Devin's Dream Blog

Oct ’09 — That boy CRAZY!

devinsdream — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:32:49 +0000

If you have been following this story, you will know that we have been doing things that may be considered “unusual” by most people (at least here in the NYC area…). Unusual, but not reckless. Well……..

We discovered a trail in September that really got us interested. As you know, our property is remote with no road access. We park on our neighbor’s property and hike close to 1 mile over her land to get to our spot. We actually love doing that; it gives us a feeling of solitude and wilderness without being totally out of range in case of some sort of emergency. However, we are always on the lookout for a way to accomplish a direct way to get our vehicle onto Four Corners.

The trail we found in September leads DIRECTLY from the dirt road we normally take to our northeast property line! The first half (about 1 mile or so) of the trail is a drivable dirt road. The second half is an ATV trail. I checked it out in September and decided that, although it is rough, I could get a vehicle down it. There was one little rough spot that had me a little nervous…..

We will get back to the trail a little later….

We went up on a Tuesday, knowing that Tuesday night and Wednesday would be a complete washout with about 1 inch of rain coming. Personally, I was looking forward to the rain. I had been burning on afterburners for about 8 weeks and was welcoming a couple of lazy days to catch my breath. Ashley was looking forward to relaxing, but was not thrilled about camping in the rain. Understandable. So, I determined to make the campsite as comfortable as possible in order for us BOTH to enjoy the down time.

Hilbilly Hilton

I set tarps up over the cooking area and also the entrance to the cabin. The cabin tarp also kept the rain off of the fire, so we were able to keep that going with no problem. It ended up quite comfortable and cozy. I brought my Bible and caught up on some much needed reading — good for the soul! The tarp setup was very useful because we got rain on and off for several days.

Tuesday night we went to bed about 8:30PM and got up at 10:30 AM. I cannot recall the last time THAT happened!

If one word can be used to describe this visit to 4C’s, it would be “LAZY”. Yaaaawwwwwnnnnnn……..

Back to the trail…..

We drove in on Tuesday afternoon full of excitement and expectation. FINALLY! A road to Four Corners! How cool is that?? I was actually planning on taking our GMC Jimmy because it has better tires than the explorer, and is a bit smaller. Unfortunately, the Jimmy is not running right, so we decided to take the Explorer after all. So now I am a little nervous. It has highway tires, lower clearance, and wider wheelbase than I had been planning for. I brought along a good strong rope, and a heavy duty hand winch that I used when I was a tree guy. We would use the winch to pull over big trees. I had these available so we could (hopefully) pull ourselves out in case we got stuck.

The first half of the road in was fine, no problem. As we got deeper into the woods, the road got narrower, rougher, steeper. It gradually changed from a road to a trail. Occasionally, we would hear a rock scrape the bottom of the vehicle. We went through a couple of muddy sections, but emerged and continued. In my mind, I am realizing that I am crossing over that line from “unusual” to “reckless”.

The trail is now too narrow to even think about turning around. We are committed. I slowly pick my way along, avoiding the higher rocks sticking up. We come to a birch tree laying across the trail. Ash says, “what are you going to do? Are you going to drive over…”, before she could finish her sentence, we were over it and on our way….

We approach that worrisome rough spot. There are large rocks, and it is torn up from the ATVs. My worry is that we will get hung up in one of the ruts, or stuck on a large rock. I carefully pick my way through…………..DONE! We made it!

A little further along, we are going downhill. I say to Ash, “man, this is STEEP!”

Parked on 4cs

Before we know it, we are PARKED ON OUR OWN PROPERTY!!!!!

Although thrilling, I was now very concerned about getting OUT. The trail in was mostly down hill. Heavy rain was coming. We are now looking at trying to go UPHILL, very steep, rocky, rough, highway tires, not the best clearance, wet, mud, WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN US INTO????????????????

I wanted to just turn around and immediately get out. But, we had all of that rain coming and needed to set up camp. If I did get stuck trying to get out, our camp would not be set up, we would be miserable, AND the explorer would be stuck, possibly for days. We decided to chill til the rain stopped and deal with the trail in a couple of days.

