Hello Everyone!
A brief introduction: Hi I am Jacob.
TL;DR: There is no tl;dr because you should have more patience and attention span than a gnat on a high wind.
A Rapid Cabin Build, Riding The Sunburn Dream, Taking Reflective Moments, Less Chatter More Farming And General Musings
I am getting off to a slow start this morning even though I have been up for a few hours waiting on the sun to make its eventual trek over the horizon in the east. It has been a quiet morning so far aside from the roosters doing their usual crowing which they often begin doing around four in the morning and of late on and off throughout most of the daylight hours. It can get a little nerve wracking at times when they really get going making a racket and I still think that the best solution is to get more hens so they will perhaps stop crowing so much in what is probably an effort to attract them from that distant flock whose rooster I hear making its own ruckus off in the distance.
Yesterday, I finally got that behemoth of an entry wrapped up and shared and whoa was that quite the endeavor. I think that it was somewhere around two weeks worth of material and although I proofread it a few times I still probably missed a few things. One thing is for certain and that is that I need to avoid letting the days stack up like that because just sorting through all the pictures gets time consuming and the editing gets downright daunting to even think about doing.
There is always so much that I wish that I could download from my brain each day (or have the energy to spell out each day/night) because the details become elusive to recall and we all know what is in the details! It is more about creating a repository of consult-able information when it comes to the details and over the last several years I have often found myself consulting my own writings to find some part number or model number or the size of something or how I did something before and so forth and so on which is incredibly frigging handy. It is also something that I do not utilize nearly enough (either writing or consulting the details) and it is something that I am gradually trying to get myself to do more often.
Anyway, I got all the main rafter bird's mouth cuts and the the rafters installed during the heat of the day yesterday and all in all they came out pretty straight so that is nice. Since the roof slope is an arbitrary angle (for fixed tilt solar throughout the year) there was not the option of doing the roof pitch at a different angle. The one thing that I could have done is go up even higher on the second floor walls but dang the highest point of the building's roof (on the uphill side at least) is already roughly eighteen feet (five meters) and a few inches off the ground and something like twenty-two feet (almost eight meters) on the downhill side. As things are that is about as high as I want to go on a building with a foundation of that size and if we had gone with a normal roof pitch we could have built a true second floor on it instead of the storage area that the second floor currently amounts to. I have no regrets with the cabin's design or anything like that because it sure does get a lot more sun (and for longer throughout the day) than anywhere else at the shelter site and especially so inside the dog yard.
Well, I quit writing on this early in the day and got to working on the cabin again even though I was feeling achy and stiff from all my previous day's (and days and days and days) endeavors. Since the slope of the terrain makes working on the exterior of the building a pain in the ass to do from a ladder I decided to go ahead and rig up some scaffolding on the two sides of the cabin that have the rafter tails. At first I was thinking that some scaffolding would be handy to cut the rafter tails on the low side of the building and that later I could move it all to the other much taller side so that I could do the external sheathing and perhaps be able to put a ladder on it (or build it up even higher) so that I can safely reach the rafter tails on that side as well... but instead I wound up building scaffolding on both sides of the building so that I would not have to fool around with moving it all multiple times.
The scaffolding on the low side I did in a rather standard fashion but the one on the tall side I had to get pretty creative with so that I could achieve the necessary height to be able to safely work on things. Once again some of those oak poles from when I originally cleared the site came in quite handy and I buried the bottoms of two such poles about four meters apart, braced them up, ran a piece of lumber from the building's front and rear walls to them, connected them together with another long pole and then added a long plank situated a few feet off the wall as a walk-board which worked out quite well even though it was not all that stout of a plank. I did cram a brace under the walk-board that runs from near its center from the wall and to the horizontal oak pole that connects the two vertical oak poles which stiffen it up nicely. Although I was trying not to spend too much time building the scaffolding, I wound up working on it for a few hours before it was at a point where I was satisfied with it.
I sort of dicked around the cabin's job site cleaning it up, inspecting all the work done thus far and getting the next steps visualized as I waited to see if it was going to rain or not. For much of the morning (and the whole day until a little before sunset) the sky was heavily overcast and looking like it could rain at any moment so I was loathe to get all the tools out and potentially have to scramble to get them all put back up again if the rain began pouring down. Since I am mainly working on the second floor at this point I had to keep in mind that when I carry all the tools up there that I can only carry so many of them back down at once and if it suddenly starts raining I would have to really scramble to get them all down in time.
