Posts Tagged ‘wood shed’
Pesky Procrastination
Yesterday we finally got a break from the bitter cold. For two nights in a row now, we have been able to leave the horses outside all night. That means, I didn’t need to clean out their stalls during the day. Yahoo! They seemed to accept the return to their previous routine without concern, and I gained some flexibility in choosing what to do with the middle of my day.
I opted for splitting wood. I have been negligent in keeping after that chore. My goal was to have the wood shed filled to the brim this winter, but I’ve yet to make that happen. It’s just too easy to let it slide. Between the December and New Year holiday events, and the extreme cold, there have been plenty of reasons to delay working on it. Particularly, because the wood being stacked now is for burning next year and beyond. I probably already have more than enough for next winter, so some of what is stacked won’t get burned until a year after that.
It isn’t going to make a big difference whether I finish soon, or in another month or two. That is challenging for a person who is more than happy to procrastinate when opportunity allows.
I clipped Delilah’s leash to one of our glider swings while I worked and after thoroughly scouting her perimeter, she settled down to keep an eye on the horses barely visible through the trees. If your eyesight is good, you just might be able to make out the silhouette of one of the blanketed chestnuts in that image. Delilah certainly had a bead on them.
I wonder if she was pondering why they get to free-graze out there while she is stuck tethered by a leash. She is still a flight risk. She recently failed two brief tests when given freedom to meander.
On Tuesday, while I was clearing the drifted snow off our deck, she got out of sight around the house and set me to whistling and hollering for her. Happily, she returned after not too long, but she had taken advantage of her brief freedom to go find the nastiest velcro-like burrs possible and made sure they got well tangled into her thickest fur beneath the outer hairs of her coat.
I spent much of the rest of that day in damage control, pushing the limits of her tolerance while trying to get them all out. Makes me wish I hadn’t procrastinated pulling up all the weeds that grow burrs last summer.
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Going Right
When things are going right for you, ya just gotta soak it up and enjoy it for all it’s worth. I’ve had a vision in my head since we moved here about how I might manage firewood. After a variety of stumbles in the time since, yesterday I made progress that went as smoothly as I could ever hope, in terms of the vision I had.
When we first arrived on this property, there was firewood stored under the overhang of the barn that the previous owners generously left for us. I had to move it up by the house, but it was more than enough to allow us to enjoy fires through that first winter.
When we had our fence contractor start clearing trees from the water drain path and pulling out old fencing, they created a hefty pile of cut logs that I needed to split to augment the dwindling stockpile that had been left for us. I needed to shop for a splitter. I found that ingenious Swedish manual splitter which works slick and will be perfect, once I am ahead and only splitting a small amount at a time.
The fence crew cut logs haphazardly and I found the lack of uniform length frustrating. It made it difficult to split, but that wood got us through the second year.
I found myself looking forward to eventually being able to cut my own wood so I could enact a little quality control. I figured out the chainsaw I wanted to have and made that purchase, but the quality control would take some time as I gained experience. Meanwhile, I still had a large backlog of already cut wood awaiting splitting, and that kept growing because of the new trees I was cutting down for this year’s fence project.
When the woodshed I had built was knocked down in a storm last spring, I let the wood splitting slip while I figured out how to get the roof back up again. That has left us a little short of ready to burn firewood for this winter. All the splitting that my neighbor recently helped me with is for wood that will be burned next year.
Now with Cyndie home for weeks on end, recuperating from her hip transplant, we’ve been having fires almost every day and have quickly consumed much of the balance of dry wood. I need to take action on a plan to turn the many downed trees in our forest into firewood.
I’m hoping they have been dead long enough that we can burn it as is. I broke off a few small branches and mixed them in our fuel a few days ago with good success. Yesterday, I got out the chainsaw and cut the bigger branches into perfect-sized logs. Some of them getting big enough around that I felt I should take a crack at splitting them.
It’s an oak tree, and the manual splitter was popping them in two with surprising ease. I stacked them in the open space on the right side of the shed and quickly had a pile over two feet high. Everything was working just as I envisioned it could. This is the way I will be able to stay ahead of our needs by just doing a little at a time.
It was an incredibly rewarding exercise, made more so by the hassles I’ve dealt with prior, before finally getting to this point of things going so right.
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Almost Day
Some days just don’t flow the way we hope they will. Our Sunday turned into an “almost” day for me. I guess almost can be looked at as being better than not at all. I discovered that I almost read all of the text on the big green sticker on the box of the solar-powered fence charger I bought on Saturday. I saw the words, “mounts on t-post” and figured I was good to go.
If I had read the whole thing I would have realized it was a separate bracket to be purchased that allowed it to easily mount to a t-post. Instead of making another trip to the store, I took that time to rig my own solution.
