as far as the campground, and had to send someone 8 miles to the cabin to let Jim know. A good samaritan helped me change the tire before Jim arrived. My tire was shredded. I was thinking it was going to cost about $300 for another one - but I was lucky that I purchased tire insurance and only had to pay $50.00 for the repair.

I have also been working on repairing the walls in the game room (lots of wall board to put back up and patch after the window and slider installation).

My work has been a bit slower than usual due to an injury I sustained just before we left on vacation. Our vacation was changed quite a bit due to COVID. We went camping in the National Forests (dispersed camping mainly) to try to avoid the crowds of the campgrounds. Our trip took us to South Dakota, Montana, Utah, Nevada and Idaho. We saw a lot of amazing country and got used to camping longer term (about 3 1/2 weeks).

When we returned, we had an unusual dry lightning storm that resulted in thousands of strikes and 100s of fires in California. That has left us with months (yes months) of unhealthy air and lots of scorched earth. Fires continue to ignite around the state. We have been lucky in Emigrant Gap to see only one wild fire so far this season (knock on wood). I was driving back from a Reno trip and saw a plume of smoke on the hill behind Nyack. I immediately called 911 and they patched me over to the fire service. We were lucky that a helicopter was dispatched immediately followed by a plane that dropped fire repellant on the plume. The fire was out quickly and the forest service checked on it for a few days.

We have also had quite a few power outages at the lodge due to extreme winds and high heat. Jim is thinking of solar in the future to manage our electrical needs. Solar is difficult in snow country. At our snow depth, I don’t think that mounting on the roof is an option. That means that the panels would need to be placed on solar “palapas”. This makes them more apt to be stolen so the panels probably would need to be used or cheap. Then of course, we would need to have PG and E set up the solar converter. So this becomes a big project. Plus we would be losing a lot of ground space for the palapas.

My mom can no longer come up to the gap. She is 91 now and has A-FIB and a blocked valve to her heart. Coupling that with low blood pressure, the lodge is a dangerous elevation for her. This is sad because I know how much she loves it at the lodge and of course, we love having her stay with us. And she recently had two minor strokes which is now keeping me at home mid week so I can visit her. We know we are living on blessed borrowed time with my mom now.

We continue to miss our Quincy. It has been 4 months since we lost him to bone cancer. I still find myself crying with the thought of him. I will never love another dog as much as I did Q. It is hard to wake up at the lodge, knowing that we will not be going for our routine morning walk, or playing tennis ball and sticks in the back yard, or going swimming at the river and the lake. COVID quarantining is not helping this. Alas 2020 is the year from hell for most of us.

Photos of lodge below.