New little gem.

 

Found this little gem yesterday on one of my fall, no leaf drives. Had probably driven by it a few times and missed it with leaves on the trees.

Original was built in 1850, and the guy I talk to said it was a corn crib. I can believe a barn or shed, but the workmanship seemed to nice for a corn crib.

It has been very nicely rebuilt, with a full second story added. 

It is now be used as a meeting place for a local black powder rifle club. A perfect idea for such a group.

Two of the members were there when I found it, and were able to give me a little history of the rebuild.

They had a nice little stove going inside which kept it plenty comfortable.

It sits on property that at one time hosted the Deutsch Country Days festival. 

Unfortunately, the festival no longer takes place after almost 50 years.

Hope this group gets to use this site for many more years.

Blast from the past! Around 1995

Probably in all for the two cabins I had to hew about 12 logs.

I know I did 10 for the big cabin, shown in the background of the picture of me sitting.

For the blacksmith cabin, I did maybe four more. So I guess that makes 14 or so.

I did use a chainsaw to cut the vertical cuts, but an axe for the actual hewing.

Let the chips fall where they may.

The one I am sitting on is a sill log for the smaller blacksmith cabin.

By the time I had been doing this a while, after cutting down the tree and cutting it to length and de-limbing, I could hew two sides in about an hour.

I always had a couple of axes on hand and files nearby to keep them sharp

 

From one of my favorite blogs - A Rovers Cabin.

 

Read the whole story here;

Rovers Log Cabin story

Scouts don't often get to do that kind of stuff anymore.

It would be neat if the logbook became a book.

B2R by the fire. River Rocks

 

Haven't done one of these in a while either. 

Books to read by the Fire.

River Rocks.

I was not expecting to enjoy this book as much as I did.

I started reading it as a plan to check out the book to see if it would interest my teenage daughter. Well, it should, but I really enjoyed it also. And have already purchased the next book.

River Rocks - part Huch and Tom meet National Treasure, but not as far out there as Indian Jones.

Set in West Virginia, an area I have kayaked, the local setting was done really well.

The characters well developed and mostly likable. 

Even had a log cabin in it.

A few from this week.

Cool enough to have a fire all day, but not too cold to work outside.

A pano of the place.

Dug and new hole and moved the outhouse this week.

Did a little repair while I was at it.
 

Movies with Log Cabins - Drums along the Mohawk.

 

Have not done one of these in a while.

Made in 1939, it still stands the test of time. 

While filmed out west the sets and location are very well done.

Not only are the log cabins nice, but the for and stone buildings are well done also.

Acting is pretty typical of the period, and a very early Henry Fonda movie, but like with most movies of this period, you really have to enjoy the character actors.

Nice still from the movie.

Colors, they are a changin'

 

While the colors are not quite at there peak, this beautiful sulfur shelf mushroom comes back every couple of years.

And it is right near the cabin.

Fall colors sitting spot.

Stove is ready for the next chilly day.

Colors have started, however.

Finally our kind of weather out at the cabin.

First fire inside this fall, first fire outside this fall and a nice breakfast to get us going.

Daughter slept in the hammock cause it didn't get to chilly, around 42 degrees I believe, well above her coldest camping out.

She even cooked the dinner that night.

 

Summer time at the cabin.

Don't get out to the cabin much this time of year, heat and bugs, but it cooled off last week where I got to spend a good day out there catching up.

Sure looks green. 

Nice spring day out.

 Beautiful, rainy spring day out at the cabin.

Dogwoods were in bloom, along with many other spring flowers.




















Was just cool enough to have a fire going for my break times.

 

Worked on the small kitchen addition.

Added this little shelf, and will eventually add two more.
Just ran out of lumber for that project.














Also did more weather and critter sealing. And made a little shelf for my vintage water cooler.





















Had too much stuff in the little area so while I had some stuff out, I left it out.

Need to build a counter top over storage and get the big old white stove out. It still works but is to big.

Reusing old logs.

Nearby our house this small business has reused some old logs or old log building to make this nice front.

As soon as all this craziness is over I will check it out closer.

Always something to be learned.

 The other day I talked about this classic not to far from me and how I checked on it the other day and found . . . .













. . .  some guys hard at work taking it down. Which is a good thing.
Today they were tagging more of the logs and I had a chance to have a good long talk with them while they worked.

 I have talked about Carpenters marks before, roman numerals in logs, usually used to number logs way back when, when a cabin was going to be moved.

The only place I had ever seen them used before was either on the top plate logs and rafters, or on post and beam buildings.

Today I had a neat surprise.

Each log on one pen of this dogtrot cabin had roman numerals.
If you look at the center of each one of these logs you can see the numbers. The center one has 'VII' marked in it. The others are also marked but a little harder to see.

 What was also neat about this cabin is that it had a
'W' on the west logs and an 'N' on the north logs.


That was so cool.


















Here is a close up of four of the numbers.