Thankfully the skies never 'broke loose' and I was able to get most of the blocking between the rafters done which they sorely needed to help straighten them out. Since the rafters are fourteen foot long two by four inch (dimensional lumber) they were all a bit curvy one way or another but I was able to work most of their quirks out by adding the blocking which had all been cut rather meticulously with that compound miter saw that I bought myself as a birthday gift a few months ago. Having all the blocking material cut so squarely (and uniform) sure made all that process much easier and I was actually surprised at just how stout the rafter system felt once I got the first three courses of it installed.
I set all the blocking at four foot intervals (where the zip-board sheathing breaks on the rafters) but depending on how much material I have left over when I do the other framing I might add in more blocking at two foot intervals as added support for the solar panels. What I want to avoid is having that crucial (four foot break) blocking being the same blocking used to secure the panels because not only is that where the roof sheathing will be expanding and contracting but it is also where the joints of the zip-board will be sealed with flashing tape that would be best left un-punctured. I am still working that problem and am even considering doing a few courses of blocking at one foot intervals just to keep my options open when installing the solar panels but in the end I am thinking of just fastening them to the rafters themselves and calling it good enough.
Keeping the overall load (weight of the roof) down is important because the more blocking that I add the more weight the roof will have and although the panels individually are not all that heavy, collectively I am sure that they (their wires and mounting hardware) will weigh up to a few hundred pounds... plus the weight of the rafters, the blocking, the sub-fascia, the fascia, the roofing metal, the metal drip edge, the soffit and any gutters. So in my mind, keeping things as light as possible with the roof's framing is rather key in this phase of things and although the rest of the building below it can surely withstand such loads (even at their heaviest) I would rather not induce any more load than what is absolutely necessary upon the rafter system because it is built with the smallest dimension wood that can be used safely. Honestly we would have gone larger with the rafters (probably with two inch my six inch lumber) but the cost was outrageous even with the smaller material that we went with. The lumber and plywood (all sheet goods really) prices are just off the charts and like I said before in almost three decades of doing construction I have never seen such high prices and limited availability!
Anyway, the morning is dragging on here and the sun is coming up as the birds sing and the roosters crow so I should probably get outdoors and begin working soon if I am going to get most of the roof dried in before it storms later today. I am sort of dreading the next phase of things on the cabin because I have to cut all the rafter tails with a plumb cut, get the sub-fascia installed, add the fly rafters to both ends of the building and then haul a bunch of zip-board up atop the rafters and get it installed. If it all goes as simple as me writing it out in that sentence then I will be amazed but it seldom does and I am sure that there will be all sorts of challenges along the way but one way or another I have to make a big push today and get as much of it as possible done before the afternoon. I have no plans to hurry or anything and if it rains... well then it rains and life goes on but it would be nice to keep everything dry so that I will not have to pause my progress until everything dries out again.
Well, I dunno if I am feeling all that motivated to cut the writing short yet, get my boots on and do my morning chores so I may as well spell a few more things out while I get the rest of this coffee in me. A few days ago I got more flower pots rounded up from a different part of the property, got them all filled with potting soil and planted them with lettuce and spinach. I added all the pots behind those other ones that are near the two raised beds and they sure do make a pleasant sight to see there. I have been doing rather good this year at keeping things watered and I had to bury a few of my potato plants because they were already so tall that they needed it. Relocating all those flower pots to that sunny area on the edge of the pine forest seems to have helped the stuff growing in them a lot and although it still is not an 'awesome' sunny spot it may be one that will work nonetheless.
Although I am hesitant to do so because of the deer I am thinking to plant a few black locust seeds in each of the pots that I planted lettuce and spinach in so that I can get more of them growing without having to get more flower pots just for them. I will probably get more flower pots just for them anyway in the long run but for now I cannot see any reason not to do it especially since the baby saplings will be fixing nitrogen in the soil where some edibles are growing. I have actually already done that with some of the other stuff that I have growing and it is pretty neat watching both potatoes and black locust growing in the same pots together. In one of those really big flower pots I have so much stuff growing that I will probably have to weed some of it out later but it is super cool knowing that in one pot there is potatoes, basil, corn, black locust, lettuce and some random Kentucky-31 grass growing as well as some other stuff that I am unsure of because it came from that mixed jumble of seeds. Alright, the sun is really up now and I need to get in motion doing stuff.
