Josephine the Plumber

I put the valves in under the bathroom sink and got that operational. The drain needs some tightening, as I tinkered with it all week we were there and it still leaked. The valves, BTW were two different sizes, so I used one of the new ones, and one I found in the bench tool box.

We too had trouble with the kitchen sink drain leaking and plugging, but Ellen, in her maiden voyage into plumbing, got it fixed perfectly.

We took the glass out of the broken window facing the river, and found the replacement was too small. Ramon and Debbie took the correct size up with them and presumably will get the job completed this week.

Painting was done of the benches and tables and doors.

Can't find the replacement for the Springer propane light above the stove. Any leads?

Aaron Cluck is giving us a bid on the plumbing. I've asked him to use materials which I and others can easily repair. I don't mean to be all "delicate flower" on you, but I'm a doctor, not some burly laboror. Aaron promises that the plumbing will flow to gravity when he's done, and that no repairs will be needed anyway....

The deck bid at $4500 from him was astounding, but since the central support is now also broken, it needs to be done. We have a friend, Manjusri, who is planning to rebuild it in the spring for a much lower cost. Lumber looks like it will cost ~$900, and the friend is alot cheaper than Aaron.

If the plumbing bid is reasonable, we'll be planning on demolishing the deck before the end of the season to make the labor less.

I'm tired of burning my hands while washing dishes. Would it be a crime to change the sink faucet to a mixer style?

Lorin, Quinn, Kai, and Stephanie, ages 13, 10, and 8 took down the 6 small dead trees in the front yard and cleared it significantly, as well as made headway on tidying the woodpile. Manjusri supervised (i.e. he did a lot of the work).

We hiked to White Chief, went part way to Hockett, and did a thorough exam of the flora and fauna along the nature trail.

Weather was lovely, company terrific. Friends Mona and Leslie who stayed in Silver City with two nephews, their wives and a sister, celebrated their 20th anniversary at the cabin.

Next up (Jeff?) can close for the season, and if we go up to tear down the deck we'll work around it.

J and K at Mineral King, August 2010

Katherine and I returned from MK yesterday (Aug 10) after a week at the cabin. It was a fine time especially after I managed to unclog the kitchen sink drain. There wasn't any evidence of any particular thing in the line; maybe just 50-60 years of accumulated gunk. I can also explain what "Sara clean" means. It means that the kitchen cabinets are really clean and neatly organized; better than I have seen in years.

We did pretty much our normal in terms of hiking. We warmed up going down the Hockett trail a few miles. Went to Farewell Gap, First Mosquito by the old trail up the creek (always something of an adventure), and lower Monarch. The one thing that stands out this year is the wild flowers. They are really spectacular. On the Hockett trail there are a couple of flower garden spots which had hundreds of Sierra lilies. In other places there were tons of Mariposa lilies, and on the last mile of the Monarch trail, there was a huge number of yellow Columbines. And there was lupine, shooting stars, and just about everything else. I don't remember ever seeing flowers like we saw this year. I have attached a picture of some of the Sierra lilies.

The heavy winter probably is responsible for the flowers. If you have any doubt about how heavy it was at MK, go to http://mk-webcam.net/MK_photo_album.htm. There are pictures of cabins from February and March, and in the March ones, I swear that the 3d picture is of Cabin 15 with 6 or 7 feet of snow on the roof. Even if it isn't our place, the amount of snow is pretty impressive. The snow also damaged the chimney for the cast iron stove. I let Jeff know so that he could fix it (hopefully). Additionally, the vent for the water heater didn't stand up too well to the snow. My suggestion is that we not try to brace it but instead that we remove it when closing the cabin and put it in the cabin. Then we would have to seal up the end of the vent pipe to keep snow out. That seems easier than trying to brace it against the snow. Also, we could shorten the vent pipe. It really only needs to be about a foot long.

For those who go up next, here's a quick sense of the supplies at the cabin. There's lots of tp and 3 rolls of paper towels. There's lots of hand soap including a bottle of soft soap. There are 2 sleeves of D cell batteries (about 25-30) and some AA batteries. It would be a good idea for the next folks going up (Jeff and Sara I believe) to bring up some propane canisters; maybe 2 each with male and female threads. The canister for the propane lamp hanging above the stove is about to run out. There also are lots of trash bags for the garbage can. And there is still an unused, unopened propane fire lighter. And, before I forget again, when we were closing up, I turned off the propane at the tank per normal. However, I forgot to turn off the hot water heater. With no propane in the line, I don't think that's a problem, but Jeff and Sara should turn the water heater off before they turn the propane back on at the tank.

For who ever closes the cabin this year, we took down the metal shutters on the windows upstairs at the east end of the cabin. There may be a way to put them up and take them down from inside those windows, but I haven't figured it out. So, we took them down from outside using the ladder, and I put them behind the couch downstairs.

A couple of final items. We still have a leak in the hot water line going to the kitchen sink. I think we are going to need to do something about the plumbing before too much longer. And if we get the plumbing worked on, I suggest we get the same person to rework the propane lines so that we can have better light in the downstairs. And, as K and I sat in the main room and felt the breeze from outside come through the wall, she suggested it would be nice to line the interior walls downstairs to tighten the place up.

The final item is that we didn't attend the annual cabin owners meeting. However, we did get a report from Jean Koch and the Bosses (as we attended cheer at the Koch cabin several evenings). It seems that the main new item is that the Park Service is going to make the cabin owners report on changes to cabins. I think this will mean changes to the outside appearance, but I expect we will get more from the NPS on this.

So, that's it for our trip to Mineral King. We had a fine time and look forward to next year.

John

Ellen and Julie Ann's Magnificient Adventure

Great opening weekend! THANK YOU "Sauermen" for closing. It may have been a childhood memory and a lot of work, but for the 1st time in 7 seasons, there were no broken pipes. I don't know what the trick was, but would love to know it.

Given the hard winter, the cabin held up well. We found some broken boards, a couple of KleenEx driven marmot nests, and subsequent their Darwin Awards. BLECH!!! There was some further weathering of the exterior, but not much else. In the future, I'd recommend placing all paper goods in upper cabinet above the toilet. The varmints don't seem to be able to reach that.

I worked on the lighting, but could not, with the tubing there, fix the light over the stove. The others work, and I'll try to get the parts I need for the broken one before we next go up. For present there is a Coleman hung nearby.

Ellen cleaned like a maniac, and it is up to "Sara Devine standards" downstairs. (Bless you, Sara!) We ran out of Swifters upstairs, but hopefully one of us will take care of that.

We have a construction worker friend who is going up 4th of July weekend to see about some of the repairs. When do you plan to go up?

If we hire help, how much $ do we want to spend?

Opening

Can't get in to open the cabin Memorial weekend due to the road still being closed, so Ellen and I are planning to go up the weekend of June 25th. We'll have the adventure of finding out how many broken pipes there are this year. I think we have a guy willing to go up this summer who can do plumbing and maybe redo the piping so we don't have so many problems.

Since we didn't close, was there anything from the end of last season that needs to be addressed this season?

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