Fibar for the zipline

Thursday just before lunch the driver arrived with two trailers full of fibar. I met him at the bottom of the hill, drove him to camp and showed him where we wished the material dumped. I did that to build his confidence and help him see the small challenges getting his truck and two trailers up the road. There was the time a semi with 70 bison got stuck at the hard right turn coming up Bryson Hesperia road, but that is a story for another day.

First we got him to back his first trailer down the 12 foot slot we had prepared. George Stoyko helped direct him toward at the bath house end.

The floor moves in such a manner that the material is slowly ejected. Each trailer had 65 yards of this wood product.

His willingness to spread the  fibar is a huge labor saving event. I expected to be shuttling this fibar with a tractor and manpower. Our intent was to place 90 cu yard in a 12 foot swath and save 35 cu yards for the play structure, which is next on the big project list.

This is what we ended up with after his distribution. We still need about 50 feet of rock work to contain it, then spreading the fibar to a 12" uniform depth along the 200 foot length (210 ft pole to pole) hang the cable, which is cut and ready. Then pray someone will find this fun to use. That part should be a pretty easy task.

Here he is all hitched up and ready to head back to Ripon Ca.

Sunday Work Day

Oscar from the King City Church brought 7 young men up to the camp to work. Oscar works 6 days a week so Sundays are his only day to volunteer. I had them pick up where the men left off on Saturday.

So trenches were back filled from the power pole to the cabins.

More branches from trimming were moved to Decembers burn pile. They also collected a trailer load of wood cut last May and stacked it at the wood pile.

They dressed up the zip line route a little more. I told them I took the picture to document who was not working. That got a laugh.

While we were picking up the brush. Oscar was adjusting the skids on the flail mower. He changed it from about 1" of cutting distance to about 5". I had broke the two belts four days earlier because of inadequate ground clearance and the adobe soil.There are many things to in this job to learn.

I have wanted to extend the area where we have the dumpsters. So I started moving some of the large rocks we have to build a short retaining wall, then back fill with some dirt. Some of the rocks weigh more than 200lbs so we used the tractors on them. Here they are moving a smaller rock and tamping the dirt down with a "pogo stick" powered by the white tractor.The boys did enjoy using the pogo stick. This project helped fill a need to create. I am hoping to have these young men back in two weeks to help spread fibar along the zip line track. The process of men working together achieves something special.

Work Day

Saturday 10-8 Ted Mort and some men from Atascadero Gospel Chapel came to work.They brought some wonderful upgrades to the camp.

Scott is skilled at adjusting doors. Three of the chapel doors and one of the cabins received his attention.The play equipment door received some trim as well.

Ted's boys help with fire protection, first raking leaves out from under the trees then trimming the branches up off the ground.

While the ditch witch was digging a trench some tile work was being done in the chapel. About 6 tile were replaced that had cracked.

Here they are laying the conduit to the cabin. We will not need to run extension cords to have lights anymore. They also replaced the light fixtures from T 12 to T 8, which is a  more efficient fixture.

With a shop vac at one end they pulled some line through the conduit then they could pull the wire through.Not pictured are the new steps to our patio, which is a nice upgrade. Elliot, who did the steps, expressed some interest in the rental unit. It will be a good thing to have someone living in that house.

First storm of the season

Wednesday we got our first storm of the season. It was 1 nice 3/4' rain.It  reduced the fire danger and settles some dust. Then Thursday we had some light rain for maybe an hour. As the day wound to a close, we were left with this.

This is a glorious time in southern Monterrey County. The heat has broken, the bugs are gone, it is a refreshing time. Life takes on a different rhythm.

Iglesia De Jesus Christo

This church group from King City has been coming to Whisper Canyon since 1996. They invite other churches to join them. This last weekend there were folks from Milpitas and Salinas.

They always have teaching for the kids, which I believe, out numbered the adults.

Even though the play structure was not assembled, it still provided some fun.

This will likely be the last big group of the season. There were about 80 folks enjoying the camp and worshiping the Lord. Next weekend we have work crews on Saturday from Atascadero Gospel fellowship then Sunday Oscar will bring some of the young men from Iglesia to work as well. As I write this the first rain of the season is threatening to come ashore. That is a good thing, it is very dry.