Construction Journal Entry Week of 9/6/09

9/8-10/09 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way in I noticed that there was snow atop Mt. Mastiff for the first time this season. I arrived at noon, had lunch and a nap, and then went up to the cabin and set up the easel for the scouts. I got two old doors from the crawlspace and screwed them to the wall over the pantry and linen closet openings. This works well so I do it the same each year.

Next, I took a tape into the woods and measured the two trees that Robert Ferrel cut down for me. The Doug fir was 112 feet long and the grand fir was 85 feet long. Then I got the chainsaw out and bucked a section out of the middle of the grand fir trunk so the deer can pass through on their normal trail and I cut off all the limbs.

On Wednesday morning the woods were wet because it had rained pretty hard during the night. I got the chainsaw out again and bucked a few sections out of the Doug fir log so I could use them to make a rack for ripping the log for the staircase stringer. Then I lifted the log up onto the rack. I used a come-along and a chain to roll one end of the log up onto one of the rack sections. Then with that end up on the rack, I used a bipod of big Doug fir limbs chained together and a come-along to lift the other end of the log so I could roll the second rack section underneath. Then I lowered the log onto the rack and it is ready to be scribed and ripped. Three gray jays visited me during the process. The one adult took peanuts from my hand with no hesitation, but the other two were obviously juveniles who didn't quite know what to do. One of them finally got to where he would take as many as four peanuts at once. The other one never got up enough nerve to land on my hand.

I spent the rest of the day cutting the limbs into firewood and throwing it onto a stack. I got most of the limbs cleaned up and got a pretty big stack of firewood. I covered it with a tarp to keep it dry for winter.

On Thursday morning, I swept the privy, the two porches, and the three staircases. I left for home at noon so I could be home in time to help Ellen get ready for her company picnic.



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