Ha! I got my chores done and even got all the layout done for cutting the rafter tails on the low side of the roof before it began raining. It had been rumbling thunder in the distance for several minutes before it did and I was surprised that it held off as long as it did. I considered covering the second floor with a tarp but with the gusting wind and impending rain I did not want to start doing it and have to struggle against the elements to get it done. Had I done it I would probably be finishing it up right about now and would be soaking wet instead of being all warm and cozy in the tent writing this. I doubt that much water can infiltrate the building the way that things are now and rinsing all the rafters off is not going to hurt them at all as long as things dry up soon and I get all the next phase of things done before any bigger storms come along.
Since I have some time here and have no inclination to get out in the foul weather I have been working on my punch list for the building which is turning out to be nowhere near as long as I thought that it would be. There are just way too many details along the way for me to keep them all as a running list in my head and while I would notice that they need done as I am wrapping up the project... lists just make things so much simpler and less stressful. Considering that there are no building plans to consult or anything remotely like that aside from my own sketches it is probably for the best that I make such a list so that nothing gets left undone. There will of course be several other such punch lists as I complete various phases of the project but finally getting to the point where I need one for the framing is a pleasant milestone to say the least.
Although it may often seem like I am simply building things 'off the cuff' (so to speak) what is actually going on is that I am following the three dimensional diagram in my head and doing my best to account for every (often painstaking) detail involved not so much by imagining the details but by comparing them to things that I have built in the past. Sometimes I think that I just enjoy all the mental exercises that all of that puts me through because after all the clearer that I can picture something the easier it is for me to construct it and wonder of wonders... the more enjoyable the process becomes so go figure!
Yesterday, I spent so many hours setting up all that scaffolding and doing so made getting the layout for the rafter tails so frigging easy this morning. I kept chuckling as I did it because the day before I kept telling myself that I would spend all day doing scaffolding if it meant that I could make the rest of the work easier by doing so. I guess that I got a little taste of that earlier when I did the little bit of work outdoors that I could before the rain moved in. It probably all amounts to doing eighty percent setting things up (and hauling stuff around) and twenty percent actual work. It always takes a damn hundred percent of my thinking though and after building with round wood for so long my idea of 'tolerances' (how out of plumb, level and square something can be) have grown way beyond the scope of what traditional framing allows for. So noticing this I have been extra critical along the way to observe the standard tolerances of an eighth to a quarter of an inch. Most of the stuff is actually at a much tighter tolerance of a sixteenth to a thirty-second of an inch but there are assuredly several places in the framing where the tighter tolerances matter more and the greater tolerances are acceptable and even run of the mill for this kind of construction.
With the way the lumber prices are I have been growing ever more shrewd with how I utilize materials and find myself doing everything that I can do to make every inch of lumber at my disposal go as far as possible. It gets pretty tricky when I am trying to avoid knots or work around crowns and hooks in the individual boards but overall I have noticed that I spend more time examining the wood and being way more selective with what I do with it based off the characteristics that I notice in it. Thankfully most of the rafter material was very straight because the ones that are not are super frigging curvy and even with all the blocking I could not remove all the twists in them. I always figure that I have to settle for the way things are at some point and just keep moving forward and in that particular case I would still be trying to get those rafters straight!
The material that I had for the second floor bearing wall plates was not all that awesome and like I noted before it twisted the knee wall on the second floor a good half an inch out of plumb at the rear of the building. When I set the rafter atop that portion of the wall I was extra careful not to transfer that out of plumb half inch to the layout for the roof sheathing. I instead pulled my layout from the bottom plate of that wall which is perfectly plumb. That little out of plumb corner will disappear in the soffit under the eaves in the end and at least it will never be noticeable even though I will probably never forget about it and will more than likely think of it every time that I look at that corner of the building.
