Claiming the land

Today we finally had our first weekend together as land owners with a break in the rain this morning. With ceremonial bolt cutters, we removed the chain across the driveway and drove on to our land. 

Today's work was to extend the "theoretically drive-able" section further into the property, in the general direction of our future well site. It was decided, through some trial and error, that - though passable - this is not yet a road for rear-wheel-drive light-weight pick-up trucks with racing tires in the rain.

Not deterred by our inability to test out our new road as we went, we pushed forward into the alder thicket. Tim felled his first tree with a chainsaw, and then many more up the trail widening our path to a drive-able width.

Tilly watched from her new tie-out line, not super impressed we were making her stand around in the rain and limiting her exploration, but entertained herself by digging a small well.

After felling all our trees, I limbed the alters and Tim started chopping them into 4' chunks with the chainsaw, before quickly realizing what we really needed was a proper woodshed to store all the newly cut wood.

With mule tape for lashing, Tim got busy creating a raised, fairly level platform for our logs and a frame for a future tarp roof.

We didn't quite break through to the proposed well-site before calling it a day as the rain and wind started to pick up, but we did clear the existing trail to the point where it needs to branch off for the well, plus framed in our beautifully rustic woodshed. All in all, a successful morning having fun working together on the homestead.

Our Home

Today, our property closed! We are now the proud new owners of just over 9 acres of trees across the street from our Honeymoon Point Farm, thanks to a lot of help from Mum and Dad particularly, as well as all our friends in the community, chiming in with support, suggestions, and information.

The property from Google Earth with an overlay of the site-map.

The previous owners went to great lengths to plan out where everything ought to be on the property, filing paperwork to make way for a future well and septic, and doing all the soil tests to match. They also allowed loggers to come and harvest the trees from the center of the property, making for dense new growth of alder thickets, nettles, and black berries. Lots and lots of blackberries. So many blackberries. 

Tim fighting through overgrown blackberries with the machete.

We've been spending our time waiting for the property to close doing some light exploration of the property and carving out some trails through the brush. Today, for the first time ever, I was able to walk to all four corners of the property and hardly had to crawl through deer tunnels through the blackberries at all. Another hour with the machete, and we'll have a pretty solid trail system to reach all four corners and some interesting spots in between. Next on the machete list is to create walk-able property lines for a future fence. 

Mum pretending to knock on the future site of our front door - current home of blackberries.

A fence around the perimeter would be nice for keeping Tilly from visiting all the neighbors, for bringing the goats up to clear black berries, and for some day having all our critters (plus guard geese and adorable ducks) up on our land, but first there are some more pressing issues for livability. 

Beautiful fall along the secondary driveway, just up hill from our future septic site.

Tim seems to think silly things like power, internet, water, and septic should be important. Oh, and a house, I suppose, to put that wiring and plumbing in. We've been doing our feasibility studies and have our plan roughed out - power needs to go in right away, then we'll dig our well (have to have electricity to run the well pump), the septic will go in (need power and water for septic). 

Tim + machete v. blackberries.

That gives me the next year and a half to learn to make proper architectural drawings and design us a house while we get the power, water, and septic in before it's time to apply for the permits and break ground pouring the foundation of our house. From then, we hope to have the house dried-in within a year, and another two years to be finished-enough (the carpenter's house is never finished, and if we are doing things ourselves, that makes us the carpenters, and plumbers, and electricians, and everything else). Our county gives a pretty tight "recommended timeline" of when they expect us to be at particular goals.

Dad checking out our trail-building work.

Over pre-Thanksgiving, we led a dusk-walk through the property for Brother Tim, Brother Daniel, Amanda (in flip flops), Maggie (in fashionable boots) and took everyone making it as a sign of our good work. Grandpa still needs a full tour, but I think he's waiting for us to get the path closer to lawn-mower ready. He's heard all our stories of camping and hiking trips first hand and uncensored and is probably skeptical of what we consider a "trail". But really - aside from the wetlands through the middle of a couple, some blackberries, nettles, and down trees - the trails are quite good! Joe, Mum and Dad all made it with no complaints filed.

Tim, at war with the overgrowth, bravely wielding his machete.

If we build our house two-stories tall with windows facing East, and if our neighbors decide to thin some trees across the road, we could have a pleasant ocean view from our hill, though either way we will have a pleasant view with our animals wandering the property and trees to climb and make into secret forts. It is wonderfully wild and perfect for endless exploration up on our 9 acres of dreams.

