8C clear
On our way to Salmon Arm on the 9 am ferry.
Posts will be sporadic for the next week. Company for dinner last night.

thought ‘no better wait, if I get it to the water and the river comes up I could lose it, it can stay here until I get the other one ready.’ 

  On his way back to camp, he climbed up and retrieved some more fish and a couple of eggs and carried them along with him.  After stoking up the fire again, he stuck a band-aid on his cheek, ate his lunch and sat back to rest up for a while.  He would have liked to leave the other log until the next day but was starting to worry more about the rising river. After a short break he went back to the pond and after hesitating only briefly took off his boots, picked up the spear and wading out soon speared three more fish in rapid succession.  He took them back to the fire, prepared them and hung them as he had done with the others then returned to the job of moving the next log.

  This one was a couple feet shorter than the other and dryer as a result of being elevated and out in the open.  He first tried to roll it up over the shallow bank on some short ramps, but quickly found he just wasn’t strong enough.  He then worked one end up but when he tried to move the second end the log swiveled and fell back behind the bank.  He worked the first end up once more then using a boulder as a hammer drove a large dry branch into the bank so that the log would pivot against it.  He then turned his efforts back to the other end and in a short time had the log balancing on the top of the bank.  A final levering sent it rolling down the shallow slope coming to rest half way to the water.

  Rolling it into the water was relatively easy and he pushed it out so that it was half floating and half bumping on the rocks and gravel.  Nat guided it downstream thankful that the main current and deep water were on the opposite shore.  When he was opposite the first log he pushed it into shallow water then ironically started rolling it up the beach away from the water. When he was several rolls from the other log, he went back to camp and returned with the fish net.  He stretched the net out lengthwise on the beach between the two logs then he rolled first one then the other more or less centered on the net. Each log being less than two feet in diameter, the net reached across the breadth of the logs up their sides and a few inches onto the upper curve.

  Nat then retrieved the rope from where he had left it and fastened it at one end to one edge of the net then wove it back and forth between the two edges. He pulled each weave as hard as he could trying to ensure there was no slack in the net. When he was finished he still had about five feet of rope left over. This he stretched out up the beach, tied it to a long oblong rock then piled more rocks on that one.

  He stood stretching his back after all the labor as he examined his craft, he hesitated, ‘not finished yet, gotta steer the bloody thing.’ He hurried back to the camp, knowing that there wasn’t much there. In the few moments it took he remembered the piece of pipe.

  He took it and the hatchet to a rock and pounded it flat in the middle, even after it was flat he kept pounding thinning the metal out.  Finally he put it across one knee and pulled both ends, it didn’t give.  Next he laid it between two small logs and jumped on the flattened part, it gave a bit, he jumped again and it folded in half but still held together by one side. He straightened it then worked the weakened