In keeping with Michelle’s birthday wishes, we repaired a bad place on the trail from Mud Bay to our homestead. There’s a certain hill, which, when we first moved to the homestead, Aly dubbed “‘Druther Not,” as in, “I’d ruther not climb that hill with a heavy load again!” It has a low spot bridged by log rip-rap that has rotted and broken over the years. We started on the 9th and finished on the 11th. All in all, it was an appropriate project for the anniversary of moving to the homestead.
The Birthday Girl admires our newly-completed handywork (Photo: Mark Zeiger).
The repair job exceeds our expectations. We’ve been brainstorming the process for a long time now.
Before (Photo: Aly Zeiger).
Most of my visions of the job involved a heart- and backbreaking ordeal to move a long supporting log into position, but thankfully, that didn’t prove necessary. The actual work itself is surprisingly sound for all the lack of detailed planning, and appears as if it will endure for many years to come.
Setting the new edge beams (Photo: Aly Zeiger).
Beginning to lay the new cross beams (Photo: Aly Zeiger).
View of finished trail from the top of the hill (Photo: Aly Zeiger).
Trail improvements from above (Photo: Aly Zeiger).
This job is typical of the work of the homestead, and illustrates why I love our life so much. It involved a lot of hard work; some of it downright dangerous, but the three of us worked on this together. Everyone contributed, everyone pulled their weight, and everyone benefits from a job well done. That’s the way life ought to be!