Well, it is now the beginning of another day and it is still a few hours before the sun will be up so here I am yet again clacking away at the keyboard and soaking in the stillness of the morning. The last few days have brought a heck of a lot of rain, thunderstorms and even some high winds and because of that the woods around me seem very subdued and aside from the roosters (and some crickets) I have yet to hear any wildlife stirring outside.
The night before last there was what I would call a 'gully washer' of a storm that blew in and whoa did it dump down a bunch of rain in a very short time. It was so intense that it washed pretty much all the topsoil from the main pathway that I use between the west gate of the shelter site and the new cabin. It also washed away a good bit of the topsoil from the north side of the cabin. From the looks of things if I had not done all the work to get the grass established in the rest of the dog yard then that rain (and the following rains) may well have washed away all of the topsoil from the entire dog yard. All of which (losing the topsoil) is not that big of a deal because of how I setup the fence on the downhill side to retain it but it is nice not to have to get into collecting it from there and spreading it back over the yard.
The reason those areas got washed out was mainly due to how much foot traffic that I have put on those areas during the cabin building project lately. Since the only thing that I had on hand to remedy the situation was some pine shavings I meticulously spread a thin layer of them over all the washed out areas and threw down some more grass seed. What I really need to do though is get a few bales of straw, seed everything with grass seed again (because the subsequent rains have washed some of it away) and spread the straw over everything for good measure. It will be a heck of a lot easier to deal with the topsoil scenario now than letting it get worse and having to try to rehab everything later.
The rain made working on the cabin tricky and yeah a bunch of water got into the building (because it is not fully dried in) and every time that it rained I found myself sweeping the water out of the cabin's first floor interior and off the second floor's floor. It is a mess but no worse than what many buildings get subjected to during construction and I just keep sweeping away the water and running fans on the areas where it has been pooling. In the not-so-grand scheme of things it will all be fine and I am thinking that as soon as I can get the first floor more or less sealed up that I am going to either run an air conditioner or a dehumidifier inside of it just to make sure that I remove as much water as possible before installing the insulation and interior wall coverings. At least all the wood framing is southern yellow pine and not 'white wood' (spruce, poplar, fir) because otherwise I would have a real mess on my hands.
The work itself on the cabin has been intense to say the least not just because of the heavy rain events (yesterday it rained four times while I was working) but because it has been super hot and muggy to boot as the sun plays hide and seek behind the clouds. It seems like from the hours of nine to around five-thirty in the afternoon I have done nothing but pour buckets of sweat and tried to avoid getting anymore sunburned or get sun-poisoning. I have been pushing the limits on both of those things lately and I am glad that I have been 'working on my tan' for several months now or else I would be covered in blisters and have skin peeling off my back at this point. The only thing that has saved me thus far is knowing when to where my straw shade hat, a shirt and when to just get the hell out of the sun altogether which I do frequently throughout the day. I have also been taking a lot more plunges into my outdoor tub just to cool myself down (and wash off the sun baked sawdust) before diving back into doing more work.
As of this morning I have all the roof blocking done, both the fly rafters installed, the sub-fascia done on all but the peak of the roof and all of the roof sheathing installed except for a two foot strip again at the peak of the roof. I also left one small piece of the roof sheathing off about halfway down the roof so that I can easily access the roof itself while I continue to work on it. It is a heck of an odd angle to work at and the little opening makes it much safer. It is somewhere around thirty-two point nine degrees or seven point seven-five inches rise per one foot of run making it a roughly 7.75":12" roof pitch so a little more than twice the pitch of a common 3":12" roof. The angle made for some dodgy work while installing the roof sheathing and I did my best to go slow and work off of some 'roof jacks' that I made by securing several boards to the top of the roof so that I would not slide off of it.
Alright, it is now another day and once again I am up before the sun and have a little time to do some writing while the roosters crow and the sun inches its way towards the horizon. I fell asleep super early last night and although I am feeling well rested I am still a bit groggy and making quite the slow start to my morning which is no big deal or anything as long as I get outdoors and get active once the sun is up enough to do so. As with most mornings that I feel like writing a lot I have to watch the time or it will slip away and I will miss out on getting my morning chores done before it gets blistering hot outside. Not that I mind the heat all that much (nor working in it) but the quicker that I get those routine chores finished then the sooner that I can get to working on the cabin.
