After Land Flattening

We went up to camp for a day trip to see if the work had been completed on our clearing. Here is what the excavation turned out like:

This is looking towards the entrance of camp.

This is looking away from the entrance of camp. The tree behind and to the left of Tonia was supposed to be removed but wasn't.

Here is the new flat area in relation to the existing tent deck. This is the deck closest to the brook.

To the right of the van the contractor made a dirt hill with all of the stumps. We only asked for rock on the circle and where the car is. The contractor put rock all the way in. We were considering grass for this area but I am thinking that is out of the question now.

This is the tree we had asked to be knocked over, it still stands. Where this tree is standing and the flat area behind is were we would like to put a picnic pavilion.

We are thinking about where to put the fire ring. my plan was to put it right in the middle of the clearing. Charles is questioning that now because the whole thing looks like a drive way.

We ended up taking down that tall tree at the end of our new Clearing...(Driveway) We left a tall stump and texted the contractor so hopefully he will come out and remove that one. As I mentioned above that is were we would like at 16 by 20 picnic pavilion to go.

Here is the plans for the Pavilion

http://timberframehq.com/16x24-timber-frame-plan/

And a photo

I would like to add some decorative rock around the bottoms of the posts. I would also want a couple counter tops to make it more like an outdoor kitchen and some cabinets to store some more of our cooking supplies. The grill would also be located in here as well as 2 picnic tables. We are thinking of a metal roof. This is not a project we would undertake this summer, perhaps next summer.

Charles is talking about a 55 gallon drum for water in a sink and having it up in the rafters and gravity fed. We would have to invest in a pump and pump the water up from the stream. I was also thinking about a water collection system for the roof.

We also need to sort out our generator problem because it fell off the trailer and is not working at the moment. It is in the shop with three weeks out repair time. At this time we still have not finished the interior walls of the outhouse because the generator has not been working.

The contractor also made a gentile slope up to the outhouse/shed from the clearing area. I would like to line the path with rocks and possibly bring up a couple bags of rocks to make a rock path up to the outhouse. I am thinking we could line it with solar lights for those late night trips from tent to outhouse.

I truly do think that new hill with the extra dirt and stumps needs some perennial or annual flowers on it. That would be a fun project to do with the girls.

Magical Mermaids and Mushrooms

On another Sunday picnic up at camp, we decided to go on a mushroom photo hunt. We also went swimming and spotted a mermaid. What a magical day at camp.

Upon looking this up we found that this is not actually a fungi. It's a Ghost flower, or more specifically Monotropa uniflora.

more information on this interesting plant can be found here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotropa_uniflora

I've enlarged our favorite finds and photographs:

We looked for Smurfette; no luck sadly....

nasty

No Papa Smurf here....

Here is our Mermaid.

Not a mermaid.

WOW!!! her tail must be super strong!

Daddy splashed our mermaid...

Maybe she is contemplating life, I don't know.

Big waterfall turned into small side waterfall, and now the big one is just an ugly tree in the water. now I'm happy we don't have a downed tree.

4th of July Bonfire!

After all that hard work of clearing our site yesterday and this afternoon. It is time for a little R and R with a bonfire. I think Roxy is happy to be out of the neighborhood and out in the wild where there are no fireworks.

Charles notches out big trees for the base of our fire. I'm beginning to second think our wisdom at this point.

Then we add some small stuff.

Then some medium stuff.

I'm sitting back seriously wondering about our wisdom and taking small comfort that there is a big water puddle near by.

Next we added kindling to a pallet and shoved it under the log frame.

After lighting it of course....

Here is goes..... I'm about hyperventilating at this point...

I can't remember how many times I asked if that green brush pile would be ok.

ohhhhh but how pretty a fire it was!!!!

About that green pile of bushes next to the fire.....

once that fire was super hot we tried to burn that pile and none of it would burn because it was too green. We ended up having to move it a second time the next day! Katie and I were not happy campers that we could not just have burned it.

This is also the camping trip that my mattress deflated in the night and I slept on a wood floor... not fun.

This is now on my wish list:

https://www.amazon.com/KingCamp-Military-Aircraft-Anodized-Included/dp/B01MRXAI0Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501358251&sr=8-1&keywords=camp+cot+kingcamp

Clearning a camping space

We have our fire ring right where we drive in and on the side of the cull-de-sac. Not the best place as everyone driving down to the road can see our camp and all that we do. Not that we are doing anything to extraordinarily exciting besides camping, but a little more private area would be nice. We have decided that the flat area at the end of the circle (a little further in)  would be a good area to clear out and make a site for camping. currently it has many tall trees with very large canopy's that do not let any light in. It stays very wet and the bugs enjoy it a little too much. We have had a very wet summer so the bugs seem to be having a complete field day out there. There is always a silver lining right? Little T is doing a great job counting with one to one correspondence pointing to each new welt and counting them. My two girls are super sweet and the bugs certainly like them, poor things! Here are some pictures of us clearing the way for our new camp site. We did this during our 4th of July weekend camping trip.

Katie dragging branches out of the clearing area to the cul-de-sac. We plan to have a huge bonfire.

Tracey pointed and Charles wielded the chain saw and the trees fell. we began to see patches of light on the forest floor.

The forest floor was full with felled branches.

In the background you can see our standing room tent on the tent deck.

Most of the branches have been removed and we had to ask ourselves, how did we miss that one?!?

Our super nice neighbors over on #2 helped us move some of the big logs with their toys. You can barely see it in the background.

Next year's small firewood

Let there be light!

the bumpy terrain is filled with tree stumps and old decaying mounds of tree stumps that just look like dirt hills. We picked up a rock on one of them and were not sure it was an old stump or an ant hill! You can see the out house in the distance.

Relatively flat area looks good for a picnic pavilion. on the left is a steep slope down to the brook. Stairs would be nice one day.