Posts Tagged ‘log home’
Try Listening
One of the clearest ways for me to recognize being awake at night is when I start hearing sounds. Usually, it’s the change from not hearing anything that I find noteworthy. Think about it. When I suddenly notice a sound, it reveals that I wasn’t hearing anything before that.
There is a different version of not hearing sounds, too. When they are too familiar to us, sounds begin to be filtered out. But that is not the same as hearing nothing at all.
Have you ever noticed how frequently TV and filmmakers include sounds of distant dog barking in their soundtracks? What that’s done for me is to cause me to notice when I hear that same distant bark in the real world. I’ve decided it’s as common as those filmmakers make it seem.
The other day, a large flock of migrating birds showed up in one of our trees for a short pause in their journey, making a fantastic racket. Suddenly, for no reason we could detect, they fell silent in an instant. That was something to hear.
I wish I knew who among the thousands of birds in that tree triggered the stoppage and how they all picked up on it and shut up as quickly as they did. Seconds later, they all started chattering again.
There is something that nobody should be listening to this time of year. Well, any time of year, really. Ridiculous lies of desperate people. Whether it seems too good to be true or irritates deeply, don’t give what is said any credence until it can be proven it didn’t come from foreign interests with skills in AI audio or video manipulation.
Assume it is malicious first, and then allow the truth to be revealed in due time.
With Halloween approaching fast, ghoulish drama is all the rage. All those sounds in the dark of night suddenly seem spookier than usual. I’m not one who fears mean ghosts are lurking in my house and making mysterious clicking, creaking, and sighing noises. We live in a log house. As the air gets dry and temperatures drop, the structure makes sounds like it must be coming apart at the seams.
Moving my body across the floor of the bedroom and down the hall to the bathroom at 2 a.m. sets off so much structural groaning, clicking, and popping that I feel like I must weigh three times more than I do. I’m always surprised the sounds don’t wake Cyndie or Asher.
Back to what I hear when falling asleep, I can tell when slumber is imminent when I notice the only thing I’m hearing is my own blood flow moving with each heartbeat.
When you reach that point, it’s handy if your hearing automatically filters out any sounds of barking in the distance.
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Cutting Away
There’s no turning back now. The guys started cutting away the rotting logs of the truss yesterday under the hot rays of mid-sixty-degree sunshine up in the Hayward area.
The view of this cross-section shows the degree to which the log was disintegrating. They also uncovered the bees’ nest I knew was there. Good thing there were no bees present at this time of year.
We won’t be around to see them install the replacement truss components because we need to head home this morning. Alas, that gives us an excuse to return as soon as we can arrange additional coverage for the horses.
We have a new project to undertake because they also cut off the bottom of rotting logs on the front of “cabin 3,” located just behind and to the side of the main house. It was decided the best finish there would be to fill the voids with faux river rock, which is something they don’t do.
DIY much? It just so happens that Cyndie and I have an excess of faux river rock stored in the hay shed at home. As a matter of fact, some of the plastered facades of our home have fallen off and need to be re-cemented. That’s a project we have been ignoring for lack of experience.
Now we have double the reason to learn how to do this repair ourselves. The next time we come up here, I guess we will be hauling a load of one-sided manufactured stones and bags of mortar mix. In the meantime, we better study up on proper materials, tools, and techniques.
It will be tough to decide whether we should practice on our own house in order to do a better job up here, or the other way around. I could see it going either way.
My choice will lean heavily toward which option appears to be the easiest of the two. I’m hoping that answer will be revealed after we discover all the factors involved in the process.
In reality, cutting away the rotting pieces was the easiest part of this whole project.
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Icy Adventures
We don’t usually spend much time up at the lake when the ice is about to vanish from the water’s surface. I find it very entertaining. Temperatures dropped far enough below freezing Sunday night that water to the shore, which was liquid when we arrived, had refrozen solid by yesterday morning.
As the sun climbed to a mid-morning angle, the lake began making a percussive symphony of booming and cracking sounds in response.
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There is an almost mystical energy unleashed by the intensity of natural forces pressing in multiple directions as the frozen surface reacts to wind, sun, gravity, the mixing of heat and cold, and the resistance of rocks and sand on the shore. When a fracture reverberates throughout the expanse of acres of ice, rumbling and echoing for almost a minute afterward, it can be felt in your physical core.
I notice my pulse speed up when it happens, and hear myself making sounds of appreciation that don’t actually form words.
The guys –brothers, Jedediah and Caleb– showed up to work on the rotting truss and were quickly introduced to Asher and some of Cyndie’s fresh-baked scones.
They installed extra (temporary) support to the deck and the bottom chord of the truss itself in preparation for assembling scaffolding for the job. After further analysis and some outside consultation, the decision was made to change to a “hammer truss” design for the replacement.
I’m looking forward to what they come up with. It should be easier to build and will eliminate at least one of the key points that was trapping water and triggering the rot. It will change the appearance of the front of the house and may take a little getting used to at first, but I am open to the possibility it may end up being more appealing in the end.
It will certainly open up overhead space on the deck and produce a more spacious feeling.
