After closing up the Taku cabin with my parents, there were but two weekends left in September and it was time to close Snettisham.  It was, as always, a bittersweet proposition; I felt that I hadn't spent enough time at Snettisham this year, but was also eager to put the anxiety of September weather behind me and be truly ready to embrace the fall.  I'd pulled the Ronquil out of the water on the 15th (the last day I'd paid for the slip), not sure if I'd use it for Snettisham (or anything) and reluctant to pay slip fees with that uncertainty (and I can always launch it again).  If possible, I wanted to bring enough T-111 siding down to enclose the shed, which is an awkward load for the Ronquil and would prevent my bringing any guests.  I needed guests to put away the riverboat and also hoped that my mother could come along and put up the shutters she'd made for the picture window.  And so my parents lent me the Kathy M again, which also made weather prospects more reasonable.

 Anyway, I spent the week getting ready, making a Home Depot run Monday after work, packing, inviting people, and grocery shopping.  Chris and I loaded the ten pieces of plywood on top of the Kathy M's cabin Thursday night, laying a blanket down to protect the boat and tying it all down with line.  The next day we met up with my mom, Torsten, and Myron at the harbor and were off at 3:25.  It was about equinox and getting dark too early for an after work departure.  The clear day had turned into high overcast above the channel, but we rode on nearly calm seas into blue sky over Stephen's Passage.  It was just as well the weather was wonderful, as the plywood made the boat quite top heavy and prone to listing!  We moved people and gear many times during the trip to balance the load in shifting wind and sea conditions.  At the bite north of Seal Rocks, some splashing caught our attention and I turned in that direction in the hopes that the Dall's porpoise there might be interested in playing.  Much to my delight, they took the offer, coming up three times just off the bow, giving us wonderful looks at their black and white bodies, then coming up in the wake before moving off.  It was a brief encounter, but the first I've had in several years.  I almost never see Dall's porpoise in Stephen's Passage anymore and when I do they seem to be near Snettisham in the fall.  Others saw a whale father south and another near Mist Island, but I didn't notice either (one byproduct of driving inside a cabin).

We arrived at the homestead about 5:30 right at a 17 something foot high tide.  We rode right up onto the log and unloaded everything with ease.  The others hauled everything up the beach while Cailey and I went to anchor the Kathy M.  So eager was Cailey to get to shore that she boarded the kayak on her own while I was still busy anchoring; I let her drift out alone a bit for the sake of a picture (below).  By the time we got back to shore, the boys had lit a fire in the fire pit outside, which helped disburse the white socks (biting flies) and warmed us up.  It hadn't been used much over the summer, so it was good to walk around it and tromp down the weeds a little.  I was quite disappointed to find that the lodge smelled badly of mildew, which it never had before, and which we couldn't trace to any specific source.  That night I made marinara pasta with ground bison, garlic bread, and salad by the light of my Coleman lantern (I had yet to find the issue with the propane light system).  When we went to bed (fairly early--I think we were all exhausted for our own reasons), I was doubly disappointed to find my cabin smelling overpoweringly of mildew too.  Most of the bedding was infected, but not the sheets.  Thankfully, the weather was puzzlingly warm, so we slept more comfortably than we did mid-summer.

Lumber on the roof of the Kathy M

Hauling the lumber up the beach

Cailey alone on the kayak

I got up at 8:00 the next morning to find Torsten reading on the front porch.  Soon others trickled in and we had hot drinks before starting work.  My goal was to first finish the cedar siding on the front of the lodge and then get to work putting siding up on the shed.  There were only three more pieces to fit--half of the last full row and the top row, which was not quite full height and which was complicated by the beam running down the middle.  I had a 12' board and probably needed less than half of that, so I was feeling pretty confident.  That was before I managed to poorly cut two versions of the first piece!  The mistake was measuring from the top of the board I was overlapping rather than an inch below the top to take into account the overlap.  Apparently I didn't compensate well enough on the second board, either.  But I was feeling pretty mellow, and I got it right the third time.  Unfortunately, that used up most of the board, so I didn't have a single piece long enough to span the final row, nor was one long enough to go more than a few inches past the middle point under the beam.  So, I was forced to do the unaesthetic thing and make the break at the centerline, which was exactly where the split on the row below was.  A shoddy plan, and the seams aren't perfect, but it was good enough for me at that moment.  Fitting those final two pieces took a lot of ladder work--I must have made at least 15 cuts to get them to fit well around the beam (it was pretty much impossible, or at least would have been a lot more work, and probably unsuccessful, to try taking all the measurements).  At last I was done and it was not quite lunch time, enough time to start the shed siding before breaking.  Before I started that project, though, Myron and Torsten were eager to work.  Myron had been trimming the rock path that morning and had more rocks in mind already.  I got out the chainsaw, discovered that I didn't have any more bar and chain oil, and gave it to Torsten to do what he could with it.  I showed them the alder branches on the beach below Mink that I wanted bucked up and then we walked over to the log bridge and I described the general spacing I wanted and location and left them to it.

