I recently got this copy of McRavens first book, from 1978.
A classic. So I started to read it.
As always with these books I look for basically two things.
One; to learn something new.
Two; affirmation that something I have learned or think is true.
But it's not really about either one of those this time.
In an earlier post I discussed the word 'chinking' and how I use it and how others use it.
While in most cases I use the word to describe the whole process of putting stone, wire or wood between the logs and then the mortaring over that as 'chinking'.
Others just use the word to refer to the material between the logs before the mortar is applied, while referring to the mortar or mud mixture as 'daubing' (daubing seems too hap-hazard a word to me).
This most recent reading brought to mind the use of another couple of words and how they apply to these hewn buildings.
When ever I am going out to our property I usually say I am going out to "The Cabin".
"See ya later dear, I'm going out to the Cabin!"
"Ya, we spent the weekend working out at the Cabin."
That sort of thing. We haven't really given the place a name. Nothing like Cold Comfort Farm, or like Beatrix Potter's Hill Top Farm. We just simply say, going out to the Cabin.
When in actuality I don't really think of it as a 'Cabin'. When I do say cabin, especially when I descibe it to some one new, I want to go on and explain that it is not "really a cabin, but an old hewn log house that I moved and rebuilt. "
But I guess in the broadest since of the word it could be a cabin.
This is how dictionary.com explains the word. "a small house or cottage, usually of simple design and construction."
Well, there is nothing simple about the design or the construction of a hewn log building.
So maybe I will have to rethink "going out to the cabin".
Well, back to the book.
Reading it last night McRaven came up with a good explanation that I am going to have to find someway of adapting to my visits out to our place. ('Our place' isn't going to work either.)
He says it this way; "The American log house is by historic definition a structure of hewn logs, corner-notched to form one or more pens, chinked with split boards or thin stones, and mud or mortar, covered on the top with split shakes. It has one or more fireplaces, stone or mud-and-stick chimneys, and is intended as a permanent home.
The log cabin, by contrast, is often of round logs, and is of less careful construction, being generally built as a temporary or occasional residence."
In a way this leaves me in kind of a quandary. While mine is indeed "a structure of hewn logs, corner-notched to form one pen and chinked with mortar." is is also only used as a "temporary or occasional residence." (Although I did plan the building so it could go permanent.)
I think I use the word 'Cabin' as a simple explanation of where I am going without having to go "yea, we are going out to our very old hewn log house." and then having to explain what hewn is, or what makes it a house and not a cabin.
But I do agree with him. Cabin does imply something less substantial than a hewn log house. Not to suggest a cabin is not a great place to have. I have stayed in many great cabins on the sides of wonderful lakes and rivers.
Even people with lots more money than I, who have vacation homes in the mountains, that are larger than my house, but who only use them a couple of times a year, don't call their places cabins. "Yea, we're going to our 2000 sq. ft. cabin this weekend. You want to bring your six kids and come on up? We have plenty of room."
I think that's why they say vacation home, or weekend home.
But, going out to the cabin is so simple to say, and well . . . most people don't care and don't want the long explanation of " yea, we are going out to our structure of hewn logs, corner notched to form a single pen and chinked with mortar."
Maybe 'Cabin' will have do, at least until someone shows a lot of interest in how it was built. Then I can really go into the difference.
Or is it To-may-to, To-mah-to?
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