As the warm afternoon eliminated most of the new ice that had formed the night before, Cyndie and I let Asher have some fun along the shoreline.
He had a blast breaking ice and chewing some of the chunks. Falling into the water as sections of ice gave out beneath his weight didn’t seem to bother him one bit.
Icy cold doesn’t seem to startle him either.
It looked like so much fun, I needed to keep reminding myself I couldn’t step out to join him in the shoes I was wearing. That, and the fact that icy cold would absolutely make an impression on my feet.
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Feeling It
It’s been over two years since I retired from commuting to a day-job and yesterday was one of the few days in that span of time when I fully felt the liberation of not being tied to a work schedule. Sure, I’ve thrilled repeatedly over no longer feeling dread on Sunday nights, but those have seemed like small victories.
Yesterday morning, I didn’t change my routine with the shift of clocks to Daylight Saving Time. It felt liberating. Around lunchtime, Cyndie, Asher, and I hopped in the car to head for the lake place. Leaving on a Sunday night to go up north felt rather decadent.
We can go to the lake any day we’d like. We are retired. And I am feeling it.
With only ourselves to accommodate, I enjoyed the luxury of ordering a cheeseburger and fries “to-go” from a nice lakeside diner along the route to fulfill a craving that usually goes unmet. It’s often not the right time when we pass by or there are time constraints, or some other random obstruction that prevents stopping there. Finally getting what I always think about when we pass that restaurant made it taste even better.
There was no traffic heading our direction, though we passed a fair number of cars returning to the Cities. Many of them were carrying muddy fat-tired bikes after a weekend of riding CAMBA trails.
There does happen to be a method to our madness for being here on a Monday. Some work on the house is scheduled to start this morning by a contractor that Cyndie arranged over the phone. This will be a chance to meet him in person and be on hand in case any issues arise in the replacement of a bottom chord truss under the eave on the lakeside of the log home.
Being the only ones up during the week this time of year feels a little disorienting. We can make a mess of the house and not be in anyone’s way.
Actually, the place looks a little like the empty mansions in the movies with covers over the furniture. Cyndie didn’t want Asher to shed on the couches.
There aren’t enough people around to occupy the furniture so he thinks it becomes his responsibility.
I doubt he’ll have any time to rest with strangers working just outside the windows all day long. I expect they will need to be barked at with gusto.
It’s either them or the squirrels.
I think maybe Asher is feeling the same as us. Seems to me this feels a lot like being retired.
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Morning Sunlight
This morning when we emerged from the woods on our walk toward the barn to feed the horses, the rays of the emerging sunlight were blurred by a hazy fogginess. Back in the house, while we were enjoying toasted slices of fresh bakery bread topped with homemade blackcap jam, the angle of the bright sunlight was getting high enough to shine through the windows on our roof.
From up in our loft, I noticed how the light was washing over the spotlights above the fireplace, creating an interesting reversal of purpose. The spotlights were in the spotlight.
It caused me to turn around to see what was happening with the other skylight.
The shape of the window was pretty well defined.
Seeing that sunlight serves to beckon my presence outdoors posthaste. I will not ignore the invitation.
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Appropriately Festive
There was a lot of nesting going on in the days prior to Cyndie’s knee surgery, much of it cleaning nooks and crannies that haven’t received a similar level of intense attention since the days we first moved in. She wore a headlamp to better see the dust clinging to the seams of our tongue-in-groove paneling.
If she would be stuck convalescing in bed, it sure as heck wasn’t going to involve looking up to see the horror direct sunlight reveals this time of year. The low angle of the sun has a unique way of exposing gaps in hospital-level cleanliness.
At least the surroundings are currently as germ-free as the best of recovery rooms in your average hospital. Well, they were for a day, anyway, before a certain dog and cat made their way back in to scatter their hair and dander every which way.
After all the cleaning was done, Cyndie moved on to the Christmas decorations. As the days counted down to the appointed surgery, she accomplished the greatest of feats in making it look as festive as ever around here.
I even found boughs strung with lights staged by the barn!
There may be a pandemic out there squashing the best of our holiday gathering traditions this year, but you’d hardly notice from inside our home.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
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Freshly Sealed
At long last, the logs of our home have a fresh seal from the elements. Last year there were two primary maintenance projects that were both reaching burdensome levels of urgency against the elements: our deck and the walls of the house. We ended up doing the deck ourselves and hiring out the sealing of our logs.
The contract was accepted last year, but they weren’t able to get to us before winter arrived and so the work was rescheduled to first thing after the weather warmed this spring. That didn’t play out as we expected. It took until mid-July, but now the job is finally done.
Over the weekend, we got the resealed wagon wheels remounted on the front steps to cap off the completion of the weatherization of the house.
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The house looks good as new.
I’m very pleased over the professional opinion of the contractor who told us that our deck project looked well done and didn’t warrant any additional seal coat of its own.
That suits me just fine.
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Weathering Nicely
Now that it’s officially summer, a few days ago I got around to removing the firewood rack from our deck that had been in place all winter. Doing so uncovered deck boards that have been protected from direct sunlight and still show the original coloring of the treated wood.
