Tuesday June 28, 2016 Boonville CA.
Boonville cabin fun
Last Friday I headed up to Boonville to spend some time at my friend Marty’s cabin. I arrived in the afternoon and decided to go up the new trail we’d been working on and prune some brush back in one spot.
This is the trail.
I’m the tree faller guy
The next day my job was to fall some trees so Marty has some firewood to cut up. Seems my job is to get the trees down safely.
They don’t always go the right way
This tree was supposed to fall were the orange saw is, but instead, it headed the other way where Marty was standing.
I was trying to pull the tree in another direction, much more than I thought it would go, but out here there’s not much I can hurt when a tree falls the wrong way, so I take some chances. I had it ready to fall in the right direction, but it needed a wedge to make it fall that way which I didn’t have at the time, so I let it go the wrong way after telling Marty he better move as it was heading right for him. Once they are down like this, the tree is still hung up on other trees and has to be carefully cut until it’s all on the ground.
Mat and Mike were up working on projects too. Marty’s helping them out with something in this picture in front of his cabin. Interesting enough is these two guys work on putting in and taking out the summer dam up the river from us in Healdsburg..
The next day I fell two more trees in another spot. Since this one was across the main road we had to cut it up.
Here’s Marty throwing the wood pieces off the road so we can drive on it. He’s almost done in in this picture and that was it for the day as at our age we wear out rather quickly doing this kind of stuff.
Monday Marty wanted me to stick around so he could do some patching up on his cabin roof so I hung around and supervised while he did all the work. He didn’t fall off the roof so he didn’t need me. :O)
Van trouble on the way home
I headed on out just after noon and was cruising along on the way to Cloverdale, when my engine started clacking which sounded like I may have broken a rod, so I was fortunate to find this place to pull over on the road as most of the road there hasn’t any good places to pull over. It turned out to be the entrance to a vineyard and cattle ranch called Summer Wind Ranch.
I had some luck but
I just pulled in when a guy came out of the gate that spoke pretty good English and let me use his phone to call AAA at about 2 PM. Not having any time to think about anything yet, I wasn’t real sure about directions, but the place did have an address on a sign by the gate so I thought I was good. She said a truck should be there within an hour, so I thought good.
Waited but no one showed up
I waited in the chair for a tow truck but after a couple hours, I was thinking they didn’t find me so I was watching for a cop to go by to flag down as I didn’t think I could stop one of the cars going by that easily. 
Unfortunately, no cop cars went by, but this deer and quite a few others were browsing on the grass right in front of me and around the road, dodging cars.
I get some real help finally
At 7PM a car pulled in with a guy and two ladies. One of the ladies spoke English but not the other two. She said her Spanish wasn’t too good, but it seemed to be better than mine.They seemed to live back there and were going home. After some back and forth conversation trying to figure out what I was trying to get across to them one of the ladies got out of the front seat and indicated I should get in and go through the gate with them. I locked my van and went with them up to where they were living which was just above the red shop in this picture.
The guy goes into their trailer and comes out with a phone so I call AAA again and give them very specific directions of where I am and I keep my cool. She says they will find me this time. I start to walk down the hill to my car after profusely thanking them the best I could and the guy indicates to get back in the car and he takes me back down to my van. I thank him again the best I can.
A cup of coffee would be good
So now I knew someone was coming for sure so I went inside my van and made a cup of coffee and drank that and it wasn’t long before a truck showed up. The drivers name was Bob and he had printouts to show me that it wasn’t his fault no one came before and I think he expected to find me mad, but I was keeping my cool. The story is the guy from Cloverdale said he looked for me but only found an old abandoned van with huge tires on it, which was bull shit as he had the exact address and I never saw him even go by. I didn’t really care as things were now happening. Bob’s truck was from the Boonville area and he said he could have come earlier if the other guys hadn’t screwed things up.
Here’s Bob loading my van around 8 PM.
Bob and I shot the bull on the hour or so drive to my place.
I got home later than I thought, just after dark. Bob’s unloading my van at my house.
I will have to drop the oil pan and see what’s going on tomorrow.
That was my day. Maybe not so good. :O)