Heading down the driveway after a day of exploring and trail-blazing.

Cold Goats

(Ps. the last few posts, since Tim's birthday, have been posted a little out of order with some back-dating to get it all in there.)

Last week we had our first big wind storm of the season - the storm that knocks down all the lose trees and branches that in Juneau would have fallen months before. The first big wind on Whidbey is a bit like brushing your hair after having it in braids for a week - so much comes out that should have come bit by bit but instead saved up and came all at once. On South Whidbey nearly all the roads were obstructed by fallen trees, all the schools were closed for the week, and power was out for days all over. 

After being last on the repair list last fall, we assumed we would be out for another week. Some how, even with a giant tree across our road and clearly on the power lines, we kept power for all but the half-day it took for the county to cut up the tree and repair the lines after the storm was over. 

One tree is looking better after the wind than before. Remember back in August when I swore to avenge my tree friends against the evil tyrant of invasive ivy? The big tree at the top of the hill is looking rather ivy-free after my hard work of removing a foot-wide swath of two-inch-thick ivy vines. I feel this impressive feat deserves a little gloating. 

Back in the bus, Tim and Tilly have decided they are not going to be cold any more. I left Tim and Tilly home alone for a few hours and came back to the small bus filled with enough presto logs for the rest of the year. It is nice to be warm, particularly as the frost has begun to creep across the grass in early morning. When I wake up in the night after the fire has gone out, I tuck Tilly in with a blanket to get some cozy sleep. Now that Joe and Roni and Dad and Mum have gone, Grandpa is back to only heating his bedroom. November is a chilly, dark time of year. 

Look who's home! Tonight, two pairs of big floppy ears were separated from their herd, led through a pack of energetic dogs, jumped in the back of the truck and off we went. Stopping at the feed store for a bale of straw on the way home, a crowd gathered around the truck to coo at and snuggle the goats. Tilly was rather jealous. It's good to have out farm reunited and hopefully now growing. For the first 100 days of their pregnancies, we are supposed to try not to fatten them up too much. That's a hard one when they are so adorable and eager for goodies, and everyone gets fat over the holidays! What's Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years without a few yams thrown over the railings?

It is getting dark at 4:30p these days it seems.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

87 Things We Love About Grandpa, Dad, Ed

Kind, Generous, Adventurous, Smart, Funny, Brave, Helpful, Outdoorsy, Resilient, Wise, Noble, Strong

