Gifts from God, Lessons for Me

I wrote this two nights ago. We did not have Internet for a while so I could not post. I wanted to write it while it was still very near to me, and hopefully the feelings come through.


Gifts from God! Blessings in disguise! Two lessons I hope I learned. Two near tragedies, both will turn out OK, one already has.
I received this email from a neighbor a couple of miles away, this morning. I had also received a couple of phone calls before this.


Missing anything? Andy says he retrieved your boat as it drifted past his place this AM.... I advised him to bring it over to our lake for safe keeping till the water goes down a bit. Looks like we had at least a 3 foot rise overnight.....
Tom 733-2716 or 863-5428 cell


As you may have guessed, our boat came loose while we slept and it headed down river, all by its self. This can easily turn very bad in a hurry if it gets caught on a tree along the edge of the river or goes into a gravel bar, the fast current can easily overturn it and sink it. Andy owns King Bear lodge across from Lake Creek about 6 miles downriver from us. They saw our boat drifting about 6:15am and called us as they headed out the door to go get it; we slept thru the phone call. Andy and his son got our boat and luckily I had left the key in it so they could start it. They don’t have a boat big enough to tow our boat in high water and they would have had to just tie it to shore somewhere. Anyhow, they got it and brought it up to Fish Lakes Creek, which we can drive to on our ATV’s, over at Bentallit Lodge, aka the air strip. Tom owns Bentallit and shot me the email you see above. We went down to the river at our landing to look things over, the rope that we tie onto was fine and the anchor point was good. The river was indeed, over 3' higher than when I tied the boat the previous evening. We went to check out the boat and the other rope that we use from the boat to the shore rope was good. Conclusion, I did not tie a good knot when I got back from fishing. It was raining like heck, I was in a hurry to show Myra I was the great provider and had caught my first Silver and I did not tie it right. The boat was un-touched, not even a scratch. This is our first gift from God. PS: We left the boat in the lake until this water level goes down some. There are many floating trees coming down the river and no sense in giving one of those a chance to catch on our boat. We received a second call about 2 hours later that another boat was floating down river and did we know who might own that one. We didn't!

Gift number 2! Over the last week I have jacked the cabin up to with-in a few inches of the final desired height. Today I was taking it up that last few inches, nearing five feet high on the down hill side.




I had taken the picture above about noon, before I started lifting the cabin today. I had taken the cabin up the first lift and was half way through the final lift, it was going to be as high as it is going; when the supports let loose and the cabin fell. It went five feet west, two feet north and about five feet down. It crashed hard!

With all the rain we had yesterday the ground had softened and I was obviously not taking the right precautions with how high I had the cabin in the air. It is right now (as I type this) setting flat on the ground and debris, tilted about a foot down hill to the south (above picture). Here comes the gift part. Myra was outside, she had been moving dirt around getting started on the root cellar and using the dirt to level the trail to the boat. She had finished for the day and had just decided to watch me finish the last lift. The dogs were under the cabin while I was lifting it, as they usually were. I had lifted one corner a little and was walking to the other corner when I stopped to talk to Myra. Jeff came out from under the cabin toward us. We spoke for about 15 seconds, I don’t remember what about, and all of a sudden the cabin took off on its spill. We saw Hans run for the back of the cabin toward us, the cabin went forward and crashed. Hans had slid into one of the holes I had dug to get under the cabin when I first started the project. He slithered out from under and took off down the trail. It took us 3 or 4 minutes to get him to come back, but he did. No ONE hurt. The cats were shook up, mentally and physically, but OK.
The cabin was a mess inside with things thrown all over. Only one broken dish and it was one that was left here by the previous owners.

No windows broke, the door still opens and no holes in the floor where it crashed down on things. The little generator is under the cabin but I can see it and it looks like it may have survived, time will tell. I am typing this on Word and will have to cut and paste this into the blog (obviously have). We do not have satellite at the moment; Ya think the dish might have moved a little?
By the time you read this, I will have already leveled the cabin and begun to pick it up again. I won’t reset the dish until the cabin is level, just too much hassle. I will have found a new way to set the cabin temporarily, as I lift, so I don’t have to depend on the same system that just failed. I don’t think I want to do the same thing over again and expect a different result. I will do it different.
It was a day full of lessons, followed with blessings. The weather was gorgeous, the boat is un-hurt, the cabin will survive and no one got hurt! I have learned a few things today. The lessons may be tough to receive but I obviously needed them.
I am Grateful for many things today and I am glad to be able to share with you!
Thanks for being here with us. (and yes, I cried a little too) Roger

I need to add a few more notes, It's a day and a half later now: The cabin is on it's way back up. I have got some things out from under it and still can't get a couple of things. The little generator still runs but looks a little worse for wear. The gas tank is a little smaller now because it got crushed a little.

I have not been able to get a few things out yet. This is a tote and other things still under the cabin (below).

This is the new support system for the cabin going back up again, and the cabin on it's way back up; To stay this time, I hope and pray. This is a very long post, Thank You for taking the time to let me share. I truly am blessed to be here today.

Roger

Now that I am finally done shaking and can breathe again I just have to agree with Roger that we are truly blessed. What could have been a horrible tradegy wasn't. It has been a real rollercoaster ride the last couple of days emotionally and hopefully this particular ride is coming to an end soon. I am truly grateful and blessed to be typing this today. Blessings to all of you, Myra