It’s a drizzly night outside here at Camp Edith and the wood stove is cranking out some serious heat! It’s difficult to regulate the temperature inside at times and it generally too hot inside most evenings. Nothing throwing the porch door open for a few minutes can’t help solve! Our answer to a thermostat. Wood heat is rather free so it doesn’t really matter. We have trucked wood in several times so far this fall to keep the camp heated. We supplemented it with some dead white blocks from a tree removal project from awhile back. It’s been a nice addition to our hardwood supply once we split and dried it some. Most recently we brought in some large dry red elm chunks that hold the fire well throughout the day and night. The bark less red elm is burn ready as soon as it’s cut. The ultimate farm to wood stove commodity that we ferret out on a regular basis. At the moment we are harvesting from beside a field at the farm called “ The Long Narrow Meadow “. It certainly lives up to its name! Sheltered by a steep ridge on one side it contains nice stands of dead elm that needs to be harvested.
We hadn’t planned on living here at Camp Edith this late in the season but it’s remained mild enough to do so mostly. Last week our pipes gently froze three nights in a row as the nighttime lows dipped down into the 20’s after midnight. But they thawed each day and we survived the minor inconvenience. But with the temperatures that are coming next week it is definitely time to close up the camp and move to the farm. So this is our final night here for the season. Tomorrow we will begin the move to the farm where Zane will occupy the unfinished cabin and I will stay in the Airstream for awhile. We just pulled it out of the warehouse recently. I was shocked to discover that mice had gotten inside and had made a mess of things! They had tore up napkins and paper towels plus dragged in a bunch of hickory nuts. There are numerous droppings to clean up as well. So far I have spotted no major damage for the moment. Plus I haven’t smelled any mouse pee. They sure can wreak havoc in a place! I have kept a bucket trap in the warehouse for months and it has eliminated a fair number of mice. A recent check of the freshly baited trap yielded 8 mice in two days. I set a trap inside the Airstream but it hasn’t been tampered with or caught anything. That’s good as maybe the resident mice were all caught in the bucket trap before the Airstream left the warehouse. It time for a good cleaning at any rate before moving in .
Mice have also been busy wreaking havoc in the farm cabin. A recent addition of mouse traps only yielded one casualty. The traps were stripped clean by resourceful mice reminiscent of Mr. Jangles the mouse of my Canadian bush blog posts of 2022. I built a second bucket trap recently to use in the cabin and it just got two mice yesterday. We may be turning the tide in this war with our tiny rodent guests. Plus Lilly the cat has returned to the farm to patrol and hunt down the infiltrators. I wish the mice could be kept out but it’s nearly impossible to accomplish that. Hopefully winter will slow them down some at least. Maybe the rodent hunting weasel will return and pitch in. It doesn’t come around when the cat is there though. Nature sure can challenge us!
Moving out and closing up camp will keep us occupied all day tomorrow. The water pump and intake line pipe to the lake must be drained.The remaining pipes and the water heater must be drained down also.That takes time.
There’s food and clothes to move as well. Plenty of things that we haven’t even thought of yet. It’s going to be a big change but we will adjust quickly I hope. There’s a lot of unfinished work in the cabin and we have laid out a lean to addition to enlarge the cabin. The new space would be a bedroom for me. Zane has the post holes mostly dug and we hope to set the posts Wednesday.Then cement them in place. Phase one ahead of dropping temperatures. Zane is not working presently as his seasonal job ended recently. We will work together to bring the cabin project forward again. Today we removed the old wood stove and pipes . The new one is still boxed up and waiting to be installed shortly. There’s lots to do! Work tied up most of the past several months but I am fine with that. It has served a valuable purpose. No need to look back now .
As for other activities? I have been venturing into the Adirondacks to hike some and take time to attempt to right some wrongs of the summer. I won’t go into details but it was important for me to do this. Trying to be a better version of myself is a journey. But worth the effort. Writing new chapters where I am “Always The Same Book But Never The Same Page”. A moving song by the band “A Day To Remember”. It’s powerful lyrics never fail to remind me of the challenges of human interaction. But for the story to continue to be written I must survive and move forward. And always try to make the best decisions. I will fail at this. I may succeed at this. I will be hurt and sometimes hurt others unintentionally. I will wilt and wither at times yet live so that I may continue to grow. And some things I will never understand. About myself and about others. Life teaches us some hard lessons at times. And what have I learned? That I will never stop learning. Often the hard way. ✍️