His recent return to the world of competitive bridge has had just as big an impact as his earlier decades of play ⚫ He's an accomplished teacher of bridge, even to the seemingly unteachable ⚫ His courage to (try) teaching me to drive in the old VW bug - complete with stick shift and unannounced ditch diving ⚫ He went on to teach Ukrainian immigrants with English as a very recent second language how to drive ⚫ Snow berms did not slow him from detouring through the meadow to pass a smug neighbor stuck in snow ⚫ He is the fastest stair-climber on Whidbey island in his age group ⚫ He can lift his end of a couch, chair, dresser, Christmas tree, or goat ⚫ Imagine my shock when he beat me in a running race when I was the fastest runner in my 5th grade class! ⚫ Ed programmed computers in Machine Language before high level languages or even assembly was invented! Right on the Iron as they say ⚫ He was one of the world’s first computer programmers, back when they were as big as commercial refrigerators ⚫ His new iPad was mastered in moments - or at least months ⚫ Such an early adopter of the new and interesting - the first time I ever heard of a Kindle was when i opened my birthday gift from him ⚫ Brave to be one of the first people in the country to get radial keratotomy eye surgery ⚫ You never know when another secret talent will emerge from him - like making stereo cabinets ⚫ Excellent Dresser Builder ⚫ Birdhouse Builder Extraordinaire! ⚫ Famed inventor of the one and only magnificent Pink Furry Chair ⚫ Developer and distributor of custom add-on cord winders for vacuums ⚫ Made Clever Hacksaw Blade Under Counter Jar Openers for all the neighbors and churchgoers in TN ⚫ He could make an Iceberg lettuce salad with two quick slices of the carving knife, a perfect wedge of white "greens", ready for the Catalina dressing ⚫ Macaroni with tomato sauce for supper ⚫ His cranberry sauce is amazing! Really rounds out a chicken or turkey dinner ⚫ His tuna salad hits the spot after a long drive or flight ⚫ His German potato salad draws raves from real live Germans ⚫ Ed's Chili Recipe is the greatest ⚫ World's best watermelon pickles. I have never tasted any better than his ⚫ Ed makes a great Cucumber/Vinegar salad ⚫ Ed showed me how to make Cucumbers and mayonnaise with a little pepper ⚫ Always keeps lots of cold Michelob Ultras in the fridge, just in case someday Joel stops being such a PNW beer snob and returns to his Midwestern roots ⚫ Ed's cinnamon toast in the morning before school ⚫ Ed showed me how to just sprinkle sugar on buttered toast - mmm great! (and cheap) ⚫ Ed is the originator of the Suet Pudding Christmas tradition ⚫ Though not Swedish, ate lutefisk on more than one occasion ⚫ Once he was spotted with his little grandson Timmy, under the kitchen table, shelling peanuts by flashlight ⚫ He bought a boat for us to take family vacations on the Mississippi. How cool is that? ⚫ He only took one week of vacation a year for I don't even like to think of how many years ⚫ Spent his precious vacations driving a car thousands of miles with three squabbling kids in the back seat ⚫ Toured the great capitals of Europe ⚫  Rode elephants in Southeast Asian jungles ⚫ Wrestled alligators in the mangrove swamps of Florida (well, that last one is unconfirmed) ⚫ He is an accomplished canoeist - from the boundary waters of Canada, to the crocodile filled rivers of Costa Rica ⚫ Was the first real person I knew who rocked a fedora, and wore it when most men had given up the style (for reasons that I'm sure had nothing to do with his alopecia areata) ⚫ He wore his golden crown on their golden anniversary with such good humor and style ⚫ His (largely unrequited)  love for Dolly Parton set a standard for romance that I strive to uphold to this day ⚫ He bought his daughter a horse, which makes him every teenage girl's ideal daddy ⚫ Woke up early on winter mornings to break the ice on the horse's water trough and drag a bale of hay out from under a tarp loaded down with snow ⚫ What other father would set pride aside and be seen bumping down the road with ten bales of hay bulging out of a VW bug?! ⚫ Who knew that ten bales of hay could be transported by a VW bug?! ⚫ Nemo says: He's generous with the treats, has a great lap for sitting in, and is great company on walks to the orchard, mailbox, and beach ⚫ His willingness to adapt to living with noisy, feathered neighbors ⚫ Chickens and goats just seem to love him for some reason, and come running whenever he appears on the deck ⚫ He gently live-trapped dozens of squirrels, ferried them carefully across the lake, then made them walk the plank to shore ⚫ He gave his kids a lifetime of Lake Vermilion memories ⚫ Brought home an endless supply of gas tanks every summer so his kids could water ski any time they wanted to ⚫ He was the uncontested guru of the local Investment Club for most of two decades, and in all that time no members were sent to the Poor Farm ⚫ He served as second-in-command to Gen. MacArthur during WWII, at least to hear him tell it ⚫ Modestly turned down hundreds of requests by Louis Rukeyser to appear on Wall Street Week ⚫ His economic sense rivals Jim Cramer ⚫ For household expenses he can pinch a penny until it screams, but he's always generous about giving to others ⚫ Has a generous, but no nonsense approach to gift giving ⚫ Paid my way through college, even though I mostly used those years as an occasion to play countless games of Oh Hell ⚫ Corrupted the good Lutheran Carlstedt girls with card games of Oh Hell ⚫ He excels at making friends with a wide range of folks - even liberals! (All the little old ladies adore him) ⚫ Stands by his convictions in the face of adversity - even if he's the only one in the room (or state) rooting for the other team ⚫ He's the adventurous sort, leading the blind on bus rides and getting new friends out of the house (or senior living facility) ⚫ He volunteered at the hospital, warming up everyone's day ⚫ A very kind host ⚫ His memory is better than all the rest of ours (yet he still blames forgetting things on age) ⚫ Dispensed a great deal of fatherly wisdom, sometime using actual words ⚫ He's the strong, silent type  ⚫ He's willing to jump in and help out ⚫ Far, far too humble to check to see whether there are actually 87 things in this list ⚫ He seems so gentle and unassuming, but watch out for that sense of humor! ⚫ He's got a twinkle in his eye that shows his sense of humor ⚫ The Mona Lisa has her smile; Ed has his mischievous grin ⚫ His wit got him nominated as the official company retirement roast speech maker - people reported they laughed until their cheeks hurt ⚫ Married Faith Eunice Carlstedt, and stuck with her all the way ⚫ Giving his children the gift of growing up in a stable home with a loyal committed marriage ⚫ Picked up and moved clear across the country to be closer to family, and gave up a lot to do it ⚫ His life and the way he lives, inspires and connects eleven members of his pretty wonderful family.

