Its still there....

Had to get down this weekend to see how everything was doing. Very different after 3 months. I was surprised to see the angle of the sun's position in the sky. I thought it would be much lower based on the time of day and the time of the year. Without leaves, it is amazing how far one can see.


A shot looking down the driveway as I drove in.



Looking out the front of the cabin. Still can't see Willis mountain. Going to get someone to come in an cut the trees into some nice timbers to use for something.



This shot was taken at 1pm. The camera autoexposure actually removed the sun, but you can tell by the gloss on the top of the cabin that the angle to the sun was greater than the roof pitch. I'll have to look that up on-line to find the exact angle for the day.



It was Moxie's sixth birthday so I took her along. I think she must have been some type of water dog in her previous life. She just loves the water! She is in the creek at the lowest part of the land that I want to dam up and create a small pond with some type of Micro-hydro power generation.



Walking back to the west up the hill. It is amazing how far I could see without all the leaves gone.



It was 52 degrees and I wished I had come prepared to do some work. There is still a lot to finish on the cabin and then it will be time to get a tractor and start some grading and drainage work.

Long time...

It's been too cold to go down to the cabin and there are always too many other things to do on the weekends.

Decided to start to work on Timber framing. Bought a nice Barr chisel and got some basic plans to build two timber frame sawhorses. Found a cheap drill guide to attach to my drill to get nice perpendicular holes when creating mortises. Using 4x6 timbers (deck posts) and had to redo some of the dimensions to get everything to work. I think the trick of doing joints quickly is all in the tools you have. Plan to get some of the trees down on the property cut and moved so I can have somebody come buy with a portable saw and make a few beams for me to use. I will probably start with something small and simple like a lean-to to store the tractor in. I will get the timbers cut and bring them home on the trailer to dry in the basement. The only problem will be the weight since the timber is oak. It is very heavy.

Hope to get down the the cabin in the next week or so to make sure everything is OK. Finally just went and bought the simple propane heater that attaches to a 20# cylinder. Won't be able to sleep with it on, but it fires up quickly and puts out quite a bit of heat. It will be better to buy the direct vent heater off season and install it this summer.

I will take some pictures of the saw horses in the next few days and post them. Actually did some Geocaching today for the first time in a long while. Better get back to some mortise cutting.