Hi.
It’s been a while.
And, honestly, it’s been pretty hard to get back into the practice of posting. I suppose I could blame the obvious villain–after all, whose life hasn’t been irrevocably affected by the global pandemic? It damn near killed Puckaweekend 2020, after all. But the pandemic hasn’t stopped me from going to Puckaway and working on projects. I just haven’t wanted to write about it anymore.
Continue readingAs I write this, I’m several months behind in posting Puckaway logs. I haven’t stopped posting–and I certainly haven’t stopped going to Puckaway–but I’ve been in a weird headspace lately and can’t seem to get in the mood to write.
In the meantime, here’s a Puckaway-adjacent video project I just put together. Mom, Lyssa, and I recently took Jake and Josh to the Mitchell Park Domes, a place I’d regularly visit with my grandparents as a kid. I’ve always really liked that place, but It’s probably been nearly 25 years since I had last been there. Walking through that place with my kiddos gave me the same feeling I get when I share Puckaway with them; it’s geography linking two generations of people I love dearly.
With A Little Help From My Friends – Joe Cocker
Puckaweekend, in recent years, has been a well-documented phenomenon. Last year’s introduction of the Colorado Crew, 2017’s debut of Jeremiah’s tractor, the 2016 demolition of the woodshed, and our first real efforts at lumberjackery in 2015 have all been logged and uploaded. But Puckaweekend has been around much longer than this site. I’ve collected the digital equivalent of an oral history–emails, Hangouts conversations, texts, and photos–to tell tales of Puckaweekends past. Wistful reflection, rambly musings, and coarse language await below.
Continue readingMe First & The Gimme Gimmes – Top Of The World
It’s time once again to take a look back at the projects and progress that defined another year at Puckaway. This now the fourth year-in-review post in the series, and it’s pretty incredible to binge-read these and see just how much we’ve accomplished.
Previous years: 2017 | 2016 | 2015
This year’s first trip was all about getting work done. Peter, ever the helpful neighbor, was borrowing a SkyTrak and brought it over to trim the trees leaning over the pole barn. This put a welcome hole in the sky and helped me feel a lot less nervous about storms and high winds taking out a building.
Made a quick trip up in mid-January to haul the blue ATV home for plowing, then wasn’t back up for a month until I had the first February overnight stay in Puckaway history. It was a welcome respite and recharge after dealing with backyard flooding issues at home.
Continue readingYou’ve seen my first major Puckaway project from 1999, so here’s another video to help give a better idea of what the place looked like back then:
I don’t know what drove me to do this, but I took these long, panning shots of the yard and marsh in April and November of 1999. I’m glad I did. The difference in the landscape between then and now is astonishing. So much has been cleaned up! And this was shot before we moved the keep to its current spot. And would you just look at the front of the pole barn?! One of these days, I should try to match this shot for shot in a comparison video. If I ever feel like I’m not making progress at Puckaway, I can always watch this for a clear reminder that I most certainly am.
It’s been a while since I dug through the archives and posted a video log. Here’s another, hosted by 14-year-old me, edited by 17-year-old me, and cleaned up for HD by 30-minutes-ago me:
That was a fun summer. Puckaway used to play host to all sorts of vehicles and mobile homes. There was a truck camper up on jacks that my dad used to sleep in during deer camp. There was also a small travel trailer owned by Jeannie, a friend of my grandparents. It had been sitting here since the early ’80s and she had no plans to ever use it again, so it became my project. I cleaned out the cabinets, gutted the old water tanks and furnace, cleaned down every surface, and tricked it out in proper teenage fashion.
I always loved coming to Puckaway, but the summer of 1999 marks the first time I felt any real ownership of the place. Watching this now, I can see what a lost cause this trailer was. But I can also see how proud I was to make my claim here. This is the trailer that launched 1,000 projects.
The Devil Makes Three – Do Wrong Right
It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been making these log entries for three years already. The events of the first two years are well chronicled. More sweeping changes came to the landscape in 2017, so let’s review!
Our first trip of the year introduced a new member of the family, our dog Hannah. She bears a striking resemblance to, and shares a name with, a wonderful pooch I had growing up. And she shares her namesake’s love for Puckaway. It was a blast to watch our shelter rescue learn how to be a dog and have fun by tearing around the grounds. Outside of that, similar to years prior, there wasn’t much more winter activity save for a quick supply run.
Just like last year, mid-April marked the first family day trip where we opened up the keep. Peter, in a bid for Neighbor of the Year, came through and ground 14 stumps in the yard just because he had a grinder for a day and is a great guy. We also saw our first unpaid brick-removal team as my “free bricks” craigslist post paid its first dividends. A later April trip came with a major HD upgrade to the bird feeder camera, more brick laborers, the first bonfire of the year, and a trailer load of scrap tires getting hauled off the property. The groundskeeping projects got off to a great start this year.
Something I’ve always associated with Puckaway is feeding the birds. Richie always made it a priority; one of the first things we’d do upon arriving is open up the pole barn and fill some buckets with sunflower seed to stock the feeders. This was a way for me to pitch in and work with my grandpa even when I was too young or small to help with much else. The chickadees were so used to us that they’d eat out of our hands.
When Richie got older and his congestive heart failure started making even light work difficult, I’d drive up here ahead of him to take care of chores so he’d have nothing to do but relax and enjoy the place. Feeding the birds was always the first task on my list.
The first several years after Richie passed away, I didn’t do much of anything for the birds. Overnight stays outside of deer camp were rare, so I wasn’t even around to watch them come in. A lot of the feeders were falling apart and our general neglect of the property didn’t make the birds seem like much of a priority anymore. You could hear chickadees from the margins of the yard and there were signs of woodpeckers on every dead tree off of the driveway, but a lot of songbirds stopped coming in all together. It started to bum me out as just another example of how I couldn’t keep up with the place.
And then Jacob was born.
We’ve done a lot since last year. High time for a recap!
January started off with a (literal) crash as I deftly maneuvered my toy drone Christmas present right into a tree. Consequently, tree trimming started early this year. The grounds didn’t see any activity again until late March with two quick, back-to-back supply trips. After another hauling run in early April, the keep was ready for the year. It’s never been easier to open this place for business.
We had our first family day trip in mid-April and the deck gained some patio furniture. We also discovered that the bird feeders were getting destroyed, so I sunk a 14′ post in the ground to keep them elevated. By the end of the month, the fridge was stocked for the season, we had our first bonfire, and for the first time in a decade, goldfinches were back in the feeders. The keep got brand new window screens throughout and I rigged a portable pressure-washer supply tank out of an RV pump and 55-gallon drum. Things are starting to look pretty good around here.
A Puckaway video log entry is an idea I’ve toyed around with since I started posting entries last spring, but I was beat to the punch by almost 25 years. Here’s Richie, in late November of 1991, admiring the fresh-fallen snow:
Grandpa bought a VHS camcorder some time in 1988. Starting that Christmas, it was ever-present at family gatherings, on his trips to Florida and Canada, and it even made it to Puckaway a few times over the years. I have his entire collection of tapes, nearly 25 hours of footage in total, digitally preserved. I’ve left things unedited, only cutting static between recordings. I want to start cleaning this collection up further, and figured a Puckaway log entry would be a fitting place to start.
Taking photos of and transcribing the log pages has been a fulfilling way to connect with the past of this place, but it can’t top being able to hear my grandpa narrating a trip. There’s nothing too profound or significant being discussed, but it doesn’t matter. Welcome to puckaway.net, Beeba. Thanks for posting.
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