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April 14-16, 2023: Work Weekend at Slaney's Cabin (106 Photos)
Friday lunchtime Mark French, Michael Stroh and I headed out over the highway to Central Newfoundland to do some work on a beautiful backwoods camp recently purchased by good buddy Terry Slaney.
The current cabin was built in 2014 and is completely finished outside, and about 1/4ish of the way finished inside. The camp needs insulation, electrical, wall finishes, cabinets, plumbing and flooring, so we are going to get some of that started this weekend.
French's trailer was jammed full of Project Foreman, his Argo Avenger 8x8 (fitting with inches to spare), and a huge load of gear, food, tools and equipment needed to get some work done on the camp while Slaney is away working.
The main focus for this weekend is to get the electrical finished. This will include sheeting up the utility room with plywood, installing a generator connection, disconnect and breaker panel, plus finishing all wiring and mounting devices including lights inside & out, switches and electrical outlets so we can let the lightning flow!
Spring thaw is in full swing which meant there was a lot of open water on the marsh, quite a bit of snow in the woods peppered with deep mud, and some tangly shoreline riding for the Argo which wouldn't fit up the bike path on shore.
The first load in was quite heavy with generator, power tools and electrical supplies, both Project Foreman and Mark's Argo certainly worked hard for this trip.
With the first lot unloaded at camp, we hooked Terry's walking beam trailer to Project Foreman and headed back out to the truck for the rest of the gear.
Some of the trail was still ice covered which got more and more tangly with each trip! As it broke up the ride got a little spicy especially with a heavy trailer in tow!
The 2nd load was also heavy and quite bulky with the rest of our supplies, hand tools and gear bags.
Five sheets of 1/2" plywood and a steel burn barrel were loaded aboard Terry's heavy duty walking beam trailer, my storage box was full, and I strapped 2 cases of water to the front rack for extra traction on the front end.
As we were getting ready to head back in we discovered a flat tire on Mark's Argo.
We found a small puncture hole in the sidewall, so we threw in a plug which will do the job just fine for this trip, especially in a low pressure bias ply ATV tire.
The trip back in was uneventful. Both machines certainly worked for it this trip, the loads were once again heavy which really put Project Foreman to work dragging the trailer. The High Lifter front diff locker certainly earned its keep in the bog and deep snow on the wooded section hauling this in.
We never even got stuck so we could try out my new Erikson kinetic energy recovery rope!
Bit of a traffic jam of gear, tools and grub getting it all dropped off and indoors. Next we sorted personal gear in one room, tools in another and equipment to install laid out in the main area for easy access.
While French & Stroh settled into electrical work & setting up the outdoor burn barrel, I set about getting supper started as it was going for 7pm. On the menu was fish stew, the same recipe French and I enjoyed earlier the winter in his ice fishing shelter.
First up was frying and rendering out some homemade bacon trimmings.
Stroh's priceless expression after reading the MSDS sheet for whatever used to be in that barrel!
Terry's cabin came equipped with a venerable Acorn Ranger woodstove, which can take one massive load of wood. We had one of these at our old scout camp on Dog Pond, Foxtrap and they can certainly throw out the heat!
With bacon rendered, and a lot of the grease removed, I threw in the onions to caramelize.
By now the Acorn Ranger was good and hot so I took the Fish Stew off the Coleman stove, added water & potato, and set to simmer while I gave the boys a hand with the utility room work.
When the potato cooked, in went a few ponds of cod fillet.
Insulation finished, and inside corner boards installed to catch the ends of plywood.
By now our very aromatic fish stew had percolated enough and it was time to eat!
A meal fit for royalty, it was well appreciated after a long day driving, riding, hauling in gear and renovation work!
Seconds? Thirds? Yes please!
Our plan was to get one sheet of plywood up for now then start mounting the main disconnect & breaker panel. Meanwhile Stroh did a fantastic job of metering out the existing wiring, deciphering it, fixing it and mounting fixtures in the finished section of the cabin (living room & two bedrooms).
