Preserving Our Cabin!

Our family cabin in the mountains is a special and magical-seeming place, but like any building, it needs fairly continual maintenance.  Following my "grand slam" when I pitched into the Rio Grande River and tore my right shoulder apart, I have been unable to do much at the cabin for a couple of years.  This summer I can do physical work again so it was time to get in gear!

Happily this summer Suzie, James, Travis, Finn, and Audrey were all here and able to travel to the cabin with me (each family on a different day) so we could picnic, hike, and make a simple plan of just what things needed doing to benefit the cabin.  (Maggie very kindly stayed in Silverton to blanch and freeze the bags of beautiful green beans that came from the Moore family garden in Denver.  Yum!)

 Audrey and Grammie enjoying a snuggle on the special rock sitting bench.

Suzie displaying a special rock---no surprises there!

Thank you, Suz, for the pictures.  Apparently I was so excited to have family here to join me for a day at the cabin I completely forgot my camera and my phone!!  (So--no pictures from me of  the family.)

 This week my long-time friend Lois MacKenzie, a retired nurse and lady-of-many-trades, packed up her cat named Olive and her working gloves and traveled to the cabin with me for two days of brushing wood preservative on the outside of the cabin logs.                                                              

 Lois expertly cllimbed clear to the peak to brush preservative on the logs.  When she was way at the top my job was to park myself on the bottom of the ladder to weigh it down---being a ladder weight turned out to fit my talents well---there was no slippage!

She's still smiling!

As the sun slid away over the nearby mountains the temperature dropped to about 40 degrees so it was time to try the untested repair of the chimney for the little cast iron wood stove that is the heating-cooking system  inside the cabin.  

The smoke curled out of the shiny new smoke pipe safely inside the structure designed to keep the snow from scraping the entire chimney arrangement off the room!

Lois getting ready to climb up to preserve the upper logs near the bottom of the chimney.

Soon the inside of the cabin was warming while Lois made her bed with fresh sheets and I put our pot of chili on the wood stove to heat along with a tea-kettle with water for tea, hand washing, etc.

We had dinner by the light of an oil lamp, with time for visiting and listening to the rain that was hammering on the metal roof.  What a great place to be for overnight!!!

Olive, the cat, who was never around in the daylight to pose for a photo, found a nice little nest under the stairs behind some boxes, and slept away most of the days.  She seemed to enjoy a bit of nocturnal prowling in the dark but was very polite---she crunched her midnight snack rather quietly!

 Putting a fresh coat of stain on the door and oiling the door handle, made by Charlie from a chunk of Utah desert juniper, were also on the list.  This stepladder wobbles merrily---made exact work more fun!

We finished the east and south sides, which needed the preservative the most.  Sincere thanks to Lois for her fast and skilled help!!

I rather hate to publish this photo, but there are authors who claim that when people spend time at high altitudes, they run the risk of becoming strange!  Our cabin is over 11,000 feet high so that may be what happened to this three-generation group of family!!!!

However, this lovey little lady looks quite normal, don't you think?

Come to visit---we'll go to the cabin and find something to fix!!!

Riding the Casey Jones to Elk Park!!!

Slightly over a year since I posted last---I am wondering if anyone will even check this post!


On Monday, August 17th, I was invited to ride the Casey Jones rail car to Elk Park with NARCOA-certified driver, Kevin Baldwin, a very mechanical guy from Silverton.  NARCOA stands for North American Rail Car Operator's Association---a group which organizes and administers private individuals who drive what are known here as "pop cars" on the narrow gauge rail tracks.

Here is "Casey," waiting on the tracks for the passengers.  It was built to carry 11 people but seven of us really filled it up!  There is disagreement about the purpose of this vehicle:  some say it was used as an ambulance and ran up the little rail lines that carried people to and fro from the mines up the nearby valleys and some say it was to carry the mine bosses to town for lodge meetings!  According to The Rainbow Route, a rather definitive book about the railroads in San Juan County. it was actually used for both!

Looking at Casey from the front you can see a flat white area over the windshield with a little red sign on it.  That is the gas tank!  There is a gasline on the right (black) running down to the engine.
The engine is from a Cadillac car  which was built into this funny-looking conveyance, replacing the original engine.  The Casey appeared in the news the spring of 1915!!

Almost time to climb aboard!  Kevin, the driver, is at the rear, checking to make sure all is in place and everything is working.  He and another passenger had to prime the engine---they had to pour fuel into each piston chamber with a tiny oil can and little funnels!  It actually has an electric starter and it started merrily (and noisily) on the first try!

There were ten other rail cars in our parade, with Casey Jones leading the way.  Here we are, all turned around at the Y at Elk Park, ready to ride the rails back to Silverton.  It was a great way to spend a summer afternoon in the high country!!!