Choteau Mountain View RV Campground

 Beautiful day today, fun to watch the moon set during another great sunset tonight.

the fly

 I saw something weird on the screen from one of the cameras so I went out to see what kind of bug it was.

Turned out to be a simple house fly.  It was getting colder out, so I thought maybe it was warmer on the camera?  

Phase 1 begins - putting in the new sewer hookups

 The digging should go a lot better now.  The only utilities we will be coming across should be broken and unused.

This area will be a straight line up the hill.  There will be 9 spaces here. 

Sand Cranes - Eureka Lake, Choteau, MT

 Saw these Sand Cranes flying over near Eureka Lake this afternoon.

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Fawns at Choteau Mountain View RV Campground

 These fawns were wandering around the park this morning before tunning up the hill to make their exit.

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Sewer update: tweaking the manhole

 They decided to move the uphill side of the pipe a little higher on the manhole entrance, so they had to grind the concrete away from the pipe and raise it a couple of inches.  They also added concrete to the bottom of the floor to make a deeper groove tor the 'stuff' to flow, and just in case there is a back flow and the manhole starts to fill up, they will slope the part where the ladder is so all the 'stuff' will slip back into the channel, keeping the spot where one might need to stand to stay relatively clean.  

The city came out and ran some water down it and the guys said it made a great whirl pool action.

sewer update: making the manhole work

 Now that the manhole is in place, and the pipes holes drilled out, they will concrete in the pipes, and put concrete in the bottom of the manhole with a grove in the concrete for the 'stuff' to flow around the corner.  

sewer line update: the new sewer manhole arrival

 It was exciting to see the big flatbed truck pull into the property with the new manhole on the bed.  

They had to grind out the holes the rest of the way for where they wanted the pipe placed. 

The pipe will be taking a 90 degree bend.  

sewer line update: past the 3 tent spaces, road and into the field

 When the guys were witching the area for power and water they could not figure out what was what, it was like there were lines all over, but when they actually dug they did not find anything, probably because the sewer pipe is so shallow.  

As soon as they got into the field they found water and unused electrical lines.  I saw it, but failed to get a pic.

They dug out 35-40 feet from the road and are ready to place the manhole in the ground.  the Y at the end of the pipe in the pic will be for site number 38.

The pipe is over 800 feet long from manhole to manhole.

below is a shot of the field where we are resurrecting the old broken sites.  Seems like a bare field until you start walking thru and seeing hoses poking up from old water hose bibs.  

 In the distance, the Swing set and rocks behind the swing set will be removed.  The rocks will be reused for landscaping, and the swing set is super old and not in good shape, so we will scrap it.  

Bald Faced Hornets

Ronnie was trimming the dead limbs off of one of the trees and found what looked to me like a paper wasps nest, but when we looked closer they were black.

Here is a back shot, at first glance, they are like a giant fly.  But look closer and you will see the stripes on the rear and the white face markings.  

Here is a shot of the face, the hornet is upside down.

I thought about hitting the nest with hornet spray, but we read that they are aggressive and smart, they will recognize a person and go after them when they walk by.  On one site Suzi was reading that there is no WITSEC protection program if you make them mad.  So I guess I will leave them alone.

Below is another hornet coming out for a profile shot. (it is hanging upside down)

Here you can see the stripes on the rear of the Hornet.

dog day afternoon

 My parents dog Guy came to visit for the day, he and our boomer dog just hung out on the bed most of the day.

sewer project update thinking of the future

 We are passing some water electric only spaces, no sewer hookups.  We decided to put 2, 4 in Y's along here.  

The one is between spaces  22 and 23, and the other is between spaces 21 and 22.

The vertical pipe is just a marker, and has metal tape on it to help find it, and is shallow so whoever is looking for it will know they are in the right spot.

Sunset - Choteau Mountain View RV Campground

 It was a beautiful day at the park today, rained last night and you could smell the fresh rain in the air. 

The day got topped off by a beautiful sunset!

Suzi got this great shot (below) while Boomer dog was walking her and Carol on the Soroptimist Trail between the Choteau Country Club Golf Course and Choteau Mountain View RV Campground.

sewer update passing cabin 2 and cabin 3

 Had better luck with not hurting the power lines this week.  

It was interesting Cabin 2's electric line is super shallow and inside of a piece of PVC pipe.  

Cabin 3's power line was a little deeper, but not much.

The sewer pipe is pretty shallow through this area of the dig.  

Notice all the super shallow pipes in the park, this is why we are not open in the dead of winter,

 not that many people are eager to stay in an RV in January and February when temps 

are occasionally 20 below with high gusting winds.