I was already a bit irritable at how the morning was going (I was probably hungry) and the next stage didn't help.  Chris helped me carry the first piece of plywood to the sawhorses I'd set up in front of the shed and we cut it to fit on the back wall.  But, it turned out to be a bit too tall, so we had to trim a little to get it to fit squarely under all the rafters.  Then we tacked it in place and I dug out the sawsall to cut the window opening.  After some mangled attempts, I gave it up altogether.  The problem was that the guide around the blade prevented me from cutting from the inside of the sill where I could see the window outline (because the siding was on the outside of the window) and if I cut from the outside, I couldn't see where the window opening was.  My plan to make the project easy by cutting the window openings in place had failed.  Instead, I marked the outline of the window to cut elsewhere.  Unfortunately, I'd foolishly completely nailed some nails in, so removing the plywood proved difficult. My stomach finally prevailed and I gave up until after lunch, making a parade of quesadillas for the five of us.

With some sustenance, the task seemed more manageable after lunch.  I whacked and pried at the plywood until it relinquished its hold on the shed, laid it back on the sawhorses, and cut the window out with the jigsaw.  Chris had gone to help the other boys with the log bridge, so my mother came over to help tack it back in and hold up the next piece for marking, cutting, and tacking.  By the time Chris came back I was starting work on the back wall of the shed, which required more careful measurements because the wall slopes up.  I managed to measure and cut the plywood correctly, with the exception that I made the cut in the wrong direction so that when I put up the plywood in the direction I wanted it to go, it sloped down instead of up.  The good news is that the opposite side of the shed reversed the direction and we were able to use the piece there with one extra cut to accommodate the door in the middle of the wall.  I'm grateful that Chris was there to set me straight when we were nailing that piece in, as I did not have the plywood meeting up correctly in the corners.  From that point on the process went a lot more quickly and smoothly.  Chris would hold the plywood in place while I traced the outline of the window, I'd cut the window out with the jigsaw, and then we'd tack it into place.  The back wall was an extra 7" wide (my fault for building all walls 8', forgetting that two would fit between the others), so that took a bit of extra measuring and cutting so the middle piece ended and the next piece started on a stud.  That resulted in a narrow piece finishing the wall; amazingly, the rest of that piece of plywood exactly fit the section to the right of the door on the front wall without any additional cutting, a rare win. By 6:30 or so we'd finished all the walls, leaving only the door and windows uncovered.

In the meantime, my mother had spent the afternoon in frustration with the shutters.  She'd started beautiful pine shutters for the picture window of the lodge for my birthday, and had finished staining them the week before.  But, they were untested on the actual window, having been built in town from measurements taken the summer before, and my mother found some glitches that resulted in an afternoon of grim labor as she trimmed and adjusted.  Myron came to help when the bridge work reached completion.  Once the shutters themselves were in good shape, they had to figure out a system for mounting them on the lodge flush against the window trim, which was a couple of inches out from the wall.  The results of both the shed and the shutters were fantastic, but hard won victories.  The bridge had also taken shape through more hard work on Myron and Torsten's part.  They had spaced the logs an even 36" apart and had them more or less level between the two logs and across the gully.  Myron had single handedly hauled dozens of large, flat rocks from the beach in front of Mink Cabin up to the bridge to make solid, attractive, rock foundations on both ends.  Next summer all I need to do is place boards across the logs and I'll have myself a bridge!  The boys also bucked up the alder on the beach, the end of the tree used for the bridge that lay across the path above Harbor Seal, and the 6' section of 18" log left in the gully below the bridge from a firewood work party a few years ago, and hauled them all to the lodge.  Torsten also bucked up some of the spruce branches littering the ground around the shed, providing more firewood and cleaning the area up a bit.