Dan ⚫ Joy + Rich ⚫ Joel ⚫ Tim + Krista ⚫ Daniel + Amanda ⚫ Ariel + Tim ⚫ Min Min

Birthday/Thanksgiving family dinner

Sunday night dinner at the house included Brother Tim, Brother Daniel, Amanda, Mum, Dad, Grandpa, Tim, Ariel, Maggie, Tilly, Nemo, and Rowdy. Amanda came bearing birthday cake for Grandpa (birthday on Monday, the 16th), and a nutella pecan pie and pumpkin pie for early Thanksgiving.

Grandpa ready for dinner, Tim snuggling Tilly, Brother Tim reading our "Year Two" photo book, Dad carving the chicken, Maggie and Mum preparing all the "toppings".

Brother Tim giving a Vanna White to our home-grown chicken (front) and the store bought turkey (back) as well as the stack of presents, cake and pies, and a stack of our family photo books (front right). Daniel and Amanda in back putting the finishing touches on getting dinner ready.

Grandpa's beautiful 87th birthday cake: North Douglas Chocolate Cake, a Juneau classic.

Grandpa's big present from the whole family was a list of 87 things we collectively read out-loud, then gave him a framed copy of.

Goat Date

Esther and Petunia are off on their double date at long last.

The trouble with breeding goats is first we have to find a suitable bachelor - in this case a Nigerian Dwarf buck which is a bit tricky to come by on Whidbey Island and I'm reluctant to take the girls on I-5 in the back of the truck.

Even if we can find an eligible bachelor, the host farm has to be willing to take our girls for as long as it takes for them to get pregnant, as their monthly heat cycles can be hard to tell and who wants to go on a long truck ride and meet new goats when they're hormonal anyways?!

So we took Esther and Petunia back to see Henry, the resident Nigerian Dwarf buck on the farm we originally got the girls from who is not related to either girl and who failed to make us kids with Petunia last year. We're giving him another try with double the odds this year.

The truck ride was a bit tricky. I got up the nerve to load the goats without really enough forethought or planning. I grabbed a bucket of feed and led them successfully into the truck! And then... and then I stood there holding them for a while wondering what to do next. Any rope within reach? No? Hmm.... I closed the tailgate and went to look for rope. The girls hopped out and started eating bushes. Hmm... Eventually I tried again with an empty feed bucket as bait and two of Tilly's harnesses, properly adjusted for each goat, and four lengths of rope. With each goat secured to the center of the truck with no possibility of falling off the sides, both crying loudly and Tilly in the front barking at the crying goats, we started off down the road. Slowly. Very slowly.

With a line of cars behind us leaning out their windows taking pictures (thankfully not honking) and the girls crying and barking respectively, we got lost. I took the wrong turn and ended up 6 miles down at the end of the wrong road. So we pulled into a gas station full of admirers for directions and redirected our course, ending up at the farm right on time to drop off the girls.

Rejoining their familial heard, the girls were not impressed. They stood on a platform near me and looked suspiciously at eager Henry. As I left, they followed from inside the fence, crying loudly and staring after me as Henry sniffed. Hopefully in a few weeks they will be home and pregnant.

The waiting time

Life is getting colder here on the farm. Our bus has a wood stove which we've been putting to work to be warm and toasty in the evenings before snuggling under our good sleeping bags, but it is now cold enough that Tilly seems to need to be tucked in too to get a good night's sleep. There is something about being cold that is a little nice, and makes being warm that much more special and wonderful, like how much better food tastes after being truly hungry, or birthday cake when not every day is a dessert day. The intensified reward of something really waited for and wanted, especially with these basic daily things - warmth, what we eat - is something that with all our modern amenities, I haven't experienced in a while. It's easy to dart from warm car to warm building and miss out on that all-day cold that makes curling up in bed in front of a warm fire so lovely. Now I am working outdoors with kids and with our farm things and Tim is outside frequently for his electrical work and we are feeling the cold and appreciating the warmth.

