Long awaited blog update for Cabin

Since it was May since I did the last blog update I figured I would start from early June the goings on.  Since NC is pretty much the epicenter of reported tick-borne illnesses in the US it would stand to reason that my chance of contracting this is pretty high given that we are in the woods just above very weekend.  Around June 5 I started experiencing the classic symptoms (headache, low grade fever, sluggishness) and went to the doc to be checked.  Upon my indicating I had been bitten several times by ticks in the past weeks she took a blood sample and prescribed doxycyline.  Five days after the doctor's visit I got the spots (which was actually my capillaries leaking under the skin - very bad news...).  However the good news is that I was already on the treatment and starting to get better so the damage was not worsening.  The spots disappeared another 3-4 days later and I felt much better.

This is what RMSF looks like after about day 5 of when I suspected I had a tick-borne illness. I was on doxycyline at this point for 4 full days.

 The cabin worked continued in earnest in July, August and September with us finishing the last bit of the deck (to be used as scaffolding for siding the dormer).

Taking a break to enjoy the quietness.

Completed siding and partial painting done

Beech log in front of the cabin has taken on some beautiful fungal arrangements

October 16

We added this awning after Hurricane Matthew dumped a whole lot of rain on us.  We decided we needed to redirect water from the main roof above the door off to the ground as water splashed on the walkway deck onto the door sill and leaked into the cabin.

Oct. 16

Exterior cabin finishes nearly done to make it ready for winter.  Needs deck railing and then we move inside to build the loft.

Cabin update

March, April and May were productive.  We logged a good portion of the home site of the trees bucked and split the wood for fuel and chipped the limbs and covered the trail with it down to the cabin.  We installed the doors and windows on the cabin and figured out what we want to do for siding.

Deck Not Tinier than Tiny House

"March Break": A Canadian-ism not used in America.  Here the time spent to vacation during the month of March is called "Spring Break".  UNCG had its break (Elizabeth) then (March 7-11) and I could not have chosen a better week, myself to take a few days off to work on the cabin in the woods.  It was fantastic weather!  We were without rain and temperatures in the mid 70's most of the week.  We completed the OSB sheathing and wrapped and nailed the vapor barrier entirely below the gables which will protect it from the elements for a few weeks.  With that done we worked on the deck framing most of the time.  We installed a new post on the south side of the cabin to provide additional load bearing support on the midspan section for the side deck.  The rest of the days we spent framing in the joists and installing the planks. Next up will be to install the doors, windows and construct the porch roof.

We also found some time to visit Tobacco Pine LLC a reclamation company dismantling the old closed down American Tobacco warehouses in Reidsville.  The many large warehouses were constructed with old growth heart pine cut near the turn of the 19th century.  The company removes the nails fasteners and mills the planks into 3/4" thick flooring or 1/2" thick ceiling boards of various widths.  They sell large timbers as well.  The company will batch mill a customer order to your quantity and specification within the capability of their machinery.  We will go with 4" wide flooring similar to the example shown here.  This was a scrap piece which I used to write prices onto and you can see the big holes where fasteners were located and it is split.  Of course the stuff you buy that will go in your house will be selected with fewer imperfections.

Cabin Walls

A compendium of photographs showing our latest progress on the small cabin.  Slowly we are "drying in" the structure.  Application of the OSB wall sheathing goes over all wall openings and then we'll come back later to make the cut-outs for the windows and doors.  Our goal is to have as little scrap as possible leftover so we are patch-working some areas of the walls with smaller pieces of the sheathing which means more cutting (time consuming!) and gaps but it is going to be covered anyway with moisture barrier house wrap and exterior wall coverings anyway.

Logging with the Farmi

With cold, but dry weather over the weekend it made for ideal conditions to do some tree clearing for the homesite.  This will take a number of weekends to complete and we are hoping to have this done before the trees bud.  Fortunately we have some labor saving machinery to help make this adventure more productive and quite a bit safer than when we cleared the driveway.  Any trees that get hung up in a fall we can put the winch on it and pull it down with relative ease from a distance.  When we did the driveway we had to hook up a come-along winch (hand powered) with a rope.  The tractor powered winch will easily pull 3-4 logs at a time from the forest up to the skid plate of the winch where I can then latch them and drag them up to the wood shed area where we limb, buck and split them into firewood.

Chainsaw Accident Near Miss!

We started in on the homesite clearing this weekend.  Temperature was a comfortable 30 degree fahrenheit, sunny with variable wind conditions.  A decent day for sawyering. However since it's been almost a year since I was last felling trees I was a little out of practice but still full of confidence - a recipe for mistakes and potential injury!  Chainsaws are very dangerous machines that require full concentration and attention to proper protocols.  I had just finished notching an 8" diameter ash, completed the back cut to drop the tree and moved a safe distance away for the fall.  At that point I brought the saw across my thigh to rest it there and accidentally snagged the first inch or two of the chain bar on my thigh...thank goodness for my safety chaps!!  The chain cut the outer fabric of the chaps and caught the microfiber mat causing it to bind and slow the chain speed almost to a stop.  This little mishap was a bold reminder of how important it is to ALWAYS wear your PPE!!