By this time, we were all pretty exhausted.  Poor Chris was put to additional work grilling steaks outside.  I made some stuffing, heated some rolls, and cut up some zucchini to go along with the alder grilled steaks and we feasted.  Just as we sat down to eat, I broke out a bottle of champagne and we toasted to a good summer, and the end of summer, and soon I felt giddy, delighted at the day and our accomplishments.  We ate crumb cake for dessert and crashed.

Cutting the last of the siding	Checking the fit	Cailey muddies the siding
Cailey helps Mom fix the shutters	Cutting siding	Half finished siding
Myron and Mom working on the shutters	Torsten bucking up branches	Chris grilling steaks
Rock foundation on the upriver side of the bridge	Rock foundation on the downriver side of the bridge	Chris crossing the bridge

That night it began to rain hard, and didn't stop until we left the homestead.  The already saturated earth was soon slick and soft and, though I certainly would have welcomed a bright, crisp fall day, it seemed fitting weather for close up.  The first thing I did was clean up around the lodge, as everything from construction the day before was still lying around, including the scraps of plywood on the ground, the bucked up firewood, and the tools splayed across the top deck.  I tidied everything up and did the dishes, then started dismantling the water system and closing up the cabins.  Torsten had been ahead of me already taking off the filter housings and carrying the filters back to the lodge.  My mom and I greased the o-rings, screwed the housings back on, opened all the valves, and covered them with tinfoil.  We inspected the blankets in the cabins for mildew and took any that needed washing along with all the linens back to the lodge to bring back to town.  Chris and I had already covered the outhouses with tarps the day before, so we tied up the cabin outhouse, leaving the other open for use until we left.  I'd already collected all the food and gear from the lodge I wanted to take back to town, so there was wasn't very much more to do.  And so I thought that it was just possible to finish the shed.  Regardless, I needed to nail the plywood in, which was just tacked up at that point.  I headed out and started banging, soon joined by Torsten and Chris.  While we were hammering away, my mom came over to ask if she should go take the olive barrel out of the creek; I described where it should go, and that the hose should be moved out of the creek too, and suggested she take Myron for extra help.  I'd been suspicious that the olive barrel had not been capturing water all weekend due to low pressure and diminishing flow, so removing it from the creek probably wouldn't make any difference for doing last minute dishes.  After they left I nailed in a few more nails, then left the rest to those taller than me and went to take the battery and the last gear out of the riverboat.  This year's eaglet made his or her presence known, calling and flying around the property as we worked.

Back in the lodge, the three of us took a break and pondered what my mom and Myron were up to.  Soon they showed up, having been unable to remove the hose from the olive barrel (which had been flooded out and was wedged under a log downriver); my instructions had been poor, and they'd spent time and energy trying to separate the two, which are permanently attached.  With that cleared up, they headed back up there, with orders not to cut the devil's club to make a path as Myron requested.  A little while later I went after them to see how it was going, only to find them coming down with sober faces.  Myron had stepped on a devil's club which whipped into his eye so fast his eyelid didn't shut in time.  Back at the lodge we inspected his eye which was visibly scratched; there were no obvious spines in the eye itself, but there were purple blotches on his eyelid.  I gave him some pain killers, my mom gave him a cold washcloth to put over the eye, and we left him collapsed on the couch to finish our chores. 

We considered moving the riverboat with the engine attached, but one feeble push and we gave up on that.  I'd brought a tire pump to pump up the deflated tires of the dolly, but apparently they were so flat they wouldn't pump up without some lighter fluid or something.  But, it would have to do.  The four of us took turns unscrewing the four bolts holding the engine on and we pulled it off much more efficiently than last year.  Torsten tied it onto the dolly and we drug it up onto the porch.  In no time, the riverboat had crossed the porch (with Torsten playing ox in front) and was upside down and blocked up in its winter position. 

At that point there was really very little left to do and it was only a little after noon so we decided to tackle the windows.  The first attempt failed; we tried to cram one of the windows into the upriver hole, but it was just too tight; hoping for a win, we moved to the back wall and found that the window fit perfectly.  Chris held it in place outside while I drilled holes through the studs inside and screwed it in from the sides.  Torsten used shims to close the gap on the top.  And suddenly there was a window, and it opened and everything!