I am much happier with the weathered look of the exposed boards.
We’ve yet to decide what we will do about finishing the wood. I’m hoping to tap the advice of the professional crew we have contracted to seal the log walls of our house. It would be great if they would actually show up.
It’s a company that we’ve used once before, shortly after we moved here. There was an end piece of a log that was rotting and they replaced it and went around the whole house to caulk any spaces that needed it.
Last year they agreed to do the job of resealing the logs of the entire house but were iffy about whether they could fit it in before days got too cold. When it became obvious they wouldn’t make it before winter, they promised we would be early on the spring schedule this year.
When spring (and a certain pandemic) arrived, we contacted them to confirm they were still able to work. Yes, they said, work would begin as soon as days got warm enough.
When warm days arrived and we hadn’t heard from them, we checked again. Yes, we were next in line after their current job. He teased it might be the next week or the week after, depending on the weather.
A week later, granted after some inclement weather, I decided to start removing all the decorative trim from the outside walls in an almost passive-aggressive attempt to will them to suddenly show up.
We will give them one more week before checking anew to find out how many additional weeks remain before they start on our house, seeing as they were going to do it right away in the spring and we were only second in line on their schedule at the start.
At this rate, by the time they get here the logs of the house will be so faded they will match the weathered boards of the deck.
Maybe we should aim for the antique gray color of dried-out neglected wood for our house.
I do like a weathered look.
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p.s. Happy Birthday, Elysa! (you are weathering nicely, too!) [Oh, Dad…]
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Small Projects
The weekend just passed consisted of many small tasks chipped off the ol’ to-do list, primarily addressing the first-impression appearance of the place. After getting the grass mowed and the landscape pond fixed my attention shifted to whatever miscellaneous project caught my eye, particularly if they had been staring me in the face for more than a year.
I finally got up on the roof to address the wind vane that came apart so long ago I’ve forgotten when. I ended up removing the base entirely to see if repairs on the ground are possible. I may, or may not, put it back up someday.
The kids stopped by on Saturday and Julian helped me quickly dispatch a dead pine tree located right in front of the approach to the house garage doors. Yesterday, I pulled out the chainsaw again and removed dead limbs from the next tree over, some version of a flowering decorative. I think that one is a form of lilac, but seems to have climbed to heights that exceed my perceptions of lilac.
While the chainsaw was out, I hoofed my way down to the woods behind the labyrinth to cut up a dead tree that fell across one of our small side trails. At the labyrinth, I removed the stakes that secured the transplanted maple now that it seems to have established itself. There, I discovered the deer have been feasting on the hostas by the peace pole.
I hope they had a very peaceful meal there while the angel’s back was turned.
The driveway got some attention in the form of lime screenings packed into a low dip that was becoming quite a bump in the road. The last time a UPS truck delivered a package, I heard everything bounce in his truck when passing over that spot a little too quickly.
Julian and I started removing anything attached to the side of the house in preparation for a resealing of the logs that will hopefully happen sooner than later. We have enlisted the services of professionals and they have teased us that we are next in line when they finish the current customer.
That’s another one of those weather-dependent projects that end up being hard to plan start and finish dates.
That brings to mind the hay fields. Things are growing so fast right now that our fields look ripe for the mowing. I don’t know what the farmer who is renting our fields this summer is planning, but I hope he is able to get enough dry days in a row to be successful this year.
The only thing I didn’t get to before time ran out last night was in fulfilling Cyndie’s wish to get the hammocks up.
That’s a good task to look forward to for starting my next spurt of knocking off small projects, whenever that moment comes.
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Making Plans
We are not going to the lake this weekend, but we do have Anna coming to stay at our house to take care of Delilah, Pequenita, and the chickens for a few days. Our plans are more along the lines of the stay-cation in the cities with family and friends variety. That involved a fair amount of pre-planning for my little brain last night.
We will be staying at Cyndie’s parents’ house, which facilitates my heading there directly from work this afternoon and remaining there through Sunday night to go back to work again on Monday morning. That was a lot of days to think through in advance. Makes it feel a little more like a vacation, so that’s fun.
Too bad I don’t enjoy packing for vacations. Somehow, I find a way to get over it.
I’m feeling fussy over other plans we are concurrently trying to form, having to do with needed upkeep of the logs of our home, the consideration of quotes arriving for re-doing our deck, and now our need for some assistance with wild animal control services.
Early returns indicate the costs of each are running in the neighborhood of 2-3 times the price of our desired budget. One, or more, will likely have to wait, and logic tells me it won’t be the animal control.
I’m thinking I may end up honing my [lack of] carpentry abilities and replace the deck boards myself. The logs will likely wait until next year, and we could very well end up applying the recommended two coats of wood protection ourselves to avoid the huge expense quoted yesterday.
For a person who doesn’t like making plans or even decisions, for that matter, these issues coming up all at once are a dreary burden of responsibility. It makes me long to be 5 or 6 years old again.
Those were blissful days…
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Relative Something 