Friday morning, we got up early (8:30 AM haha), determined to DRIVE THAT FORD OUT OF THE WOODS. The ground was still wet, but not completely soaked anymore. On our way…..

Drive for a while, no problem. Then, that STEEP section. I had been worrying about the steep section, and the rough section. I knew that if we could get past these two spots, we would be golden.

We were proceeding slowly, trying not to beat the thing to death on the rocks. I had to speed up to make it up that steep hill. Got about halfway…….stopped, with wheels spinning. Uh oh. Backed part way down the hill and tried again. Didn’t even get to the same point. UH OH. At least I have my rope and winch. I tell Ash, “we are going to back all the way down the hill, get good speed, and give it one more shot. Otherwise, we will be winching this sucker up the hill…”

I back it up to a level spot. Drive over some leaves, trying to get as much mud as possible out of my highway tires. Put it in low gear, swallow hard, hit the gas…..

Up the hill. Past the spin out spot……are we gonna make it???…..a little further……the tires begin to spin out……DO NOT LET OFF THE GAS……..they bite a bit more….we keep momentum……………..crest the hill!!!!!

One obstacle down, one to go.

muffler

When we approached that rough spot I stopped and got out. I wanted to pick a route through, because this spot was actually more treacherous than the steep hill. One of those ruts, or one of those rocks, could do serious damage to the underside of our vehicle. As I got out, I looked to my left and saw an entire exhaust system hanging in a tree. Not a good sign!

We got 3/4 of the way when the wheels spun out again. So close, yet so far! I got out, reassessed the situation, backed up a bit, minor adjustment……..hit the gas……………

WOOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!!!

We made it out unscathed!

I am buying an ATV today.

beaver pond

eggs and hash

our hills

the magnificent timber dog

The best time of the year….

devinsdream — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:16:52 +0000

Labor Day weekend is the best time of the year to go to Four Corners.

Except for winter time. And spring time. And autumn, of course. Oh, I don’t know….but Labor Day is AWESOME.

The wild blackberries are in season.

We took our dear friends, Pat and Preston with us this time. This was an R&R trip, no “work camps” scheduled this time. All of us were burnt out, and we were looking forward to just chillin’ at 4C’s.

So, we hiked around and got to know the property better, and picked a lot of berries. This is a funny photo because it looks like Ash is eating berries and Timber Dog also…

We made blackberry pancakes….now THAT is a real treat!

Preston is weird.

I also made a real nice tea using birch twigs and blackberries. It was very tasty. From now on, I am going to experiment with making teas using things that are in season at the time we are there.

We took the dogs to the beaver pond and played fetch. They decided that they wanted to act like beavers and fetch the largest sticks we could find…

There is a HUGE sugar maple on one of the four corners of the border. It has growths (called “galls”) growing on the trunk, and Ash thought they would make great climbing holds. Look closely, she is up the tree!

I did have one liiiiiitle project in mind……..

We have been collecting rainwater in between trips to serve as our drinking water. We have a 35 gallon container under a gutter I made off of the roof. Every time it rains, new water flushes into the container, so it is always fresh. This arrangement has been working fine, but we would really love to have a more permanent and reliable source of water.

I had located a nice little spring bubbling out of the side of a hill near the main camp. Could I create a well using that spring? Would the well actually hold water? Can we keep critters out of the well? Will the well fill up quickly when we take water out? These are the questions I have been obsessing about for a few months….

Preston agreed to help me out. We dug several good sized rocks out of the area of the natural spring. This exposed a clay bottom! Perfect! We dug it out so that the entire bottom is clean, smooth clay. Watertight! Then we lined the sides with big rocks and filled in the gaps with dirt/mud to seal out access for the critters. I ripped down five boards from an aspen tree and made a frame that would support a tarp to cover the new well. The entire project only took a few hours, and now we have a well! Awesome!!

