As soon as the order went in, Rob took some time to work on a few things while he had a chance. We knew that once the wood arrived, he wouldn't have time for fixing things up around the cabin, or doing much in the way of maintenance around the property. We knew we were having some drainage issues on our new road where it meets the common road, so he somewhat reluctantly dug it up, pushed back all the layers of gravel and arranged for a small culvert to be delivered. We originally ordered a plastic culvert, but soon realized a metal one was needed, so had to have them pick up the plastic one we had bought, and bring a metal one instead. The meeting of the two roads looks much better now, and we've had such heavy rains that we've at least had a chance to check that it is all working better now. The rains will no longer wash the common road away where the two roads meet.
Rob then started to prepare space in the shed to make sure he could manoeuvre the timbers when they arrived, and cleaned up the road leading to the shed and the old concrete pad that had amassed a pile of junk over the years. (Some neighbours had asked to use it for storage when they sold their cottage, but never returned to pick up their stuff!) We had to haul a lot of it up to our local waste collection center, and pay for it to become landfill. Anything that we could recycle though (metal, old tires, asphalt shingles, clean wood etc.) were handed over to the various recycle bins. We then had to spend a lot of time cleaning the concrete pad, and removing any nails that were lying around. Luckily Rob had some kind of mega magnet that helped me to find some rather old nails and any other remaining bits of metal!
Somewhere during the move last fall, Rob has "misplaced" his wooden mallet which he purchased at one of the timber frame courses, after spending a fair amount of time making sure that it fit his hand just the way he wanted. We are still hoping that he simply put it somewhere safe, knowing he would need it this summer. It would be a shame to have lost it! In the meantime though, he needs a good mallet, and has been eyeing the iron wood in the forest, thinking he should maybe try making his own. In the end though,we simply ordered a new one (thus ensuring that the lost one will show up!)
Thanks to the generosity of our friend Bob we were able to borrow his I-beam and trolley and this has allowed Rob to more easily move the timbers around as he works on them. He spent quite some time building good solid frames to rest the beams on as well.
When the day finally arrived for our timbers to be delivered we drove up to the top of the property and sat on the tailgate of the truck in anticipation. Due to some loading problems at their end, there was a slight delay, but finally as we looked down the road, we could see the truck arriving!
We directed the truck to our concrete pad, and the driver proceeded to unload the timbers, with some help from Rob.
The aroma of the timbers, even though they were well covered, was pretty heady. We were like little kids peering under the covers, and couldn't wait to get a good look at them all. With rain in the forecast though we had to wait, so got them all under good tarps just in time as some heavy rainstorms soon arrived.
As soon as the weather cleared later in the week, Rob got the tractor out, and with the help of the stands he had built, started sorting through the timbers. He had all his diagrams ready, and was able to tag the timbers with a number of each end, according to the quality of the wood, and where it would be in the new house. I was pretty surprised at how fast he was able to move them all around. They are really heavy. He built special covers for the forks on his tractor so the forks wouldn't mark the timbers as well.
I can barely pick up the end of one of the smaller beams, and then only if it is lying with the majority of it's weight on another beam. In a fairly short period of time, Rob had them all moved next to the shed, and under the protection of the shed overhang and some tarps. Some of the timbers were stacked into the pole shed, under the I-beam, ready for him to begin working on them! I tried to show up once all the hard work was done...
Now things started to get a little more interesting. Rob had to prepare all his chisels, find all the hand tools he would need to work on the timbers, get his drawings printed out, and at the same time, start working on the house site as well! We took a couple of hours one afternoon and sadly started marking out the trees that would have to come down. Fortunately, a lot of the trees were already in poor shape. The spruce bud worm has really decimated almost all of our spruce trees, and there were a lot of them in the area where the house will be built. We were happy to agree to try to keep a lovely stand of cedar at the driveway entrance. Our friend Brennan had agreed to do the first round of clearing with his bulldozer, so he showed up early one morning and got at it. Rob helped by clearing out the fallen trees and branches as Brennan took them down.