Guys doing the city water and sewer lines told me they put the 

sewer lines 4 feet below grade, and the water lines 5 feet below grade here.  

sewer update cabin 1 to cabin 2

 The electrician was here first thing in the morning to splice the electric line to Cabin 1.

Since it is Friday, they only dug up to where they need to start hand digging for the wire across to Cabin 2.    They also worked on making spaces 7 and 8 rentable.

Beautiful day at Choteau Mountain View RV Campground, Choteau, Montana

 

sewer update, cabin 1

 Ok the diggers are batting a thousand.  The Electrician came out first thing this morning and Spliced Tent Village wires, and this afternoon the guys were making good headway, and thought they were past the Electric and water lines to Cabin 1 and oops they nicked the wire going to Cabin 1.  

 

Below is showing the location of both the electric line and water line to cabin 1.

Since the Electrician cannot make it out until morning, the guys put a temporary splice in so the person renting the cabin tonight will have power.

sewer line update - fiber optic line and power to tent village

 They guys had quite the day today, they managed to cut both the fiber optic lines for our internet for the park, and the power lines for Tent village. 

The fiber optic line is where the orange cone is in the pic below, and the power lines are in the foreground.

3Rivers came right out and put a splice in the line.  Look closely, the splice is a box on the outside of the ditch on the left.  There is a 2nd splice on the other side of the sewer ditch in the fiber ditch. It was interesting seeing how they welded the fibers that are color coded together. 

This pic is for an idea where the fiber optic line is.  The electricity line for Tent Village is up the ditch to the left.

The Electrician came by the next morning and spliced the electric wires for tent village.

sewer update, across the road

 Ok, it is starting to look like progress.  The farthest tree (were the mobile home is) in the pic is where we started, at the Sewer main for the City.

There are power lines going to spaces 1-6 about where the orange cone is at, and the guys have gotten past the natural gas line.

Great Sunset tonite at Choteau Mountain View RV Campground in Choteau Montana

 

Sewer update - finding Natural Gas line where it crosses the road

 The guys brought in a cool machine, it is basically a pressure washer to dig the hole and a large tank attached to a vacuum hose to suck it all up out of the hole.

Made a great hole to see the Natural gas line at the bottom, and maybe an old cable TV line at the top.

Bynum Montana Dinosaur Museum

Suzi, Joe, and Sara took a little drive over to check out the Dinosaur Museum.  

Babie Birdies Robin/ Killdeer

 We found a Killdeer nest in the middle of our field while mowing.  Ronnie has named her Kelley 'Kildeer' Kirkley.

She has 4 eggs in her nest.

She was not happy that I was looking at her nest, and was showing me her fake broken wing, when I moved she hopped right back on her nest.

I also checked on the Robins nest.  I think the first shot is mom, this

ut  second shot is an unhappy baby?

Sand Hill Cranes -- Eureka Lake Montana

 Heard the Sand hill Cranes were right by the road out at Eureka Lake where they often spend their summers, so Sarah and I headed over to check it out.  

We counted at least 15 of them

Sewer update still @ #7

Guys spent a ton of time hand digging around all the wires and pipes in site #7

There is a natural Gas line between the fence and the ditch through this area also.  

Things got bogged down with all the hand digging, once they got it backfilled the power went out on the RV next to the ditch, so the guys had to had dig around and find the problem, it was a previous splice that had the problem.

  We had the electrician come by and repair it.  They back filled it before I could get a pic.

Then, our contractor had an off the job injury, we hope he will have a speedy recovery, but in the mean time his Dad is going to take over and get our job done.  

We are hoping the hard part is done, this was the area of most concern, but when digging it is always an adventure.

 

Sewer line update @ #7

 4th of July slowed progress, but the guys are back at it.

Made it to site 7, but they had to do a lot of hand digging to get past water, sewer, and electric lines

Sewer line update @ #8

 Slow progress the last couple days.

The guys did a lot of hand digging due to electric lines and water lines in space 8.

But they have made it past space 8

In the pic below I am standing where there is a clean out for the sewer.  It is near where the 6" Y is located one side is concrete pipe to the main building the other is the new line we are putting in.

They will take a break for the 4th of July, then they will be back.

Boomer likes the nice pea gravel they are using to fill around the pipe.  

The pea gravel it will help keep the pipe from having holes rubbed into it from larger rocks, plus I am told it will protect the pipe from having the large RV's crushing the pipe.

He loves to roll on his back in back in it.