The chickens are also going through the changes of winter. Did you know eggs are a sometimes food? It's easy to imagine tomatoes and watermelon and corn on the cob as seasonal foods, but eggs are often neglected from the list. Before chickens were bred and manipulated for maximum production year round in lit, heated, totally controlled warehouse factory farming, eggs were a seasonal food that needed to be stored and preserved through the winter. These methods of oiling eggs and packing them in sawdust or brining the eggs for storage are nearly forgotten. Our chickens are still laying a few eggs in the winter, but not enough to sell to all the neighbors like in the summer - closer to a dozen a week than a dozen a day. So I'm having to have the "seasonal foods" conversation with many disappointed egg fans. Maybe in the future we will have more winter-laying oriented chicken breeds, but for now, they are summer girls and need the extra energy to molt (grow new feathers) and stay warm.

The Pie Garden: strawberries and rhubarb (and asparagus)

Finally, my lower garden - safely tucked in with a fence for deer, chickens, goats, and puppies - is ready for next season! In the corner, I've finished our "pie garden", filled in the block wall with good potato-tested composted soil, Mum planted it with plants rescued from abandoned corners of the the property, then I covered the whole thing with a thick layer of "beauty bark" mulch left over from the driveway circle.

Blocks in place, sod piled in the middle and brown paper grocery bags ready for deploying as weed suppressant.

Along the eastern wall of the garden, I've finished my long line of carefully leveled blocks - well over one hundred blocks, probably over two hundred... I'll count when the memory of buying and hauling and placing each one is a little less recent. To make the wall to this point level instead of having steps would take another hundred blocks, then there is still the corner where the potatoes are that has no wall... I think it looks great just the way it is! Each block carefully measured from the fence, the sod cut away, dirt dug level, compacted and filled as the block was placed...

More potatoes than dirt! At least in the first few inches...

Tim came out and dug potatoes while I spread the good rich soil he was pulling out of the bins onto a layer of brown grocery bags to keep the grass from growing (hopefully). Once all the dirt was filled in, I planted cover crops to hold the dirt from washing away, further add nitrogen and break down the soil, and to keep weeds out. 

Half way through dirt spreading!

On potatoes: the top few inches were thick with red/yellow-skinned potatoes (which were planted later... about at that level), and the bottom few inches were equally thick with the Russian purple potatoes we planted, but there was a notable lack of potatoes in the middle of our brilliant bins. I am thinking next year will go better:

1.  As plants grow, consistently "mound up" more dirt after every 6" of growth or so, then  water thoroughly. Do not wait until the plants are super overgrown, then add a ton of compost, then have it all compact down to nothing and the plants get even more overgrown, then are again stressed by being buried up to their necks... yeah, that probably could have been done better...
2. Water the plants regularly and thoroughly throughout the summer. Do not water minimally, telling the young potatoes they better toughen up if they want to survive in this harsh dry world. Do not let the potatoes get rather dead in dried out, shrunken soil then sprinkle a tiny bit of water on top that doesn't make it all the way through the dirt to the roots at the bottom but instead runs off the dry crusty surface. Do not leave for two months during the hottest, driest two months of an unusually hot and dry summer and tell anyone who offers to water the potatoes, "nah, they'll be fine!"

Following these two simple steps, I think next year will yield many more potatoes. 

Tim is happy with the potatoes.

The original instructions for potato bins.

Birthday Boy

Happy birthday Tim! Tim woke up to a warm fire going, and the smell of hot cinnamon rolls and bacon in the oven. I propped him up with a brand new hypo-allergenic pillow and he put on his new fleece robe from Alice-Mom. With a lunchbox full of goodies, he headed off to work while I cleaned the bus and house for our guests. 

Uncle Joel, Brother Daniel and Amanda joined us to celebrate Joel and Tim's birthdays. Amanda made a stunning cake and Daniel ran down the hill with it to catch the ferry in time to make it for halibut and shrimp dinner. 

After indulging in outstandingly decident cake, Tim and Joel opened presents, Amanda tried on her wedding dress for Mom and I, and Tim led tours of the bus. Those over 26 reflected on what they were doing in life when they were 26 and Tim and I reflected on all the wonderful things that have happened in the last year and all the things we are looking forward to in the coming year. 

