Pat's Outdoor Adventures: Finishing Touches on the Cabin

After a very successful remodel of the cabin interior, it was time to give the outside of the cabin some love. I headed down June 5 - 7 with the goal of staining and sealing the wood siding to put the finishing touches on the cabin remodel. I have not done anything with the cabin exterior since we purchased the property 8 years ago and the wood siding was starting to look pretty sad. Last trip, I power washed the outside of the cabin to prep it for sealing.

Cabin before

Another problem that we have been having is carpenter bees boring into the wood siding.While they don't really pose a danger to humans, they are very aggressive and are slowly destroying my siding. Although I hate to kill pollinators, I used some tempo dust in all of the holes to kill off the bees and nests before using wood putty to fill the holes. I managed to get a 1st coat on the front and East side of the cabin on Friday evening before dark. I finished the rest and applied a 2nd coat on Saturday morning and I think it turned out great!

Finished product

In addition to the applying the stain/sealer, I removed the old satellite dish, security camera mount, and rotted out antlers that the previous owner had installed. I replaced those things with a new sign that dad had made.

After getting things cleaned up, I hooked up the trail mower and got to work on mowing all of the ATV trails as well as the clover food plots on the ridge, big field, and small field.

Big Field clover more than knee high

Big field clover mowed off

The ATV trails were starting to get a lot of overhanging growth as well so I took my pole chainsaw and pruners to trim everything back. I also had to clean up a few downed tree branches on the trails and ended up clearing out an old ATV loop and connecting trail on the north end to add a couple hundred more yards of trail to ride.

ATV trails all trimmed and mowed

After cooking supper, I spent some time riding the ATV just for fun before taking a well needed shower and heading to be early. On Sunday morning, I got an early start as I worked on trimming back the trees and brush along the drive behind the cabin. I also trimmed back some overhanging branches along the woods that making mowing more difficult. After that, I got to work on the mowing and also sprayed Clethodim to knock back the grasses that were growing in the Soybean food plot.

The food plots are all doing very well as we have had consistent rain throughout the spring. I think it was also a benefit to get them in nearly a month earlier than I do most years to take advantage of that rain. The garden isn't doing great as I had no luck with the sweet corn or potatoes but I do have several pumpkin and zucchini plants growing.