SHAQ ATTACK - DAY 1

Today we surged into the cabin project with gusto.  Mucho gusto.

Cant hook

Step one was the site selection, and Nels and I picked a spot surrounded on all sides by trees.  Took the chainsaw and cut down and cut up some of the smaller ones to clear space for the 12 x 12 square, and took out others to make room to drive in the lawn tractor and wagon.  I picked up a 100 ft. heavy duty extension cord from Fleet, together with a big hammer and chisel for making the notches to join the logs.  I checked several places in town for a cant hook, but the closest I came was at Ace Hardware where they had just sold the last one for $70.  I'm hoping we can get away without one in sticking with the easy-and-cheap principle.

After clearing a space, we measured to lay out where the bottom logs would go, and pushed down some sticks to mark each corner.  Then we measured both diagonals and found that one was two feet longer than the other.  It took several attempts to figure out which way to move the sticks to make a relatively good square.  At that point we used the broad end of a pick axe to trench out where the logs were to lay, and had to chop a lot of tree roots to make it level.

electric chainsaw

Next we went for the first log.  I had a good one laying in the back yard - leftover from cutting down a dead tree for firewood.  It was the bottom end which fit our spec of 12 feet long, it was about 9 inches in diameter, and not much tapering from one end to the other.  Logs that size are HEAVY!  We were able to put one end up into the wagon and cinch it up with a chain.  We let the other end drag as we pulled it with the lawn tractor into the woods.  The next two logs came from cutting down a couple of other dead trees, and we used just the bottom ends to make sure the first course was made up of nice big'uns as a base for the walls.

Putting down the third log required that we notch the ends so they'd lock together and so when we got to adding more courses the logs would go together with minimal space between them.  We did a "Lincoln Log" approach, making two cuts with the chainsaw and chipping out the notch with a chisel, which seemed to be a lot of work.  So on the other end we put the chisel aside and did the whole notching process with the chainsaw.  We'll probably stick with that method as we go, having decided that easy was more fun than making it pretty.

curved drawknife

We did peel the logs, using a curved drawknife I had gotten in Fort Yukon for our cabin project there.  It went pretty quick since they were dead for sometime and the bark fell off in big chunks.  They say if you peel them you'll have fewer bugs trying to eat up your cabin later.

All this took about 6 hours, with breaks in between to drink pop and smoke and refuel Nels with cheeseburgers and such.  At about 10 to 5 he spied out another good tree as log #4, but by then I was pretty well "stove up" and declared quittin' time.  

There were quite a few times during the day that we mused about how it must have been for the early white settlers driving their ox carts up here, camping out along the way, and having to then put up a cabin.  No chainsaws or lawn tractors to make things easier back then.  The other thought that started to nag us was what was it going to take to put up the fourth or fifth row of logs when we can't just lay them on the ground.  But I guess we'll figure that one out when it comes time.

Actual photos coming soon...