Saturday Feb. 10, 2018 through Tuesday Feb. 13, 2018

If we are not ready to go on time, it is not because we didn't try.

There is a really pretty snow pack in the woods. This picture was taken on Saturday the 10th.

Friday evening Feb. 9th, Brad and Bob cut yet another tree for

the floor joist of the loft.

This is one of our "old faithful" maple trees,....Bob says this tree has many pics on the blog. He says that this is one of the first trees that we tried putting 3 single taps on instead of 2 doubles increasing our sap collection.

Below is the inside cut of the above tree. The guys have gotten a little soft hearted, the log below was supposed to be a floor joist, seemed like the grain was too cool to do that so plans changed.

 

Saturday brought both time and help to work on the loft some more. Most of this day was spent in planning, measuring and engineering the loft. Evan , Brad and Bob worked on that while Kelsey and Gerri did some cleaning in the camp. Deep cleaning, the kind that involves a shovel, a large magnet, a trash dumpster and small fire. Dale and Karen came to visit after Kelsey and Evan headed back to Mansfield.

Bob contacted friend Rob Wilson to shed some light on the "dark ring". He thinks this is either wind shake that created the dark ring OR Bob counted back the rings, the dark ring would land about 1988 (major drought). Either way a pretty cool looking cross section! This 23 inch log turned into only 12 inches of usable log. the black layer went from the ground to the first crotch which was 30 feet. Win some, lose some.

Saturday am they got the vertical beams set in place and began to place the joists by late afternoon.

It was plenty cold and a bit breezy today. Today's fun fact .....the out house door is frozen shut. Bad situation!

 Sunday the guys set the joists and cut up a couple more logs to make planking for the top of the roof. Dale came over and helped Bob put up about half of the decking on Tuesday late afternoon. We marvel at this picture.....doesn't Wally (our tracker in the corner) look small!

Bob is like a small child who cannot wait to see what the new tank will look like, he lifted the tank up with the forklift and Gerri crawled up and took pics so he could see the approximate size of the space we have on each side.

The woods is beginning to come alive. Gerri saw a squirrel on Saturday afternoon. There are bunny tracks everywhere.

More fun to follow this week we are certain!

Sunday January 28, 2018




A simply gorgeous sunny day. An oasis between a wet and windy last week and what sounds like a return to cold and snow tomorrow! The project goal for today was to install what we call door number three. We expected this would be a challenge. We base our trepidation about this installation on the fact that the door is 15 feet wide, the heaviest of the doors and some possible engineering foresight of trouble regarding the angle of the hip roof above the west door corner...trouble was anticipated and we were not disappointed.

The doorway of straw, which worked beautifully by the way, was torn down and the tarp covering that came down with ease. (The concrete appears to be curing nicely...sweated about that a little a few weeks ago!)The rails on either side of the new door needed to be recessed into the wall. Brad used the router to make these indents, keeping them even on both sides was a bit tricky.

The forklift was used this time, we are trainable haha, to lift the door up . Dale showed up to manage setting the bearings/bar on the west end while Brad did the East and Bob managed the lift. Brad had only done the LEFT side of the other two doors...so he was riding the struggle bus a bit with the different housing on the right side. This took some finessing but the door was placed rather quickly.

 Catching the track to unroll did not go so well. Something on the west side is tight ......several adjustments were made, meanwhile the door started to unroll itself into a bigger coil, Bob held this up with his head for awhile, was not the moment to take pictures...just imagine it. This problem was improved by an hour of adjustments, not resolved.




The door is closed, looks nice. There  is a metal cover for this door, the only one mounted on the outside. There was some debate about putting that up, but it was getting dark and they decided to perhaps enhance the strength of the hangers before mounting them on the barn. The panels X 2 are 108 inches long, with 2 end pieces and one 90 degree angle bracket that were sent with sheet metal screws and NO directions.

Brad ran the lift up and down, shot screws while balancing with one leg on a ladder . removed 8 inch bolts with the impact driver, used the router to cut two different depths of lines for the track and yet somehow, .....struggled to cover the ends with shrink wrap at the end of the day. How you can do all that mechanical stuff and not apply saran wrap without getting tangled, wriping it off, swearing and throwing the wrap 10 feet is just beyond comprehension. (decided to cover the bearings at the ends with this for now as 70% chance of precip tomorrow!)

May need to call one of those safety meetings before we do too much more.

