The looking back on the posts post

I recently found this piece of paper lying around the cabin. It's a record I made of a milling session when Kevin was cutting the logs into posts. This documents the amount of time (2 hours) it took to mill 3/4's of one post for the foundation.

Here are some more photos from that fun but exhausting time when we were milling and building the foundation.

Decking discs and divine dining

It's been a great spring so far. We've had mint from our planters, good times on the green roof and of course the nearly completed exterior siding!
But even among great weekends this weekend was special.

In the work department, Kevin finished some milling and Mike and Malcolm started on the much -anticipated decking.

He's a lumberjack and he's OK

is that decking going down? oh my so it is!

June report

From Jun 2011

From Jun 2011

This past weekend was frustrating and lovely all at the same time. K spent time on the mill working to cut the facia that will go around the cabin but unfortunately the chainsaw gave him some trouble.

Last week's addition of the french doors has really made it possible to see what the cabin will look like in its finished state. We also made some design decisions that have been hanging over our heads for a while including the roof of the guest cabin (same as main roof) the layout of the kitchen and the upstairs loft space.

From Jun 2011

The bird nests from the past few weeks all seem to be empty but the squirrels and woodpeckers are out in full force. Also spotted a medium sized pale brown spotted frog in the pond for the first time.

Bear rumours are starting to swirl around the island again, but so far no definitive sightings (thank goodness!)

Milling: The Final Report

The posts and some of the beams of our cabin were milled using a chainsaw mill which we set up on the island. Approximately 20 trees were milled altogether.

Local The logs were located just down the hill from us, given to us by a neighbour who'd cut them from their lot
Low-cost We did pay $5,000 for the mill and had to buy a new chain-saw but we still feel that for the quality of wood we obtained, we would have had to pay more if we'd purchased it.
Low-impact ( The logs were re-claimed from fallen trees. Our mill was able to cut pieces a larger mill might not have been able to.
Loveable/liveable: The beams are beautiful!
Long-lasting: We were able to use thicker than essential pieces of wood for most of posts and beams.
Logical: Logical is probably the trickiest one to assess. The milling took much longer than anticipated, and was fairly unpleasant work. Kevin had chainsaw hand (a numbness caused by the vibration of the saw) as well as allergic reactions to the sawdust. That said, there is something amazing and right-feeling about building the house from trees grown right on the island. Does that make it logical? Hmmm.

The Milling is DONE

Keivn and Mike Loading The Final Beam...
And boy was it a big one. And with that beam, the days of milling were finally done. Two years after we started, the logs so generously given to us by our neighbours, were finally milled. All that was left was to move the mill.

Early July

Concrete and excavation days after the approval of the building permit. Big milestones, big sighs of relief all around.

Kevin calls watching the work of the excavator "awesome and heart-breaking." Even though we have already transplanted many of the little trees that were going to be right in the middle of the build site, it is somewhat unsettling to see how quickly machines like this can transform a landscape. The excavator is being used to find bedrock for 23 posts which the house will be built on. In actual fact, the way we are building the house (raised on posts) was one of of the most minimally invasive ways we could build on this site.

More milling done on Friday, our fattest log yet. Are going to experiment with using the dremel to sharpen the saw blade, which has to be sharpened every other cut. We think the little portable solar power pack which Kevin built from battieres, solar panel and dolly (hence portable), will do the trick nicely. Thanks Dave for giving us those batteries!

Also thanks to Waylon and Amanda for had work and photo-documentation. Double thanks to Maddy who keeps coming back for more and is the first person to take advantage of our "name a building" project. Come help out and we'll name something after you! The tent platform Maddy's working on is being called the "Maddyshack." We tried to talk Waylon into a "Waylon wall" but he was skeptical. Maddy also worked hard for her concrete handprint in the PowerTower base. You can add cement tamping to your resume girl!

Two of the seven L's lured me down a dangerous path this past week as i purchased a multi-functional "sleeping system" which converted from one sleeping bag into three at Costco. Trying to figure out this system had me and Amanda in hysterics. Six seperate zippers with no colour coding or labelling and an instruction manual that was virtually incomprehensible.

Good wildlife viewing:
Deer (plenty including fawn) hawk, eagle, lizard, squirrels, snake, yellow bird that likes to rip up the foxglove, swallows, woodpecker, teeny little brown birds, slugs and spiders.




Great wildlife weekend