The system is wired to run on a 110v capable generator, but it is future proofed and will be capable of being switched over and run on 240v from a larger generator if ever necessary in the future.
We had a late night Friday night, finally hitting the bunk at 2am after a tremendous start to our weekend projects.
Saturday morning brought strong winds but fairly mild spring temperatures to Central NL.
While cooking breakfast, I got Slaney's temporary kitchen organized and added some new basic cooking utensils for the new shack!
Breakfast today saw the Acorn Ranger back at work frying up my homemade bacon, eggs, and the small amount of leftover fish stew from last night.
While I cooked, the boys continued on with our electrical project in between loading up the outdoor burn barrel which was cooking away out front.
Some tea & coffee finished out this awesome breakfast.
Needless to say there was quite a lop on the water out there today!
French's Husqvarna top handle chainsaw came in handy for cutting up already fallen brush to fit safely in the burn barrel.
The old log camp also came with the property, it slipped off its foundation years ago which is unfortunate as it's still in reasonably great shape overall.
My first project after domestic duties were complete was outdoor electrical including a man door light, rear flood and an outdoor receptacle.
I popped apart the siding and installed a combination electrical box/J-block securely attaching it and sealing properly with tuck tape to the ty-veck. My Milwaukee grinder made short work of creating the hole without damaging the ty-veck.
My fancy siding tool zipped all the pieces back together like it was never taken apart!
Meanwhile French was busy working on the generator feed. This wet location box provides a weather tight splice for the 10gauge cab tire generator cord to the disconnect feed. This will make replacing the cord much easier should it ever become damaged or weathered.
With those projects complete, I headed to the attic to haul in some new feeds for the main interior lights, outdoor floods and kitchen receptacles.
Stroh did a great job shoring up the front deck and finishing a temporary safety railing all the way around.
Saturday golden hour was quite spectacular!
Stroh finished off the connections for interior lights (bottom) and exterior floods (top) right as it got dark, just in the nick of time!
Mark did a fantastic, beautiful job tying in the breaker panel. Clean, tidy and well organized.
We originally planned to head back to town Saturday evening, however we opted to stay one more night so we could check everything off our to do list that we aimed to get done this weekend.
So lunch became supper, a couple packs of homemade Jalapeño Cheddar moose sausages, a couple packs of Sidekicks noodles, and potato salad.
While I prepped supper on my Coleman Hyper-flame, French grabbed some night time shots of our newly finished exterior lighting.
After supper we spent some time simply enjoying the burn barrel after a very long, hard day of work!
Sound up, this slow-mo sounds crazy!
Temporary lighting removed and permanent lighting running great!
No problem going to the woodshed at night now!
Burning the late night oil once again, French and I finished out sheeting on the utility room outside walls including cutting out around the window.
Once again, at 2am we called it a night and hit the bunk.
Sunday morning breakfast was basically leftovers, a hearty meal of eggs, beans, tea and coffee before cleaning up and loading out to head home.
We aimed to make just one return trip as all of the equipment was now installed and food eaten. The only items going back out were all of our tools, generator and personal gear, which we made fit on the two machines with some creative packing.
Cabin all cleaned up. With the majority of the electrical work complete (just the bathroom remains, waiting on framing to be finished) Terry is in a great place to continue with insulation, vapour barrier and wall/ceiling finishes.
Warm weather over the weekend did a number on the trail as areas that were iced over were now deep bog holes. Once again the machines worked for it, but handled the task with relative ease and no drama.
Project Foreman is a little messy underneath, but unscathed after this adventure.
All in all this was another fantastic adventure. We got a lot of work done which will really put Terry ahead now on finishing out the camp. We had an awesome and interesting run in & out on the machines and enjoyed near perfect spring Newfoundland weather. We're already looking forward to the next trip in, and to see the final product once it's all complete. Stay tuned for updates!
Cheers, MIKE
Copyright © 2011 Michael Smith |
