Four Walls

Unlike Jim Reeve's Four Walls, mine are opening up to the world.

Unfortunately, I missed the actual unloading of the logs.

Look a bit like coffins.

Seeing my name was a bit daunting.  Oh my goodness.  This house building thing is for real!

Ah yes.  The presentation of the bill.

Have to get the arty sunset scene with view.

The crew:  Dan, Dane, and the boys.

Dane and Bob, who's finished another job and come to help out with this one.

Dan the Mountain Man.

The logs are heavy, but the boys could lift the smaller ones.

Doors

By Carl Sandburg

 

An open door says, “Come in.”

A shut door says, “Who are you?”

Shadows and ghosts go through shut doors.

If a door is shut and you want it shut,

     why open it?

If a door is open and you want it open,

     why shut it?

Doors forget but only doors know what it is

     doors forget.

 My doors will always be open to you.

Some sort of tape filled each groove before the next log layer was added.

Perfect job for the kidlets.

Straightening tape while the men hold the next log for setting.

Beautiful fit.  The logs are measured and cut according to a  computer.  Turman might not appreciate the analogy, but these logs mesh as smoothly as tinker toys.  Here they abut the porch and a side.

That white stuff on the subflooring is the remnants of snow.  Fortunately, it didn't last.  View is through the windows in the main room, out toward High Knob.  When I first realized that we could see High Knob, I actually teared up.  Daddy would like it.

Not quite sure where these nails went...but not in my shoe.

Uncle Dane and Dan the Man.

Each log was numbered.  I know that 1 means the front and then the other numbers refer to the layer.

Kidlets were not reluctant to work.

Dane, Bob, and Dan the Man working as long as the light lasted.

Kidlet with the chicken leg played peek-a-boo with the camera. 

Ready for the roof.

On With the Subflooring

Foundation completed, and now it's time for the subflooring.  Dan the Mountain Man who will also set the logs, did the subflooring.  He was quite pleased and impressed with the quality of the work done by Kevin and his guys.  Dan's crew for the subflooring included his father, Dan; his uncle, Dane; and his two boys whose names I keep forgetting.  Dan's wife Tracy homeschools so she stuffed some extra work into the boys, giving them leave to join their father on this undertaking.

All the pieces parts up to this moment,  but it's the view that matters.  In the winter, we'll be able to see High Knob, one of Daddy's favorite places.  After we've lived there for few seasons, we may thin the trees so that we can see the Knob in the summer.

Dan's older son, Harley, about 10, I think. 

Both  boys did their share of work.

Note the tool belt with hammer.  Harley used both; they were not merely a fashion statement.

Dan's father, also Dan.  Dan, jr., and I commiserated about the confusion of being named after a parent.  No complaints, though, just some amusing moments.

Dan the Man's Uncle Dane, who is twin brother of Dan the Man's father Dan.  Dan the Man lives a ways away from Wise, too far to commute, but because Uncle Dane lives in Coeburn, Dan, Father, and children.... and later his right hand man Bob, had a place to stay, so Dan could work on my house.  Otherwise, I'm not sure what I would have done, as experienced, local log setters are hard to find.  Actually, I never did find one, so I'm enormously grateful to Dan the Man.

The back porch faces the road.  It confuses everyone, including myself, but we're gradually working through the "OK, now the front faces the back, right?"  I just tell the guys working on the house that I'm anti-social.

Kevin and I surveying my coming kingdom, from the beautiful subflooring.

With each component completed, I would take a deep breath, both terrified and elated.

The little white square just above the subflooring on the left is my mother's homeplace, where she grew up.  It passed out of the family, unfortunately, a few years after my grandmother died.  Sad, but these things happen.  Now I'm building a  home on that same farm, on what Mother says they called the New Orchard.  What goes 'round comes 'round.