Up North: A City Doc's Cure for the 9 to 5: A new season begins!

The Creek

This creek wraps itself around the 38 acres of lower camp and defines the border. Acres of hills, lowlands, a bluff, and a meadow. Up from the creek a bit the camp continues with 20 acres of high ridge leading to over 100 acres of deep pine forest, brooks, and marsh.All of it lies in the middle of a 1200 acre woods. Walk north and you're in 6 million Adirondack acres. Bring a camera, you might just see moose, bear, coyote or deer here. Cross the creek and you're in my mini-camp, with guest cabin and road access.

Friday, April 13, 2012

A new season begins!

Compared with last winter, when our last trip up was late December, this winter didn't stop us from enjoying the camp. As such, we got loads of stuff done and enjoyed winter, albeit a mild one, in the Adirondack foothills. Another fringe benefit of going up during winter was that we got to test out the heating, insulation, and discover problems with winter living. Flushing a toilet, rinsing a plate, heck..brushing your teeth. Not so easy when all the water's frozen and it's 20 degrees out. All the tools and lumber were either frozen to the ground or buried under snow.

Dad and I were up last weekend and got plenty done. Wiring, kitchen cabinets, solar panels, and cleaning were done at the main camp. The guest camp saw little done in the last two months, especially since discovering that the propane heater couldn't compete with the wood stove at the main camp. Nevertheless, we did get a new utility pole placed at the entrance of the guest camp, had a 500ft trench dug, ran a line to the transformer, put up a meter post, and made it ready for inspection. With some luck, it will go off without a hitch and we'll have power in the next month.

Since kids, dad and I are headed north today and will meet a good friend and his family tomorrow, I'll end this post here. The following are a few photos of what's been done thus far. More to come!