The Bluebird Bus

So, we're doing it. Homesteading that is. My ultimate dream since at least 4th grade, though probably long before, was to build a cabin in the woods and have my animals and gardens and all of that. When Tim and I started dating, I told him that was non-negotiable and it turns out he was also excited by the idea of making life hard on himself by camping while trying to build a house in the woods and producing our own food rather than taking the more normal choice and living in an apartment in the city with all utilities included and every fast food chain within walking distance. Tim is on board, but much more keen on having things like electricity and plumbing than I would opt for on my own. Who can blame an electrician for wanting power? It does make projects much faster and easier and doable to use power tools and I do like my dishwasher and laundry machine. I suppose a little power is okay.

We've got a good start on the farm here on Honeymoon Bay Point, but we're still lacking that experience of turning woods and brush into home. Across the street is about 10 acres for sale which we've put an offer on. With any luck, it will close by mid December, just in time to put the bus up there before going on our Christmas vacation.

1992 BlueBird Handy-Bus

Oh yeah, the bus. So we've moved into a bus, or more of we are in the process of moving into a bus. We're sleeping in a bus and occasionally cooking a pizza in our wood stove and have 5 gallons of water on board and some of our clothes. We're working on getting it set up to be The Ultimate Homesteading Machine. Our good friend from Alaska, Fritz Funk, used it as his moving van when he moved to Whidbey. He also used it as his camper traveling back and forth to Wisconsin and hosting music festivals on Whidbey. He converted it into a pretty comfortable living space with a table, kitchen, bed, and wood stove. He also converted it to run on bio-diesel.

In the back of the bus is an 800-lb lift for wheelchairs, barrels of used fry oil, tools, and all those other homestead-like necessities. The wood stove has an oven space that we got up to 400f to bake our pizza in. The clearance under the bus is enough for me to sit fully upright on the ground beneath her. Everything runs and works great.

Running water! It runs out of the jug, through the tubes, and out to the ground.

We've been trying to do something every day to get ready for When We Move (there's been a lot of talk about "when we move", it seems like it should be a proper title); we installed a drain in the sink with a trap and everything leading to under the bus where we can put a 5-gallon bucket or eventually dig a french drain (gravel-filled hole). On the property across the street we've been going on long walks in the woods; by which I mean crawling for an hour through thick brush and blackberry brambles and nettles with GPS in hand.

Tim wired up a home-made deep-cycle house-battery for the bus for When We Move (currently the bus is parked right outside our front door).

Putting wood on end inside an old tire to hold the wood while chopping into small kindling.

Chopping wood is one of those continual tasks for the rest of our lives if we're running on wood heat.

Well... That was an adventure. Introducing Mineral City!

Our first camping trip after moving to Washington was about a year ago. We set off for Monte Cristo and Silver Tip Peak. The trip was overall a success. Monte Cristo is a long-since abandoned mining town turned historical site which still hosts a rather well-maintained road-width trail all the way to the old town site, then beyond there is a trail to Silver Tip Peak but more of a "create your own adventure" style than the wide, flat road/trail to the town-site.

For our second trip, we thought we would head for the same approximate destination from the other direction - hiking from Index to Galena, then on to "Mineral City". That trip turned out to be far from what we expected with many river crossings through rapids in the dark, only to find a paved road and traffic in the middle of what we expected to be uninhabited wilderness on the other side.

After several trips to Troublesome Creek Campground in the small town of Galena by way of the trail around the washed-out section of the road, we finally took the long drive around through forest service roads to start our hike in Galena and aim again for Mineral City. We weren't sure what to expect in Mineral City but the allure of mystery had been calling to us for the last year. Would it be a historic site like Monte Cristo with an easy trail along the old road to it? Would it be like Galena - not abandoned, just harder to get to and still occupied as a rural cabin community? Would it be like our first trip down the Index-Galena highway with more adventures, challenges, and twists than we could expect? Yes.

Ready for adventure, we parked the car as far up the old Galena-Mineral City mining road as we dared and set off on foot with lighter-than-usual packs. (We aren't quite at the "ultra-light" camper status, but we are trying to at least stop being "ultra-heavy" campers. No canned food this time! ...well, maybe just one can of sardines and one of oysters, but we'll make up for it with ultra-light astronaut ice cream.) Even Tilly is pulling her weight and carries her own dog-supplies like her food and leash.

Me heading back for Tilly's pack (NOT Tilly. No carrying puppies this trip!)

We didn't go far before reaching the first major obstetrical and reason the road is no longer drive-able. A large rock slide took out a considerable length of road. We made our way down to the scree field by rope and picked our way across. Tilly didn't think it was such a good idea so I put my pack down on the far side and headed back for hers. With her pack off, she scampered merrily across until Tim caught her on the far side to get that pack back on.