It probably would have been quicker to make that trip and buy the dang bracket. I almost got the project completed by 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Unfortunately, I had planned to do other things, expecting this to be an hour-long task. I almost didn’t let it bother me that the day was over half gone at that point.
I almost sprained my ankle when I stepped in a divot in our lawn made by a mole. Adrenalin shot! Felt very lucky to have not been putting too much weight on that foot at the time. Pesky moles. I know that balance in nature is a good thing, but I sure wish we could do without the moles.
We almost put up the posts for the wood shed, version 2. Made some progress, then had to undo that and start again. After several attempts, I came to the conclusion that we shouldn’t try to robustly attach all the legs and expect the roof to align properly. We need to find a way to get the roof up resting on the back posts, and then place other posts beneath, line everything up, and fasten it all together.
Cyndie was a fantastic help all day, and kept me from giving up altogether. There was no “almost” in her day. Between coddling my fragile attitude and lending her assistance wherever she could, she did laundry, made meals, tended to the horses, and helped me scoop up manure. It was one of her weekend days off and I think she did more work than me.
Saturday she helped me with my lumberjacking and we cut up the huge downed limb and then more trees near the south border where new pasture fence will be installed. Over the weekend, she also finally put saddles on the 3 horses that will be ridden, and had them do some walking exercises to remind them what wearing a saddle is like. It gave her a chance to check out the equipment she purchased, and to give the horses some exercise with the saddles before adding the weight of a person to their load. It’s been over a year since they have been ridden, so they are a bit out of shape at this point.
Speaking of points, I almost had one when I started writing this ranting post. It is only fitting that now I don’t really have a conclusion to offer about my “almost” day.
If Cyndie were available, I bet she would take care of that for me, too.
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Acknowledged Risk
Yesterday was supposed to be the day I took Cyndie back to where her surgery was performed, for an appointment to get her stitches out. We ended up rescheduling, when the risk of severe storms loomed large for the time we would be on the road. It turned out to be a smart decision.
Our dog, Delilah, has been demonstrating an extreme anxiety over rumbles of thunder. Unfortunately, the thunder-booming storms started here on Wednesday evening, and her panic-barking kept me up until well past midnight. I was at the veterinarian’s office yesterday to pick up some new tick repellent, since our previous product isn’t doing the trick, and when I happened to mention Delilah’s anxiety, they asked me what we “give her” for it.
Hadn’t entered my mind to medicate her. Their first recommendation was Benadryl, but they also reminded me of the “thundershirt,” a hugging body wrap that calms dogs. Good idea.
Shortly after I returned from the vet visit, our predicted rough weather rolled in. I’ve been through worse, but we did receive a blast of wind, small hail, and heavy rain that more than convinced us we made the right decision to stay home. If we had gone, Delilah would have been trapped outside in her kennel during the worst of it. The folks at the vet’s office said dogs can, and do, injure themselves in their efforts to escape whatever is causing their anxiety.
That wind would have probably put her into a tizzy, especially when it picked up and rolled over my woodshed, which is located right next to her kennel.
Lesson learned on the heartiness of simply standing the structure on stones in the ground. That was the design I chose, even though I knew it was a risk. On the bright side, it gives me a chance to try building my second structure ever, using what I learned on the first one. I guess the next one will have posts buried well into the ground.
I’ve discovered an interesting fact about how I see our woods. No matter how familiar I think I am with the views, after a big wind storm, I have difficulty identifying what is new damage, and what is old. There are plenty of downed or leaning trees and broken branches. In the area near the up-turned woodshed, something doesn’t look right to me, but I’m not certain if it is damage from yesterday’s event, or something previous.
Actually, with another inch of rain increasing the saturation of our ground, it’s a wonder there are any trees left standing at all.
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Too Much?
Aaah winter. We enjoyed a little thaw yesterday. It inspired me to try to scrape the driveway up by the house. No good deed goes unpunished. The cable that lifts the plow blade on the Grizzly broke. But I’m not complaining. It was a wonderfully warm day for fixing that kind of problem.
I’m very happy to report that the roof of my wood shed is working just the way I hoped. The snow slides off and sunlight shines through.
I haven’t made it down to the labyrinth since the last 3 accumulations of snow, and I think it is going to be difficult to make out the path now.
Complicating that further, the prediction from my favorite weather blog says: “Winter resumes with a vengeance Thursday as the next winter storm smacks eastern Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.”
Another weather site forecast shows an 80% chance of 3-5″ of heavy, wet snow combined with strong wind. Oh joy. It is a good thing I like winter, but we all know that it is possible to get too much of a good thing.
