Puckaway Motor Club

Tag: Jake (page 2 of 6)

Log: May 31 – June 2, 2019

June 3, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Friday

Hannah loves the extra room in the new truck.

Pulled in at 4:30 pm with Hannah and got right to work cleaning up the keep’s fridge so I could get it turned on for the year. The goal this weekend is to get everything cleaned and prepped so we can all come up next week for June Dairy Days.

Once the fridge was ready, I unloaded the truck and started a project I’ve been waiting to work on since Christmas. Lyssa gave me a really cool carved owl statue for up here but it needs a few coats of lacquer before it can be left out in the elements. I brushed on the first coat and trained a fan on it to keep the bugs away while it dried.

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Log: April 28, 2019

April 30, 2019 / / 0 Comments

First family trip of the year! Lyssa, the boys, Hannah, and I made our way to Aunt Judy’s around 11:15. Hannah had to wait in the truck. Judy was happy to see Jake and Josh and couldn’t get over how much they’ve grown.

We ended up sitting next to Danny and Jan, who have a late breakfast there every Sunday. Jake inhaled an omelet and Josh gave his best try at a giant chocolate chip pancake, making it about halfway through. Felt good to be back; it’s been about six months.

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Log: Deer Camp 2018 (November 16 – 18)

November 20, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Friday

Ready to hunt!

Jake and I drove in around 4:00 pm and were the fourth vehicle here. Dad made it up around 12:30, Steve followed a half-hour later, and Sammy rolled in a little before 3:30. Temps are just below freezing but there’s no snow. I unloaded our gear into the keep and fired up the propane sunflower heater and two electric heaters while Jake ran to the big trailer to show Papa his new blaze-orange jacket. I also took a few minutes to install the storm windows.

We all hung out in the big trailer for the rest of the night. I showed the guys how to work the new Kodi box to stream all the movies and TV shows off of the PC in the keep. Even with all the new options available, we still ended up watching a bunch of Seinfeld. Dad started getting dinner ready and Steve kept busy trying to solo a bottle of Crown Royal Maple.

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Log: November 11, 2018

November 13, 2018 / / 1 Comment

Pulled in with Dad, Jake, Josh, and Hannah at 12:30. It had snowed last night but most of it already melted this morning. Temps were hovering just above freezing. We unloaded some of Dad’s stuff into the big trailer before moving to the pole barn and loading up the ATVs and a yard trailer with gear for the battlement.

This was the first time Dad got to see his new stand in person and he was effusive with appreciation. I gave him a hand stapling some camo netting to the outside of the plywood walls and he tried out his homebuilt risers for his collapsible chair. We also secured a tarp to the roof frame; using the metal roof panels will have to wait until next year.

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Log: October 13 and 14, 2018 (The Battlement Project)

October 19, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Saturday

‘Bout time Fall decided to show up.

Came up around 3:00 with the whole family and the ATV trailer in tow. It’s full of treated lumber destined for the marsh; this weekend, I shall rebuild the deer stand. With the scaffolding no longer viable, I looked up some other tower-based stand construction methods and settled on an option that uses a wooden deck mounted on cross-braced 4x4s with purpose-built compound-angle brackets. Here’s hoping I can actually get the thing put together by tomorrow night.

Hannah was happy to be back and got right to sprinting around the yard. I think I broke her by coming up last weekend without her; she’s been acting weird all week. The boys went straight for their Power Wheels and began exploring the edges of the yard, Lyssa started setting things up in the keep, and I got right to work putting together the deck platform.

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Log: September 30, 2018

September 30, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Arrived at noon with Hannah and the boys. Kind of a dreary day. Temps hovering around 50° and misty with intermittent sprinkles. Jake was ready to explore right away and Hannah hit the ground running, but Josh was fast asleep in the truck. I let him nap while I doused Jake with bug spray and started unloading. I also turned on the infrared heater in the keep so we’d have somewhere to warm up later.