During the early portion of yesterday I got the water swept out of the cabin again and got the fans started in there to help dry things out. I quickly realized that the building had not taken on quite as much water as I had initially thought and all my ass busting work to get most of the roof sheathing on had paid off. Once I got all the tools that I needed for the day pulled out, I built an actual roof jack whose board stood vertically (instead of laying flat on the roof like the other ones) and got it installed a little short of a meter from the peak of the roof where I needed to work. With that roof jack in place I was able to traverse the peak with ease (and relative safety) as I cut all the rafter tails there with a plumb cut and installed the sub-fascia.
The sub-fascia was pretty damned dinky after I ripped the angle on it (just like on the low end of the roof) and to fill in the gap below it (where the rafter tails were exposed) I used the angle-cut piece of material that was left over when I ripped the low end of the roof's sub-fascia. Technically it will act as a 'nailer' for the soffit and offers some protection for the rafter ends but it is nowhere near an ideal way to do things but buying larger material (for the sub-fascia) would have added a considerable cost with today's insane lumber prices. Anyway, the angle cut left over from the sub-fascia for the roof's peak side fit perfectly on the bottom of the sub-fascia on the low side of the roof so all in all nothing was wasted from the whole endeavor and both pieces fit perfectly. It took me a bit to understand why that worked out the way that it did but once I got it... it made total sense. Instead of trying to painstakingly explain the details of how and why that worked the way it did suffice it to say the math (and geometry) is solid and although it was a mildly hacky solution it is a sufficient solution for the task at hand.
The sub-fascia installation on the roof's peak went super fast actually and while I was up there I kept telling myself not to look down and do not over-extend myself in a way that could make me topple if something slips and everything will be fine. Aside from accidentally knocking the drill off the roof once and having my stomach lurch a few times it really was not that bad and the view of the surrounding woods was so nice that I paused a few times just to relax and take it all in. I eventually got the rest of the sheathing installed on the peak and once it was nailed off I went ahead and installed the piece of zip-board that I had left off and been using as an access to get onto the roof. At that point I was then committing myself to using a ladder and climbing over the edge of the roof so I made sure to set the ladder up before nailing that last sheet of zip-board in place.
After all that jazz, I finally did the nerve wracking task of trimming back the roof sheathing along the edges so that it would have room for expansion and contraction and not interfere with the fascia installation. Thankfully that went rather smoothly except for on the very last cut on the downward most corner of the roof and the most downhill part of the building and whoa did it come out curvy because at one point I wobbled a bit and thought I was loosing my balance. What had happened though, is that the knob that holds the table of the circular saw at whatever depth it is set to (I had it set at a half of an inch for piercing the plywood and not cutting the sub-fascia below it) and when the knob failed and let go the saw plunged downward and it pivoted (and began biting into the wood below the plywood/zip-board) and all that was enough to jerk me towards toppling before the good sense to let go of the trigger hit me just in time. Honestly there is always stuff like that happening to me and whenever I am doing sketchy stuff (like sawing on the edge of a roof over a five meter drop to the ground) I do my best to not just go super slow but also to be fucking ready for anything! In the end the sheathing came out curvy but there was still enough for me to nail the zip-board down and I did not fall. I will more than likely add a piece of blocking behind the curvy cut and throw in a few more nails just for the sake of integrity but it would probably be fine without it too.
Well, it is now the following day and although I got a lot done yesterday I also only worked on the cabin for half of the day before once again taking a super long nap. Since it is not supposed to rain anytime soon, I have been able to slow my pace of working on the cabin and getting the extra rest was very nice. All the work that I did was out of the sun because I have been really pushing it when it comes to how much sun that I have gotten of late and while I do not mind the tan... I was getting close to having my back being sunburned to the point where it was unhealthy.
I mainly worked on finishing the second floor's framing for the walls which also included getting some blocking installed because when the sheathing gets installed on the second floor it will be oriented horizontally for extra sheer strength. Although I could have gone without blocking since the wall studs are only sixteen inches apart (and H-clips would have done the job also) I decided to follow the manufacturers recommendations and do the blocking anyway. Overall it makes for a much stronger wall when done that way and like everything else with this cabin build I do not mind building for strength, durability and longevity instead of just hacking things together. Anyway, I finished two of the walls and only have one remaining wall to build before all the second floor framing is complete.