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Test Stack
I didn’t really have time to start this project, but I did, anyway, while I was lingering to help Delilah get settled in her kennel. If she sees us toiling about nearby, she seems satisfied to lay down and relax in there. After that, she seems good for a long duration.
I’ve placed some pallets on the ground and then started a stack of split firewood on the right side of the shed. Looks like I will actually be able to go 3 rows deep, so there will be plenty of room for our needs.
I discovered 3 leaks during yesterdays drizzly rain. I don’t know whether the screws in those spots aren’t tight enough to get the washer to seal, or there is some other cause. I plan to just glop on silicon caulk to cure the drips. Of course, one is smack dab in the middle, now pretty much 2-inches beyond my reach from every direction. That’s one problem with settling on a roof material that is not strong enough to walk on.
Day Off
Recently, I was able to return to a schedule that provides me an extra day off from the day-job, and Monday is the day I choose. However, even though it was a day off from going into the Cities to work, it isn’t quite a day off from actually working on things. We started the day slowly, by current Wintervale standards, and did some indoor chores. My first priority was contacting Canon to get authorization to return my PowerShot camera for repair. They informed me I needed to write a letter describing the issue and then box it up for shipment.
I made a quick trip to Ellsworth to deposit my package at the UPS drop box in town. It didn’t fit in the drop box, so I stepped into the insurance office at that location and asked if there was a way to get it picked up. The young man working the reception desk said to just leave the box on a chair in their office, then he gave me a pen and note pad to write a note to the UPS driver indicating there was something to pick up in the office. I walked out to this drop box, with my little post-it note, and then tried to imagine how I could attach it so that it wouldn’t blow away, or get melted by a rain shower. It’s a cute little system they have here. I hope it works.
Afternoon view, taken with my old camera
Cyndie and I combined our efforts to finish off the final details for the wood shed I built. She drove the tractor down to one of our brush piles to dig out some dirt for me to finish filling around the foundation stones. I caulked the seams of the roof panels with silicon sealant. We cut down a branch that was growing over the roof line of the shed, by way of me climbing a ladder to reach with a pole saw, and her pulling on the branch with a rope we had thrown over it. It was pretty large, and way up there. A nice feat of accomplishment.
I got out the chain saw, to cut up the branch, and since we were in that mode, we decided to head down the trail in our woods to finally begin clearing the debris left from the damaging snow storm last May. Instead of heading straight to the biggest timber, and using the chain saw, we chose to start with the first obstructions we arrived at, and use other tools we had brought along. Cyndie cut down the tall growth with her battery operated trimmer, and I cut back the smaller branches that drooped in the way, using our ratcheted pruner.
Eventually, I found opportunity to cut larger branches with the chainsaw, but I had gotten way out ahead of Cyndie, and left to my own devices, I started to get careless and impatient. I stepped right into the needle-sharp point of a wood thorn on one tree branch. It punctured the side of my knee and left me in a lot of pain. I checked more than once to make sure the tip hadn’t broken off in there. It didn’t look like it, but it sure hurt like something was still in there.
Then I got the saw pinched. Time for me to call it a day. I walked back to find Cyndie, needing her help to lift the limb so I could get my saw out, and then headed back to wind up our work day, while she finished off cutting away the small stuff with the pruner.
Today, I am back at the day-job, which is great, because now I could sure use some days off from the work we do at home.
Progress Applenty
We had a lot of progress yesterday, and one big failure. My favorite little pocket camera has failed me. I did a little research and discovered a Product Advisory was issued that defines the exact failure that I experienced, and I hope to be able to have it repaired at no cost to me. 
Unfortunately, I didn’t get all of the images of progress that I would have liked. Some shaky cell phone images will have to suffice.
I finished getting all the roof panels attached to the wood shed. I hope to be stacking wood in there soon.
We assembled a dog run for Delilah. She spent a little time in there yesterday, 
seemed at ease in the space, and she appears to be doing well, following her surgery last Thursday. She has been a bit more vocal the last two days, barking to get our attention. We were a bit distracted yesterday, so she was justified in trying to redirect our focus back to her.
The crew arrived to finally make some real progress on raising the hay shed. It looks like a game of pick-up sticks. All the vertical posts are buried and braced.
Frustrating Lessons
I’m sorry, but I need to vent some frustration. I’ve taken on the project of building a woodshed, guided by a rudimentary plan I found on the internet, using mostly found materials, my meager collection of construction tools, and my distinct lack of experience with carpentry. One of the draws for me to undertake this effort on my own was the encouragement I read online at the site where I found the building plan, pointing out that a shed like this makes a great first attempt at constructing a building, because there are no codes to meet. Anything goes.
