45: an end to logging

Tonight, Tobias and new friend, Mark, spent the late afternoon helping me drop three trees, yielding five 15 foot logs, six 14 foot logs, and one 12 footer.

As always, Tobias, my friend, the master sawyer, is more of a performer or artist than a laborer when working with a chainsaw. The feller can fell some trees, for sure, not only dropping them safely and landing them on target with the precision of a fighter pilot (this is a nice metaphor since he was USAF kid and his dad flew), but stopping to describe to Mark and I how he was using wedges, and a bore cut, to counteract some back-lean and influence the hinge just-so.

Mark just moved to Cullowhee with his family, and his two girls will go to school with Nate. A mathematician, he's naturally bright and analytical. He's also observant -- I measured one log too short, which he noticed, although it was his first time on the site. My rough-around-the-edges cabin building exploit falls on one end of a wood-working continuum on which Mark is waaaaay further along in yonder direction. The man builds racing kayaks out of wood, even building his own forms, dealing with light stuff and sharp tools, applying a level of precise attention to detail necessary to create something light and functional but also that results in art.







Once again, I'm humbled by and grateful for the generosity of my busy and talented friends. That's a theme that runs through this blog like a thread, or holds it and the continuity of the whole project together more so even than the timber anchors I'm drilling into every corner notch.

This time, it was Mark's truck that brought brute force to a task that could have been brutally physical. Recalling the adventures I had with Jeremy and John, and then again with Greg who suggested hauling the logs with a truck and had even brungalong a chain to do it, I couldn't help agreeing to pull the stuff we cut with Mark's 4x4 four-door Tacoma. Greg would have been thrilled if I'd taken his advice that day instead of after-the-fact, for sure.

We thought about using my 2wd version, but Tobias said, "You could try it, and the locking differential might help, but then it wouldn't work, and you'd be sad." Sigh. I have truck envy.



We also took the 12 footer I accidentally measured, and Tobias milled or ripped it end-to-end with my sharp new chain. That one's going vertical, flat side against the wall, to support the ridge beam.



I'm pleased to have all the logs I need now. Soon, I'll have them de-barked and on the wall -- then, all we'll need are rafter poles!