The Drunken Bear

This rusted metal was pulled from the river.  It is most likely a piece of a stove lost when a home went into the river.  We have placed it at the bottom of a large Douglas Fir.  The other plants are a Sword Fern and a couple of wild Huckleberry bushes. Steve brought a Hydrangea plant up and it seems to love the acidic soil...the source of the blue. There are very interesting stumps around the property.  Unfortunately we lost quite a few of them when we had the land cleared to build the cabin, but there are still some around.  The Huckleberry bushes thrive growing out of these stumps.  On the stump in the front, you will notice a notch on the right side of the stump.  That notch allowed a logger to put a board in the notch to stand on and cut the tree at a higher level. The early morning sun filtering through the trees makes for a very peaceful setting. A Douglas Fir seedling makes an interesting shadow. T...

After four inspections, we have finally passed our electrical inspection.  The first inspection uncovered a short list of things we had to change.  One of those things was the grounding rod.  As has been stated before, the cabin is located on river rock and whenever you try to drive anything into the soil, you will most likely hit one of those rocks.  A grounding rod is 8 feet in length, so naturally, we knew we would never be able to sink it the required length.  We had heard about another process that required the driving of two 4 foot rods and connecting them with the wire. Apparently, this procedure is no longer approved.  Luckily there is another process where you can put a plate in the ground and run the cable to it.  Unfortunately, the inspector did not tell us we needed two plates with the wire connecting the two...so inspection number two failed.   It was off to an electrical store to get another plate.  When the...

...for berries!  This might have been a cold summer, but the berry bushes have been covered in fruit.  We have been eating the wild huckleberries for quite some time...using them in pancakes and atop our bagels...as well as just picking them and popping the fruit into our mouths.  The small wild blackberries have also produced quite a crop and are very tasty.  Drop a few in your pancake batter and you have a sumptuous breakfast. A little cream cheese and wild huckleberries Notice the small size of the wild blackberries

People, including me, are always building these very neat and balanced rock sculptures on the beach (rocks) at the edge of the river in front of The Drunken Bear. Well, I had to do some balancing on these too...the table was not entirely flat.  I thought they looked kind of fun...especially when it is the $9.00 a foot Pan Abode logs.  We used some of these logs to form the base of the wood shed we are building.  These were left over pieces...and soon to be fire fodder, so I thought I would give them their last hooray!

It is amazing to me all the little details that have to be completed when working on a house that go totally unnoticed, but are necessary and take a long time to accomplish.  We can spend a whole weekend doing these little detailed items and if someone were to come by, they would not be able to tell that we worked at all...unless we pointed it out. A recent weekend was spent doing a few of these detailed projects. Just working on the windows involved various steps.  First, there was the flashing required around the windows to keep water from getting in. In this picture, the flashing is the silver material  surrounding the window. We ran out of the silver flashing and when we went to purchase more, we got a different material.  The second type of material was much easier to handle, but when we started to add the trim, we discovered that the new flashing was a little too wide and the material had to be cut after the trim was added.  And when yo...

All of these photos of clouds were taken from the banks of  The Drunken Bear over the 4th of July weekend this year.

Over the 4th of July weekend, our friends Bob Gove and Doug Fisher came up to join us at The Drunken Bear.  Our neighbor, Bob Sheldon had two other friends as house guests, Mike Caputi and Jim Mahan. We all got together around the campfire and shared stories and laughs. L to R:  Our neighbor and friend, Bob Sheldon,  with Jim Mahan and Doug Fisher twirling sparklers. Looking back at the cabin from the campfire.  The vine maple looks great with up-lighting and the strings of white Christmas lights help us stumble...I mean, walk back to the cabin in the dark. A roaring campfire keeps us all warm and toasty. In the daylight you can see the canopy over the  campfire pit is made up of some very tall trees. The canopy is made up of Western Red Cedar, Douglas Fir  (the largest trees in each picture), Vine Maples, and Hemlock The new growth on the hemlock is a nice lime green color.

Much has been happening at The Drunken Bear since the last posting. Our friends, Joe Radoslovich, Robert Wisdom and Mike U. came up to The Drunken Bear for a work weekend and we were happy to have them!  Joe and Mike tackled the tedious and back breaking job of installing the soffit on the south side of the cabin.  Robert was busy with a paint brush painting the east side door and all the cedar window trim boards.  Steve was working on the plumbing, getting ready for the plumbing inspection. By the time I got off work and drove to The Drunken Bear on Saturday, all the help had returned to the city and Steve and I proceeded to work more on the plumbing. We also tackled cleaning up the property a little more...cutting back the ferns, collecting all the fallen branches from winter, weeding, etc.  The dutch door Robert painted showing the color  that will also be used on the window and door trim. (These two pictures were taken while raining...hence th...

Steve and I went to The Drunken Bear today to see any changes that have happened since the flooding in January.  We were struck by how much more light we now have coming from the east.  Not only is the neighbor's house missing, but so are many of the trees that were located around that house.  The river has moved further north from the wall, but the bend where the river turns is still going to be a problem unless something is done.  The riverbed in front of the cabin is littered with a huge tree; large pieces of concrete...most likely from the house that was taken by the river; and large boulders that had been moved during the flooding.  The view from our property has dramatically changed.  To view the mountain which I think is Merchant Peak, we had to go down to the riverbed and look up river...now we can see the peak from the property.  We hope something can be done so that this flooding and loss of homes can be stopped. Below are a couple of p...

  This was the neighbor's house before the flood.  This picture was taken on March 6, 2009.  They had already lost their gazebo and outdoor seating area and knew it would be just a matter of time before the house was taken.     Steps to the door are the only remains of the neighbor's home In January of this year, La Nina did her damage in the Pacific Northwest.  Rain was pouring down and the snow was melting...a deadly combination.  I knew the North Fork of the Skykomish River would be near flood stage and wanted to see what was happening at The Drunken Bear.  When I arrived at the property I immediately noticed a change...a neighbor's house was no longer there.  This house was located at the bend in the river just east of our cabin.  This neighbor had lost their patio and all of the land in front of their home last year.  The house was sitting on the bank of the river, but below it were some very huge bo...