Tim crossing the large slide area on our way back. A short ways had a foot bridge which has also collapsed.

Before heading across the slide, we looked long and hard for another way. By "long and hard" I mean climbing about a mile or more up another old, overgrown road of steep switchbacks up the mountain. When we finally decided there was one more switchback than we were willing to take and this was definitely not our road to the allusive Mineral City, we took the path of least resistance back: we checked the GPS and made a b-line for where we had forked off on that route, scrambling through the woods with no trail and no other footprints. 

There were a couple more hazards to cross to keep the casual day-hikers out. Parts of the trail had caved off into the steep ravine. One small spot eroded a bit too much and ropes had been strung up to hang on to while crossing the tricky bit. A few more small, less steep rock slides had taken out other sections of trail, and a few places bridges were missing, replaced by steep deer-trails down the hill to cross and climb back up the other side. Someone had kindly flagged these side routes over the years.

Contemplating crossing

Coming home after camping

One of the old bridges was still largely intact, while another only had one log still remaining and some very, very slanted, rotting boards to walk across. It was amazing to see five logs in a row, four feet in diameter, meant to span forty feet across a ravine completely rotted out and gone. Next to some of these tricky crossings were little memorial plaques or pictures... We assume because they loved hiking here so much and nothing to do with the missing trail.

Once across the hazards, much of the trail was more like we expected - an overgrown old logging road, barely distinguishable by the break in the trees and the dense underbrush, but with a bit of a foot path down one of the old tire ruts. We made some stops along the way to admire old mining adits (openings) lining the trail. 

Most of the adits we came across only extended a few feet into the rock or earth before stopping. We marveled at how much work went in to putting in the road and each prospector digging those test adits only to be disappointed with mediocre or no return.

An old bottle grown into the base of a tree - showing how long people have been in the area

Tim is very interested in mining history and looking for artifacts. I am more drawn to that piece of chocolate Tim hid in the bottom of his pack to give me once we get to our camp site. I think there was a promise of chocolate if I build the fire? 

The trail was beautiful, following Silver Creek all the way up. In the woods, we found many great camp sites but only one old cabin along the way. The cabin had a forewarning and fresh-looking sign saying "Caution: Wounded Bear" which was an effective deterrent to keep us a safe distance from their cabin until our way home when, feeling braver, we ventured up for a closer look. There was a note on the door with the families name and contact information and a spot for passers-by to leave notes. Only a few people a year passed by, with the last this summer being from July. We added our name and date to the list. Driving home we stopped at our favorite burger spot near Index and realized the same family owned the cabin and restaurant. 

After many miles, mostly up hill and through thick brush with quite a few detours in the name of exploration, we eventually reached the famed "Mineral City" town site - notable by the flat area just before crossing the river and birch trees showing newer growth. There wasn't much else of interest there to allude to any ideas of a mining "city". I wonder what it looked like at it's peak and if there was ever much more here.

Tim finally comfortable, curled up and taking up the entire tent once Tilly and I were out.

We pitched our incredibly tiny children's tent, had a lovely and filling dinner around the camp fire, then cuddled up with bent legs and wet heads and feet pressed up against either end, trying not to kick Tilly who took up a precious three square feet of our fifteen... Our next camping trip will be two pounds heavier as we will be bringing the real tent again from now on. 

It's hard to capture how incredibly tiny that tent is...

For the first time ever while camping, Tilly settled in at camp. While we sat around the fire roasting hot dogs and eating soup, Tilly curled up and went to sleep on our coats next to us. At bed time, we moved into the tent and she stepped over my inflatable mat and strait into her corner to lay down again (pressed up against the sides like the rest of us). In the morning, as we finished packing up, Tilly settled down with her pack by the fire, ready to go but patiently waiting. Perhaps she is finally getting older and more mature, or perhaps this is by far the warmest, driest, most comfortable camping spot we've ever taken her to and she finally could relax.

Overall... I don't think we will be heading back to Mineral City. The mystery is solved - there is no coffee shop hidden away in Mineral City unless you count the instant coffee with astronaut ice cream Tim made me for breakfast, and the trail leaves something to be desired. The area is still beautiful, but next time maybe we'll go for one of those nice retired fire towers only a couple miles down a kept up trail.