How gorgeous is this photo?

Work Camp

devinsdream — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:12:31 +0000

July 4 weekend was a work camp.

The definition of “work camp” differs according to who you ask.

MY definition of a work camp is a weekend when friends come together, at a camp, with the goal of working together to accomplish a specific goal.

Certain girls may feel that a work camp involves being ordered around by a particular “camp Nazi” who runs the camp like a brutal job site. Personally, I have no idea what they are talking about…..

Anyway, Chance, Becky, Laurel, Tyler, and Paul were all nice enough to come up to help us with the first stage of clearing the site for the main cabin. The idea was to clear the smaller trees out of the way so that the large trees that will be used for the cabin can be cut down with no obstructions.

This is a nice photo of Ash. She took all of the photos on this trip, so we don’t have any of her…this is at the beach a few weeks ago…but I digress…..

The site is located on the top of a hill on the property. The hill falls off rather sharply in all directions. In the winter, when there were no leaves on the trees, we noticed that the elevation provides an incredible view of mountains all around….the only problem is that the trees block the view during the growing season.

As we cleared, we were able to see the view begin to emerge. THAT was a wonderful feeling. A huge morale booster! We are leaving all of the white birch trees, which creates a beautiful effect of looking through the tree trunks to the view beyond.

We cleared about one half acre, which exposed the beginnings of the view. You can’t really see the beauty of it yet in photos, but keep posted…something cool may happen in October!

Chance, Paul, and I did the chain saw work. Tyler and the girls hauled the brush and piled it on the fires. There was a LOT of brush, and BIG fires! The flames were at least twenty feet high! It was really a perfect weekend to do this because we got rain showers on and off the entire time. There was no danger of losing control of the two fires because everything was wet all around.

Tyler is the son of a good friend of mine. He is a senior in high school, and had never done this type of back country camping before. He was CHOMPING at the bit to come with us, had all of his gear ready, and got right into it. He worked tirelessly, and earned the nickname “Diesel”. He will be back as we continue to clear the main cabin site.

The big joke on this trip was “Fifty Feet!” Evidently, as we were clearing, I would say, “another fifty feet and we will see the view!” According to some people, this went on all day long, over and over. I only recall saying it one time, right at the end….

“Commandos”

devinsdream — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:36:06 +0000

Here is post #1 from our July 4 trip….more to come!

I got no sleep the night before, and just wanted to get into the woods.

I was subsequently informed that I get too intense and need to bring it back a few notches.

Memorial Day ’09

devinsdream — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:35:04 +0000

We had a WICKED AWESOME trip this time. I do not have photos yet, but I am trying to get the blog posts up quickly from now on. Pics will be online soon….

We decided to try something new on this excursion to Four Corners…..

We left at 5:00 PM and drove up at night. After stopping for dinner on the way, we ended up at our parking area at 1:00 AM. Rather than hike thru the woods at that hour and try to set up camp, we just slept in the back of the Explorer. The stars were INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!! Woke up at 7:30 AM already there and ready to roll! We liked that a lot, will probably travel like that most of the time….just try to get an earlier start from Jerz LOL.

This trip was not a work trip. We had big plans for FAMILY this time, and were very excited about it. My step brother, Chris, was going to debut his new RV trailer with a trip to the North Country, and my mom and Uncle Don were also coming up. Uncle Don (UD) loves the outdoors too, and has been dying to see the project.

Everybody made it up just fine. There was one little problem with the GPS coordinates, tho. Our place is very remote. I had given Chris and UD GPS coordinates to locate the dirt road that leads to our parking area. I double checked them on the way in to make sure that they were exactly right. Everything cheked out perfectly.

However, unbeknownst to us, both of their GPS units are based on different formats, so the numbers didn’t match. So, they both had trouble locating the dirt road after all. And Chris was pulling a 25′ trailer. Nice, eh?

Everyone eventually made it in with no major catastrophes.

