My buddy, Paul and I headed to Montana this weekend to fart around for a few days at the cabin. I say fart around because all the backbreaking, log hoisting labor that used to be a part of going to the cabin is complete.

Is the cabin completely done?

You’re never completely done with a wilderness cabin; it is a perpetual work in progress.

This particular weekend we spent a grueling hour or so hanging up curtains. Rustic red was the color I selected to add a splash of color to the log palate. My daughter and 63 other people already beat you to the “Broke Back Mountain” joke so laugh it up chuckles.

We managed to instill a little manliness in the process by turning sapling evergreens that we mercilessly ripped from their happy forest home into curtain rods, and I almost lost a thumb sawing tree limbs to make the rod holders. So, the cabin has curtains now. I like it because when I went up to the cabin by myself this winter, I felt like I was sitting in a fishbowl at night with Yetis, wild clowns, and who knows what else peering in the windows. My dog didn’t help matters by occasionally perking up and staring at the windows or door. It’s also nice in the morning not to have that pesky sun waking you from a rum instilled slumber.

Also, on the “to do” list for this trip to the cabin was constructing a lid for the gorilla box. The gorilla box is a wooden box about five feet long, three feet wide and three feet deep that I built to store tools and wild clowns in. To me it looks like a crate you would ship a gorilla in, so I named it the “gorilla box.” I’ve never ordered a gorilla but it would be handy to have one as the caretaker at the cabin when I’m not around.

As a conversation piece I plan to paint “GORILLA” on the side of the box with my name as the ship to address. When someone inquires about the whereabouts of the gorilla I will explain we had a disagreement shortly after he arrived about the type of friends he was inviting to the cabin and he now roams the mountains with a Yeti and a wild clown.

With the curtain hanging and gorilla box completed it was time to relax with a friendly game of hatchet throwing. I got two throwing hatchets a few years ago because lawn darts is too dangerous….just ask my sister. There’s something pleasing about throwing a hatchet and watching it turn end over end and then stick with a satisfying “thunk” in a tree.

It’s much less satisfying to watch the hatchet go end over end past the tree and continue end over end down the hillside. I tried to train the dog to fetch the errant hatchet throws but he seemed a little leery about the whole process. I bet the gorilla would have done it.

The hatchet throwing game made it about an hour and a half before both handles had been broken beyond duct tape repair. I contributed the hatchet handles breaking to divine intervention as it was getting dark and the evening beverage service was beginning to cloud judgment.

So, we retired to the campfire to belt out a few Irish songs and reminisce about the days when we had a gorilla to tidy up for us.

That’s all for the May edition of “This old cabin.” Bye now.