Hey Aunt Dorothy, this may be what happens to some of Brad's pants you have to mend!
















JC and James showed up to haul away the straw so the barn is a little cleaner now!

We spied the neighbors across the road working on their camp today as well!

Saturday December 16th and Sunday December 17th

This could be called odds and ends weekend. Brad and Bob finished putting up the short pieces on  the top of the east and west sides. There was also a lot of cleaning up this weekend. They picked up the rather large mess we had with boards, and pieces of boards and ladders everywhere on the outside. Emptying the floor inside was no small task either. They took the lift back to the barn.

Monday December 18th


Marc and Trevor Slingwine came over and took some dirt out of the barn, hauled stone and filled in with it, leveled and compacted the stone. Bob was amazed....and very happy.... to see this done when he got home from school.


Tuesday December 19th


Brad and Bob put a drain in where the sap storage tanks will be.


Wednesday December 20th


Brad filled in stone around the drains and up next to the building. Grant Decker came and put rebar down. The weather forecast looks like we there might be a window of opportunity.


Friday December 22nd

We did what everybody does on December 22...we poured concrete today...or more accurately Grant and his crew poured concrete. The morning of the pour was pretty nice weather wise. Later in the day things took a turn for the ugly. Bob had a longer day at school, so Brad and Dale brought straw over from Sandhill Rd. The pour itself went well. They had to bring a 3rd truck out.  It began to rain in the night.

 

Saturday December 23rd

It was white by sunrise today. They came and sawed the concrete late morning and Bob and Brad stacked the straw up to block the doorways. They moved the big heater inside but did not start it til later. The picture of the woods was taken at 1124am today. The back yard at 1500 (that is 3pm Bob)

Sunday December 24th

Had to go look at the concrete of course. There was a little water on it where the snow had blown in. Brad brought home firewood for the fireplace. It snowed during church and left a pretty coat of white on everything. It was a very pretty Christmas eve. Everyone trecked to Sandhill Rd to put out lanterns in the late afternoon and back to church in the evening. The roads were rather lousy making travel slow on this holy night.

Evan and Brad put special effort into their Christmas eve attire this year.

Merry Christmas to all!....no visit to the woods today!


Tuesday December 26th, 2017


Back at it. Bob and Brad went over and started the heater up. This was the beginning of the "great freeze" . Bob is praying everyday that the concrete cures...correctly....but quickly. The original forcast, before pouring the floor, was for some days in the teens, but we did not think that the high would be the teens! The forecast this week is cold and then colder.

This week was primarily a game of moving the heater around and babysitting it. Straw doors make heater placement crucial. The heater has worked great...but we are noticing the grate on the front is drooping a little. Bob called NAPA and they have a new one on order.


Thursday December 28th, 2017


Bob and Gerri took a field trip to Indiana to pick up our new doors. We decided that ultimately this building needs to be a little more sealed and secure than the previous, so these doors seemed like a good idea. They were made and retrieved from a snowy and cold Butler, Indiana. We fit it all in the trunk of the GMC and Jack's trailer. It is cold, Bob just about froze just getting it tied down to come home.


Friday December 29th, 2017

Bob and Brad carried the doors into the building, opening straw doors is tricky by the way. so was carrying the longer doors through the camp to get through the walk in door. They proceeded to install the first and smallest of the doors.

 

Saturday December 30th, 2017


Windy, snowing and blowing. And very, very cold. Miserable cold.

INSERT ISCICLE PICTURE!!

Brad and eventually Bob, spent a little time getting a friend's car out of the ditch in the early afternoon and then BOB decided to put door number two up. Brad and Gerri were literally along for the ride. They were supportive for about an hour. The heater has ran all week, and clearly needs some TLC, parts are ordered but not here. It kept turning off at intervals, and when you restarted it , for the first time today, it was smokey. Bob thinks we ran 30 gallons of diesel through it this month, estimating it takes about 5 gallons for a whole day . In the beginning of the project, it ran all day without fail. It never started to cough until it was below zero the last day or so.
before.....

 during....

(Dr. Mike explained to Bob on Tuesday the most probable cause of his shoulder pain, as he laughed.)

 after....

The second door up was 8 foot long and Brad and Bob mistakenly thought hand carrying it up the ladders seemed like a good idea. Brad was groaning loudly. Bob could not even groan. By the time the door was up in the air, it was dark enough, again, we needed a flashlight. We literally hung it and got out of dodge. Gerri was sure that her toes were going to fall off before she got home. Bob thought it was too cold to take the dog. Something wrong with this picture.