We spent the weekend chillin’ and explorin’ with the family. It was really great having everyone there. This is one of the reasons why we started this adventure….to have a place to enjoy with family. Mom was thrilled because her favorite flowers in the world, the lady slippers, were in bloom. UD was loving the log cabin prototype and campsite, and Chris’ kids had a great time frog hunting, finding the perfect walking sticks, keeping the campfire going, and all the stuff that make the woods fun.

Timber had his best friend, Angus, with him this time. He has never had an overnight guest before. They ran themselves RAGGED!

This used to be a white dog

Next trip will be July 4 weekend. We will begin cutting the trees for the MAIN CABIN! Stay tuned!

Hey! This blog is now on Twitter! You can get instant info and updates by following us here!!

October (Part 2!)

devinsdream — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:08:29 +0000

I was shooting a band playing a gig this past Saturday night. I was in a rush and grabbed a couple of cards for the camera on the way out.

Now, I have two habits regarding those cards. One, I always download the images as soon as possible after a shoot. Two, I always check to see what is on the card before I reformat it.

Here is where it all comes together…..

I changed cards while shooting the gig and invoked rule #2. Lo and behold, THE MISSING OCTOBER PHOTOS!

Here are some of the shots I was lamenting about:

Have you ever seen a porcupine up in a tree? Ashley spotted this guy!

porcupine-1

porcupine-2

Something about the light patterns caught my eye with these birches.

birches

One of my favorites from the week.

birches-2 www.devinphoto.com

Beautiful autumn beech trees.

beeches www.devinphoto.com

My two favorite people!

ash-timber www.devinphoto.com

October 2008

devinsdream — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:22:34 +0000

Regarding the October trip…..I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first??

What’s that? The bad news first? OK…..

Devin Kirschner, the professional photographer, lost the photos of the trip. Nice, eh?

Fortunately, Ash took some shots with the cheapo camera, so we have something to show for the trip!

The good news is that we spent a full week in beautiful weather with our new dog Timber.

timber-10-08

We knew that it would not be long before a puppy made his way onto the property. Ever since we got Timber in August, we had been dying to bring him to Four Corners. He got out of the car like a kangaroo on springs! He loved it!!!

And what a pleasure he was. He instinctively stayed on the trail and within sight of us. He could follow his scent to backtrack, never got lost, and made a great thing in our lives even better!

This was a fun trip. We got a lot of things accomplished on the little cabin, enjoyed the beautiful weather, and had a real nice time. The tractor came in REAL handy, because we brought in the remainder of the wood to finish the roof. (Remember last year I carried it in on my back??)

steps

We made a nice set of steps up to the door.

Timber was not big enough to climb them very well. At least HE thought he was too small. We had him going up and down them (most of the time) by the end of the week.

dutch-oven

I made a chicken in the dutch oven. Mixed up beans and all sorts of veggies, let it sit in the coals all day, and had a DELICIOUS meal that night! Timber liked it too.

I came up with a technique of ripping boards from logs to make siding. I cut the tree so that it does not completely fall down. It leans into another tree. Then, I can simply run the chainsaw down the trunk and cut it into boards. It is really easy! Then, I used the boards to make a ladder and begin siding the open gable ends. It worked great. It was really nice to begin closing up the open sides. We are getting REAL close to finishing this prototype log cabin and beginning on the bigger, main cabin.

siding

What would a trip to four corners be without a few hiccups, tho? First, the trailer was showing signs of weakness by the time we arrived. It was looking like we would be leaving the tractor up there and bringing the trailer home empty so I could reinforce it. But then, another problem developed:

rack

You are looking at the back of my tractor. Problem is, you SHOULD be looking at the back of the tractor with a RACK on it! See those vertical round tubes? The rack broke off of them halfway between the cabin and the car. That rack is very important because I need the weight of a load on it to give traction to the back tires. We had a NIGHTMARE trip out of the camp without that rack. We got stuck in the mud constantly. Fortunately, I have an electric winch on the front, but a trip that normally takes about 30 minutes took THREE HOURS. Back to the drawing board, I guess!