Building the Babcox

A planned trip to the property with Ron and Dave. We had planned a fall trip awhile back as I just absolutely love the fall time of year. The leaves are presenting, it is nice and cool for working, and, best of all…. We have a heater in the camper to keep us warm at night.

Dave had taken up some old 4x4's a few years back that he wanted to rid himself of. Me, being the hoarder of lumber, was perfectly willing to take these off of his hands. Better to find a use for something like that than to burn it or let it go to the landfill. Dave also wanted a firewood storage rack at the property. So, we'll use Dave's lumber on Dave's idea and see what we can do.

Leading up to the trip, I sourced my screws (wanted to use timber screws to make the assembly as easy as possible), some landscape blocks and some post brackets. Outside of those supplies I had to purchase, we had Dave's lumber and some steel from my pool at home to use for the roof. I had an above-ground oval pool at home that I ripped out a few years back. There were ribbed steel plates under the straight sides that I hung onto knowing I would find a use for them someday. So, the plan for this trip was to build this firewood storage rack, something that rose to the top as we came from cleaning up Derecho damage a few months earlier. We have plenty of firewood sitting around with no place to store it.

Ron and I left shortly before 8:00 AM on Friday morning. Dave left on his own trek about the same time, but Dave planned to take a new route of back roads to avoid the final hour of interstate. After we arrived in BRF, filled up with gas and grabbed some lunch, we headed out to the property. Dave rolled in about an hour later.

The trip was just beautiful. Trees were changing and the colors were popping. I thought most leaves would have already dropped that far north, but it was probably at 50% still. An unusually warm fall probably delayed the leaves falling.

We did some initial clearing just off of the newer large clearing where we intended to put our new structure. A bit of planning for the next day, a trip down to the water to inspect the beginning of the new bagged stairs that I had worked on three weeks prior with Josh and Nate, and general "burning of clutter" was the afternoon. A good supper of chicken enchiladas and campfire rounded out the night. It was cool, but not cold. It did, however, get down to around 26 degrees at night, but we slept nice and warm in the camper.

Awoke the next morning to some pretty chilly temps, and was anxious to get the fire going. We are burning stumps while we have our campfires, so there is always some embers in the morning to get the fire going. Once Ron and Dave were up, I started cooking breakfast while they got going on setting blocks and building the base. After an awesome breakfast of biscuits and sausage gravy, we started to work. Dave helped Ron with the basic structure assembly while I was the "chain saw board cutter". After a quick lunch break, Dave got to work cutting down some saplings (1-2" dia maple trees) that we would use for the roof trusses and sides/dividers. Ron and I got to work on that, along with putting my swimming pool steel plates on for a roof.

Dave also split all of the pine logs, from the uprooted pine tree we cleaned up in August, into smaller split wood we could store in the new structure.

In the end, we worked our tails off and were happy with the results….. We think it turned out really well, it blends with the environment, and it didn't cost us much money for supplies. Best of all… we re-purposed Dave's 4x4's, my steel panels from the swimming pool, and some steel that protected the outhouse roof steel (we had two sheets of this steel we used for the floor). So outside of screws, landscape blocks and some post brackets, all other material came from re-purposed materials.

We were bushed. But I still packed up for the next morning and moved the Bravo trailer back to its winter resting spot.

Supper was pork chops and Dave's potato concoction. It was awesome.

Dave was in bed by 8:15 and Ron by 8:30. I followed shortly after 9:00.

Up the next morning to 23 degrees. Coffee and breakfast burritos. On the road by 8:00 AM.

A very successful trip indeed!