December 31, 2017


Brad toughed out the weather and split some firewood today. Everything is frozen. Wally is frozen in place and the dump does not raise. We could not move rocks.

Picnic season, and 2017, are officially over!

siding day!!

Saturday December 9, 2017

The entire crew was here today! Of the second half of the whole project, this was likely the most pivotal day.  Today was the big siding day. These boards were carefully stacked in early August, some in the field covered by a tarp and some were loaded unto a wagon and taken to the barn. There are many types of woods here and some variance of thickness so the drying process has been a bit irregular. Some are cracked and warped. So sorting is step one for the person cutting the siding.

Lola was happy to sit near the heater. Note the uneven floor!

We broke into two separate crews today to work on siding. We made a template for the slope at the top to make this easier. Until the template got thrown in the scrap pile. More than once. Measure, cut, screw it up, start over. Each plank separate. 

It is almost impossible to cut/drill with heavy gloves on!

Evan ran the forklift and he and Gerri moved large stacks of siding up near the camp. Dale and Kelsey work well together. 

We had a "chili" picnic in what almost feels like a building now. Getting the picnic table set close enough to the fire to be warm without being too close as well as finding a level place for 4 picnic table legs at the same time was tricky.  Chili, hot chocolate, apples and leftover cookies from church yesterday made a nice quick lunch today.

 Looking at the picnic from the camp building.

 Perspective on the amount of air conditioning.

 

In the foreground of this picture is a metal plate that we used as a bridge to get the forklift in the building over the 2-3 foot hole near the foundation. There was a pretty sharp fall off the edge if you didn't watch where you were walking. Likely not OSHA approved.

The laugh for today was Brad commenting that he smelled popcorn while he was working on the lift in the peak above the heater. After a little time, we discovered the only thing cooking was Adam's Carharts' from standing too close to the heater!! In this pic, Brad and Adam fit boards on the east wall. Bob says Brad and Adam spend a lot of energy arguing.

There were many hands held high when Bob sought a volunteer to go Ace for screws at 3 pm as he was afraid we would run out before the end of Sunday. Jack seemed to be the coldest so he won. Ace hardware in Clyde is sure we are building a skyscraper...definite frequent flyer miles there lately.








Dale commented later that Jack had to be cold running the forklift as there was snow accumulating on him while running the forklift!




Evan cut, Adam and Brad did the East wall. when that was done, Evan went to help Bob start the west wall, ....later Adam and Kelsey then worked on the rest of the west wall.

Dale returned for each day of fun!

This day, like many others ran into the early evening...here Ted is holding a board helping Dale and Kelsey to measure and cut with the flashlight. 

This picture was taken at the end of the day, before dark of course, the last work of the day was done on the back of the building.

Sunday December 10, 2017

Sunday December 3, 2017


The  guys skipped church this morning to work on the roof some more. There is snow and colder weather in the forecast so there is a little sense of urgency.

Evan and Kelsey stayed to help. Adam reinforced  the crew working

 

on siding on the north side while the rest worked on roofing. Evan ran the lift sending piles loaded on by jack, up to Brad on the roof. By the end of the day, the entire roof was on and some of the siding. We continue to use the Val 6 heater, a godsend. It is helping a little more as we go since we have some sides/roofing to help trap the heat. The picnics have been rather cool!

 

Bob looks on while Evan, Adam and Dale put up a header beam.

Construction continues.....

Saturday December 2, 2017


Recovered somewhat from the long weekend of work on thanksgiving, the crew was back at it again Saturday morning. Jack is still here braving the cold. Dale keeps showing up to help despite the freezing weather.  Evan and Kelsey came home. Bob spent some time this Saturday figuring out the technique needed to put siding up to avoid the braces on the bottom of the trusses.

Now work begins of attempting to get a roof on. The sheet metal used to cover the new building is a heavy guage that came also from a project at the former Central Soya. (This product is what you use to pour concrete onto if you are having a second story.)




The goal for today was put 2 X 4 purlins perpendicular to the trusses in order to have something to screw the roofing into. This took almost all day on Saturday. We still have Locust Knoll Farms lift so we are trying to accomplish "airborn" projects while we have the that. In retrospect, we could not have put this building up without that machine!