We were really surprised to discover some lovely old oak trees in behind some of the trees we removed, and the oaks are far enough away that they will remain, and we hope we will enjoy them for many years to come!
As soon as the site was relatively clear, Rob had a septic system specialist come on site to see where the septic field can go. We were hoping it could go on the river side, but expected it would have to go on the opposite side. We were really thrilled to hear we could tuck it in on the river side, leaving lots of room for Rob to put his future workshop in the location he wanted! Our permit for the system has now also arrived.
Now that things have ramped up a bit, we also saw a bit of more normal summer weather - hot and humid - so we were careful to pace ourselves, work a bit earlier in the morning and stop the heavy outside work before noon if possible. Then Rob happily headed up to the pole barn area and worked on some timbers. It's such a beautiful spot - it is where we camped 20+ years ago, and will always have a special place in our hearts. There is a sweet aroma in the air there, a constant breeze, and he is visited by phoebe's, robins, chickadees, blue jays, yellow bellied sapsuckers, and chipmunks. Above him ravens, crows, turkey vultures, red wing hawks, and an American kestrel soar. He can hear the gurgling of the bobolinks in the adjacent field, and sometimes the flute like sound of a Wilson's snipe.
And sometimes he gets a surprise visit from some rather large spiders!
All in all it's a pretty sweet place for Rob to work.
We are trying out a few different variations on our day in order to give Rob more building time. I will sometimes bring up a picnic lunch so that he doesn't have to stop working for too long, and will head up at least once a day with cold ice tea and some cookies for a short break. We are eating dinner even later than normal as Rob's day usually ends now around 7:30 p.m., and we then spend some time playing with Jet, and get him out for a short walk when it's a bit cooler, and then feed the cats, get Axle his insulin, and then take some time over a cold beer to discuss the day, while sitting on the porch. We tumble into bed shortly after 10 p.m. and neither of us has much trouble sleeping!
With the building site cleared a little, we spend some time there each day, watching the movement of the sun, listening to the river and the birds, admiring the view of the trees and the river. Both of us feel it is a very peaceful and beautiful building site.
Well, interestingly, I wrote almost all of the above sometime back in June and early July. It is now almost mid-August! I was surprised to read about the summer heat, as it quickly disappeared, and we have since seen a lot of cool days and nights, lots of cloudy days, pop-up thunderstorms, and even had tornado warnings! We have only been in the river once this summer so far, as we have only had a couple of brief hot spells, and they are usually accompanied by thunderstorm warnings, so we never have much opportunity for those lazy hazy kind of river days.
The river is higher and faster this year than normal, and certainly way higher than last year when we were in a drought, and the river became a trickle. The only time we were in this year, I could barely hold myself up against the current. It has a dropped a bit since then though.
Rob has been busy working on the timbers almost every day, and has managed to rig things up so he can work if it is raining (which proved to be a good thing this summer!). I think he had a blog posting prepared sometime in July, that explained a bit about the work he is doing on the timbers, but he just hasn't had time to post it.
I have been putting a few more hours in at the delightful and funky good karma shop, so haven't had as much 'free' time as I used to. I also find it hard to sit indoors and spend time on the PC whenever the sun comes out, or the temperatures warm up a bit. I know that in a few months I will probably have a lot more time indoors!
Well, I was just going to post a few photos of Rob's timber frame handy work, with a little more detail, but then today they showed up to level the building site and install the septic system, so things got a little busy. The forecasted rain held off until the end of the day which was nice. So I will keep my comments a little shorter than planned. (Good thing maybe as this entry has been long enough eh?)
You can see Rob's new mallet on the left. Still no sign of the one he lost.
Cool - it fit !! Good job. I love all the writing on the sides of these.
Some pretty fancy work.
More fancy work.
It took two goes to get this one right. Luckily the timber was long enough that he could start over with out losing the whole thing!
Using the mortiser.
A visitor!
Well, I could keep writing but I won't. I didn't even stop to write about the plants, the insects, the wildlife... the wild plums that we discovered are everywhere....With a bit of luck, I hope it won't be two months before I post again.