While I was working on the second floor I also went ahead and added all the six inch long landscape screws that connect the top plates of the walls to the rafters themselves. Given the angle of the rafters installation and the resulting heel and seat cuts being what they are it was a bit tricky finding the right angle to drive the screws in at but after a little experimentation I figured it out and got the rafters anchored in such a way that they should hold up in even the most severe winds. I guess that time will tell in that regard but I feel rather confident that it will especially since those screws are often used as a replacement for metal straps and/or other metal hardware used to hold a building's roof and walls together against high winds and uplift. In other words doing things that way meets or exceeds most building codes and for this geographic area it is probably overkill which is fine by me!
I am in slow motion this morning and now that the sun is fully up I should probably get to working outdoors or at least begin getting my morning chores done. The days often seem like these long series of actions that often leave me completely wiped out at the end of the day but I guess it is good for me because as of yet I have not burned myself out during this adventure. One thing that sure does help is having a sense of long-term commitment to the place and continually picturing what everything will look like once I get out of this phase of things. It is a slow and steady process of 'doing the work' but hell it is not like I have anything else to do with my time and thankfully I find the work itself to be quite enjoyable. Doing all the construction work lately has reminded me of why I moved away from doing it as a career years ago and all the little aches and pains along the way act as a further reminder of just how hard doing that kind of work every day is on the body.
So, it is another morning here and I am getting off to a slow start after intentionally sleeping in a few hours later than when I usually rouse myself from bed. It is much cooler outside than it has been lately and I even ran the electric heater last night to help keep the tent warm and cozy. I probably could have gone without the use of the heater altogether but sometimes it is just nice to be comfortable and not have to concern myself with remaining under the blankets or bundling up in warm clothes at the beginning (or end) of the day. It was actually quite chilly yesterday morning as well and the winds were gusting so much throughout the entire day that I had to keep putting on a warm shirt every time that I spent too much time in the shade.
Anyway, I made an early start to my day once again and got all my routine chores finished not long after the sun was up. Afterwards, I quickly moved on to lugging a bunch of tools up to the cabin's second floor and setting to work getting its remaining wall built as well as getting the last of the blocking for the exterior sheathing installed. Spelling it out like that makes it sound like I did it super fast but in reality I spent most of the day working up there and it was not until late in the afternoon that I finished it all up.
Since the stud walls are only sixteen inches apart it made hauling all the tools back down the ladder a bit of a hassle and although I could have made it easier by cutting out the attic access opening and then using it... I opted to leave the first floor as sealed as possible until I get it weatherproofed. Thankfully I was able to squeeze everything between the studs but whoa was it a bit of a puzzle getting the compound miter saw and my little step stool to fit between them but after enough twisting, turning and fidgeting I managed to do it and chided myself on not doing it before I put the final stud in the last wall.
By late afternoon I was rather wiped out so I opted to take a long nap and although I rested well as soon as I woke up I went right back to work and finally got the bottom of the zip-board nailed off on the first floor's exterior. I had not done it when I first installed the sheathing because I had wanted to be able to slide the metal skirting up under it but once I did that (installed the skirting) I never went back and nailed the bottom of the sheathing off. The main reason why I did not immediately do it was because it had rained so much and I wanted everything to dry out as much as possible before I nailed the sheathing off and potentially trapped moisture behind it. After so many days of no rain, bright sun, low humidity and the fans running around the clock inside the cabin things have dried out nicely so hopefully before the next big rain event I can get the exterior sealed.
Overall, I am rather happy with how the little cabin is coming along even though getting all the materials has been a hassle due to availability issues. The other kink in things has been that we (or just me) keep adjusting the design of the cabin and each adjustment uses up materials that were intended for some other portion of the project which is fine and all but nonetheless we wind up having to source and procure more materials to make up for it. I had diligently calculated what would have been required and well that changed with the changes that were made. All of which is no big deal or anything and since most of the material went towards adding extra blocking for the rafter tails (making the overall roof stronger) it was well worth the endeavor even if it shorted me on materials to finish the rest of the framing.