Jake got out his Power Wheels ATV and black garden cart and started picking up branches for me. I set up a pair of sawhorses in the doorway of the pole barn and laid out the trim boards I brought up for finishing off the new shelves in the keep. I wanted to have them painted and ready at home, but the textured spray paint I bought turned out to be big on texture and not so big on even color coverage, so I had to finish spraying them up here. I took care of this right away to give them as much time to dry as possible.

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Log: September 9, 2018

September 11, 2018 / / 1 Comment

Rolled in with the whole family after a 10:30 Aunt Judy’s breakfast. The truck’s full of paneling, lumber, and shelves for the Keep Furnace Space Reclamation Project, the only thing on my to-do list for the day.

The boys made a beeline for the pole barn and their Power Wheels, but they needed to be charged up. They seemed equally happy to make use of their new work gloves by gathering all the big fallen branches throughout the yard from last month’s storms. They did a great job of it. Lyssa fed the birds for me while I started in on the keep renovations.

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Log: August 25, 2018

August 26, 2018 / / 1 Comment

Jake, Josh, Hannah and I pulled in with the pop-up camper in tow around 2:15. I was going to store it in Lynn and Carol’s pole barn, but Lynn is still in hospice and Carol just had a rummage sale so their building was full. After parking the pop-up behind our pole barn, the boys got out their Power Wheels and roamed the yard while Hannah chased them. I got the tires on the mower aired up and got to work taming the yard. We’re in for a lot of rain next week, so I wanted to get this done before the storms hit.

Much better.

The grass was taller than the cameras led me to believe. It’s really filling in nicely by my bird feeders and along the ruins of the wood shed. The trench lines are getting fainter, too. Once the boys’ batteries ran low, they decided to help me out by gathering fallen branches for the burnpit. This got cut short when poor Josh got stung by a hornet on his ankle. I checked him out and carried him into the keep where I set the boys up with a movie and got back to mowing.

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Log: July 6 – 8, 2018

July 13, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Friday

Rolled in at 6:30 with Lyssa, Jake, Josh, and Hannah. The boys both fell asleep on the way and were both finishing their Culvers when we got here. Hannah was glad to be back and for the break in the oppressive heat we’ve had for the last week. Once they were done eating, the boys made a beeline for the pole barn to hop on their Power Wheels and roam the grounds. They both liked that they could “help” me by running over the trench dirt to pack it down.

A perfect day for a Puckaway trip.

I had a bunch of new tech goodies in the back of the truck that I was itching to play with. I got two more 8-port Unifi PoE switches, one for the pole barn and one for the big trailer, and another wireless access point that I want to mount to the big trailer’s antenna mast. I also plan on relocating one of the current access points from outside the keep to inside the pole barn. We don’t have well and septic, but we do have mesh wifi and three-building gigabit Ethernet. Priorities! I adopted the new Unifi gear into the Controller and applied all the waiting firmware updates, then switched gears and set out to clean up the pole barn. After last month’s electrical project, it was in rough shape. I left tools and project mess everywhere since I was focused on trying to finish the wiring in time.

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Log: June 8 – 10, 2018

June 12, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Friday

Ready for action!

Drove up with the whole family and a fully loaded pickup truck at 3:30. We brought Josh’s Power Wheels UTV, and the only place it would fit was on top of the tonneau cover. The bed was full with our clothes, cooler, stuff for the boys, and the last big-ticket items I needed for my upcoming electrical project. We also had the boys’ new ATV helmets, which they couldn’t wait to put on. I took Josh’s UTV down from the truck and he and Jake went racing around the yard in their new gear. I unloaded my generator, a spool of 320 feet of underground cable, and a tote full of extension cords and stashed everything in the pole barn, then gave Lyssa a hand getting all our stuff into the keep.

We were taking rides with the real ATV when the Voights pulled in. This is Allison’s first time up. Gunner and Hannah immediately took turns chasing each other around the brick garden. The boys were happy to see Emmett and the three of them each grabbed their own Power Wheels and went off exploring the grounds. Red and Jenny took turns on baby duty while setting up the big trailer for themselves. I organized the pole barn for a bit while they settled in and Lyssa was getting things ready for dinner. We got the grill going around 5:45 and each family took turns on it. We ate on the deck; the weather is perfect for this time of year.

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