And what’s the worst that could happen if the shed fails? The stack of split firewood might topple over or get wet temporarily. It’s a pretty low-risk construction project.
What I am finding is, it has a high risk of causing me great frustration. Have I mentioned that I tend toward perfectionism on just this kind of task? I gotta admit, that very tendency toward perfectionism is a significant contributor to my lack of experience in doing something like building a shed out of found materials. I know in advance it is doomed from the start. Why would I choose to put myself through the exasperation?
Of course, Cyndie points out that this kind of thinking is my first problem.
I can’t argue that. I’m my own worst enemy when it comes to thinking like “the little engine that could.” It is hard to meditate on the “I think I can” mantra, when you already embody the notion that you “can’t.”
I didn’t just dive into this project willy-nilly. I hemmed and hawed over it. I trolled for friends with skills to do it for me. I let the idea of doing it myself stew for weeks, hoping time would either reveal another solution, or I’d magically become skilled by just thinking about it a lot. I thought about the materials the project would require, over and over, trying to determine the likelihood I could come up with everything I would need.
Here comes one of my first frustrations: It is only a simple woodshed. Why does my mind make it seem so complicated?
Eventually, I committed and began gathering materials. That phase took additional weeks for me to accomplish, between familiarizing myself with shopping lumber yards and making a decision on what to use.
Now, as I’ve already written about here, I have the frame up, and as you can see, the rafters in place. (Thanks are due to my friend, architect Mike Wilkus, for teaching me how to mount the rafters to a log beam… cut a “bird’s-mouth” notch in the rafter!) After the exercise of this phase, my perfectionistic traits are irritated like a raw-rubbed blister.
I know that it is in my best interest to consider things like keeping it level and square. I would love to be able to do that. As a novice, I am struggling because the only straight line I have is a piece of tightened string, and my level. The log posts and beams are imperfect. The flat rocks I picked are imperfect. The lumber I have is all warped and twisted. I rarely have been able to reference anything trustworthy.
It hardly matters to the overall structure, but it matters to me, because I notice where it is off. Drives me nuts.
I don’t like hammering nails. They go most of the way in, then stop and bend. They go all the way in, and the head breaks off. They split the wood. They somehow repel my hammer and make me leave dents in the wood, all around the nail. Just when I think I’m getting the hang of it, my hand and arm get fatigued and the nails start bending again, and the wood gets more dents in it.
I prefer screws. My screws also can split the wood. The heads strip. The screwdriver bit strips. The screw goes 90% of the way in and then seizes. Finally, the head breaks off.
Both nails and screws jump out of my hands. They fly out of the wood as I’m starting. I drop the drill-driver from the ladder. I can’t reach from where the ladder is. I don’t have scaffolding, so I am up and down that ladder an uncountable number of times. I move it back and forth, bumping the beams overhead, knocking the rafters out of place.
Can I complain about the bugs? They aren’t unique to a carpentry project, but they have been adding to my frustration in this case.
The woodshed may be a good first structure to build, but I’m thinking I should be building a boat. I found myself cursing like a sailor at the frustrations over the weekend.
Cyndie is sweet to point out, regardless my frustrations, we’ve got the majority of the project accomplished, and I have to admit, I am pleased to be getting the shed I have all along envisioned for this spot. I think it will be perfect, even if it isn’t “perfect.”
Frame’s Up
The holiday celebration last weekend put my wood shed project on hold, and I have been hoping to reclaim some momentum ever since. I was thinking I could get back to it, right after we got home from the lake, but other tasks won out. The cross-beams, with posts attached, were left lying on the ground for almost two weeks while I contemplated how we would stand them upright to get them assembled, with a limited number of helping hands.
The old treated fence posts we chose to use are very heavy, and tied together, I figured it might be a problem to lift and hold in position. One solution we were considering was to use the bucket on the diesel tractor. I imagined we could strap them up to be held in position with the bucket. However, with just the two of us, I would be up on the tractor, and that would leave Cyndie alone to guide the heavy posts. For that reason, I allowed some days to pass, while I thought the plan through some more.
Yesterday, when I got home from the day-job, Cyndie offered to help me figure out if we could get it done. I began gathering tools and things, in preparation for the attempt… Of course, I would eventually need the ladder out there. As I was carrying it toward the site, it struck me that we could just lean the first set of posts against the ladder when we got them upright, if we were able to lift them with just the two of us.
Sure enough, we lifted it. Cyndie and I proceeded to manage the whole process with just the two of us, a ladder, and no tractor.
Sometimes the solution is so easy, you overlook it, until it eventually become so obvious, you can’t miss. Maybe, as I do more and more projects like this, the obvious solutions will get easier to recognize, and appear to me sooner.
Next step: rafters…
Relative Something 