The other thing that was an absolute oversight on my part was that I used a bunch (almost all) the rough-cut lumber that I had to create scaffolding with (that I still need left in place to finish the exterior) and that rough-cut lumber was what I was planning to do much of the blocking with for the walls but instead I used some of the dimensional lumber intended for the downstairs's doorway and window or possibly 'windows' if I install two of them like I have been considering doing. I absolutely do not mind keeping such details 'loose' and making changes where necessary if it is going to make the building more useful, stronger or even more comfortable but it sure does make having an accurate material list tricky!
On a different note, I have been using that battery powered nail gun a lot on this project and although I like using screws a lot more when building than nails... damn it sure has made things go fast! Using the cheaper fastener (the nail versus the screw) has helped to offset some of the material expense for the cabin also which is good especially considering the current insane lumber prices. Something that I really dislike about using the nail gun is that it is a noisy process because I often (almost always) have to use a hammer to drive the nails all the way in to 'set' them which yeah makes one hell of a racket and every hammer blow echoes out over the valley below me as well as out across the surrounding countryside. Call me crazy (or just paranoid) but I dislike the idea of broadcasting 'hey there is construction going on here... listen to my tools!' in some remote area where I do not know anyone.
It is always a dodgy prospect which is why I am so inclined towards doing what I think of as 'stealth building' involving mainly screws and minimal noise production along the way. It is also frigging annoying making so much racket and can really piss off surrounding neighbors if they are accustomed to silence or just the sounds of nature. Given that I am in an agricultural area without any noise ordinances and there is a good bit of what I think of as 'agricultural/industrial noise' going on in the distance... it is not a big deal or anything but still all the hammer banging has got to be annoying given the loud clacking it makes and its lack of any true rhythm.
Do not get me wrong because I am not trying to conceal my construction endeavors or anything like that but I am trying to be a good neighbor and not make too much damn racket along the way. I often wait until well into the morning to begin any loud construction work which often leaves me plenty of time to think through the tasks ahead, get all the tools pulled out and then do a bunch of tasks that do not make a bunch of noise like moving lumber or taking measurements or doing layouts or so forth and so on. Personally I think it is just being courteous not to be banging on stuff at six in the morning without a good reason. In all actuality I am just not in that big of a rush to get this cabin built either and absolutely do not mind taking my time in the mornings before fully diving into the project for the day.
Diving in each day is exactly what I have been doing and whoa I have really enjoyed the process thus far (aside from the foundation work) and when it comes down to it I have enjoyed the lack of 'hectic-ness' involved with not just the cabin build but my entire stay here. The relaxed pace has been pretty awesome and it has accommodated a lot being accomplished in a relatively short time. It is kind of funny how the more that I take my time with stuff the more that seems to get done. I mean I have had some practice the last few years at setting up these little homestead areas and have this well disciplined approach to working each day but dang it is like I have reached a whole new level of things or at the very least I am beginning to reach a new level. Pulling down twelve hour days for weeks on end and not getting burned out sort of speaks for itself and all that I can surmise is that lacking a ton of stress in my life... my passions tend to take center stage and I think that has sort of shined through during this adventure.
It is hard to sum up what I am trying to get at there so suffice it to say that life is good and that I am undoubtedly in better shape than I have ever been. I definitely have my little moments where having been camping for so many months gets to me but the end goal seems well worth it so I just shake it off and keep my mind from dwelling on the little inconveniences knowing they will eventually evaporate or be made into conveniences. I guess that not taking the things that I do have for granted goes a long way as well because damn this is one heck of a nice setup already and even sans shelter it is light years better than any previous setup that I have had and of a higher quality to boot so go figure that the mental balancing act of dealing with camping has gone so easily.
I am accustomed to rugged living and all that jazz and will make do with nearly anything for a short time... but having healthy limits (and standards) is a good thing and I tend to let those go the longer that I spend camping which is a big part of why I dislike it so much. At this point it is probably better to say that I have grown impartial to the camping aspect of things and simply view it as the intermediate phase that it is and not let it grate on me. The way that I see it is that if I cannot be happy along the way of fulfilling my dreams then what the hell am I doing with my life to start with and what changes must I make to get back on track. In this instance of reality I often feel that mayhaps I am too 'on track' and need to take a step back from it all to see the larger picture or simply recall to memory the ever-morphing larger picture which is of course easier said than done. Setting aside that time at both the end and beginning of the days to just 'take it all in' has been working well for that and throughout the day I take dozens of similar breaks resting in the shade of the solar shack.