The next window we tried was a little more snug, and took a bit longer and some anxious tapping with a rubber mallet to go into place in the downriver hole.  But it, too, fit, although the crank wasn't able to shut the window fully (we guessed that the hinges got out of whack when jamming it into the tight space).  It was actually missing the crank, but I pulled one off the broken window and replaced it.  The last uncracked window we tried back at the original hole, but there was no getting it in.  I knew that the original spaces were large enough, so the clear culprit was some rather poor work on my part when cutting out the plywood, which was obvious where it overlapped at the top.  We decided to go ahead and fix it, so in no time my mom was standing on the stepladder outside the window trimming it with a jigsaw (ingeniously cutting up to the edge of the sill in several places so she could use the cuts as guides since she had to work from the outside of the window; why hadn't I thought of that?).  That solved the problem, and we soon had the final window tapped in and screwed into place, with another dysfunctional crank.  But, having the windows open is not a priority in the shed, and one of them works!  And so the shed was complete, with the exception of the door, which is a much more serious task to be left for spring.

Chris and Torsten at the shed	Tools in the shed!!	Something is wrong here...
The boys resting	Chris and the motion sensor camera	The beautiful front wall!
Nigel Cottonwood	Waiting on shore for a pickup	Mryon and Cailey in the boat

I think we broke for lunch at that point, a picnic lunch to avoid dishes and mess.  I put out a couple packages of smoked Sweetheart salmon from this summer, salami, cheese, crackers, bread, fruit, and cookies.  When we had eaten our fill I swept out and closed up Hermit Thrush and carried the linens across the new log bridge.  We then scurried around packing up, which mostly involved moving things into the nearly-completed shed.  The stack of tools that had annoyed everyone behind the back door in the lodge had been sitting outside since I painted the floors back in June!  Not good tool care, I know, but I was just tired of having them falling down all over the place inside.  In fact, that was a primarily motivation in building the shed!  And now, at long last, we carried load after load of tools to lean against the studs in the shed.  And not just tools, but the boat engine, action packer, generator, dollies, plywood pieces cut for the windows, etc.  It was fantastic 

We put one of the two leftover pieces of plywood in the shed as well, and then Torsten and Chris screwed the other piece over the door.  My mom and I wrapped up the lodge outhouse, drained the remaining water from the system, shut off the propane, and hauled all our gear outside.  I left my mother to finish sweeping and put newspapers over the windows and went to get the Kathy M.  I considered leaving Cailey on shore, as I wasn't sure how well she'd be able to leap into the Kathy M from the kayak, but as soon as she met me at the water and started to clamber aboard, I gave in.  She rode out like a pro, as usual, and gracefully leapt onto the gunwales after some encouragement. I filled up the oil, put 10 gallons of gas in, and brought the boat ashore on a rising tide.  We loaded her up and I made a final trip up to the lodge.  The shutters were a little loose too, due to the need for each side to be hinged into two sections (because the window is so wide), so we braced it with a couple pieces of wood against the porch and hoped for the best.  With those gorgeous stained shutters and the cedar siding over the gable part of the roof, the lodge is transformed--very classy!  Chris attached a motion sensor camera to one of the lodge posts and set it up for video; it'll run until the battery runs out, the storage runs out, or a bear eats it.  I ran back one last time to get my skilsaw, which I need this winter at home, and then we were finally ready to push off just shy of 4:00. 

The heavy rain we'd worked in all day had passed and the afternoon was bright.  Gilbert Bay was flat calm, but we ran into enough swells at the entrance to the port that I knew it was kicking up a bit in Stephen's Passage.  We spotted whales beyond Mist Island, and then more whales, and more whales.  We passed a group of two, a group of five, and more all around.  The seas and the canopy of the boat prevented really good whale watching but we saw many fountains of mist, sparkling bodies, and tails (four of the group of five had mostly white flukes).  We lingered for a bit, then moved and made the turn up Stephen's Passage, leaving the group-up and summer behind.  Two and three foot seas followed us all the way in; crossing Taku Inlet, the mountains were bright and we could see patches of blue sky over Admiralty and up the Taku.  Ahead of us, Gastineau Channel was black, the only rain in sight!  We drove toward the squall, but just beyond downtown the sky turned golden and bright over the airport.  We pulled into Aurora Harbor, efficiently tied up the boat, hauled our gear up in the suddenly pouring rain, and said goodbye.  It took a few more days for it to sink in, but I could finally embrace fall.  What a long and wonderful summer! 

One of the five fluking	Mom, Torsten, and Chris	Group-up blows
Our wake in the choppy sea	Driving home	Looming clouds and sun over Juneau