As much as it may seem like I do projects with some incredible zeal nothing could be further from the truth because by and large I just amble along letting the slow grind of my thoughts do their own thing as I focus on what I am doing whilst enjoying my successes, laughing at my failures and often completely blind to my own achievements until the end of the day when I am like "Damn dude... you just did all that today!" Those little moments of lucidity are precious and although I do not go looking for them I am glad to notice them when I do because at the end of the day my morale and attitude is entirely up to me and me recognizing where I am at in life and what the heck I am doing with my time, energy (calories) and attention matters to me.
All that jazz aside, things are going well for me in general and aside from all the construction related stuff (that I try to stop doing a few hours before dark) I have also gotten in more time working on planting more food and black locust trees. That area where I have the raised beds and flower pots at seems to be getting good enough sunlight because stuff has really started to pop up at last! I am unsure if I mentioned that I planted a bunch more lettuce and spinach but I later went back (I think it was the following day) and planted a few black locust seeds in each of the newly planted flower pots just to maximize things like I was writing about doing before.
There is going to be a bunch of watering of gardens in my future because not only are a bunch of my potted black locust trees doing well but the shaded garden in the woods (that has the PVC fence around it) now has two black locust seedlings growing in it as well. I do not recall exactly how many seeds that I planted in that area but hopefully the shade tolerant strain of tree that I have to work with can get itself established there and will produce a very dense wood due to growing in partial (to full) shade. Thankfully the tree is native to the area and aside from the usual concerns of the heart-rot fungus and boring beetles (that just seem to be everywhere these days) I do not have any concerns of it flourishing here and spreading. It would absolutely do a heck a lot of good in some of the erosion prone areas as well as provide ample fodder for wildlife and plenty of flowers for pollinators. As with all experiments we will see how things turn out but for now I am stoked to have both shade and field grown seedlings and a few that are rapidly approaching sapling size! I better not get lost down the black locust rabbit warren here but I am stoked about them doing so well and am happy that I got a bunch of them planted so early in the year.
The morning is dragging on here and I have been planning on taking the day off for the most part so it is no biggie that I have now spent all of my morning here clacking away at the keyboard. At some point today I will have to edit all of this and a part of me would rather just keep writing instead just to get it out of my system as much as possible... and delay the editing/posting portion of things. It gets wacky at some point wading through days and days of text and sorting through so many pictures but I guess that it all works out even though I have not maintained a routine posting schedule like I was often able to do in the past. Fortunately that has not been due to technological challenges but simply a matter of how much time I have each day to devote to writing.
Honestly I have no idea how I have done it (and all the other stuff that I do) thus far no matter how erratic the posting routine is. I am glad that I had four years of habit under my belt before arriving here because otherwise I would have dropped the proverbial ball by now with at least the editing/posting aspect of things and perhaps with writing out daily entries altogether. There is still something awesome about knowing the number of the day and comparing it to the progress around me accomplished inside those days. As I have said before: Numbering my days makes each day unique... which after all they always are anyways!
Alright, I got it all edited. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.
Thanks for reading!
More about me: I have been doing property caretaking (land stewardship) for many years (decades) and live a rather simple life with my dogs doing what most folks would consider to be an 'alternative minimalist lifestyle' but what I often just think of as a low-impact lifestyle where I get to homestead and spend the majority of my time alone with my dogs in the woods doing projects in the warmer months and taking some downtime during the colder months.
Nearly four years ago I began sharing the adventures (misadventures) of my life via writing, videos, pictures and the occasional podcasts and although my intention was to simply share my life with some friends it undoubtedly grew into much more than that over the years and now I find myself doing what equates to a full-time job just 'sharing my life' which is not even all that glamorous or anything but hey folks seem to enjoy it so I just keep doing it!
The way that I look at it is that I give it all my best each day and while some stuff I write is better than others I think that for the most part I do a pretty good job at doing what I am doing which is simply 'sharing my life' as candidly as I possibly can and whatever folks get (or do not get) from it there is always the satisfaction of me doing what I set out to do... which is to simply share my life.
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