Nine log cabin kind of day.

 

Saw nine log cabins on my drives Tuesday and Thursday. Seven I had never seen before. A great drive indeed. The two pen log barn was fabulous, as was the red corn crib.

All but one were in great shape. 

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

 

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.

Another one got away, but to a good end.

A few years ago I posted a blog post about this building here.

Wow! Has it really been six years.

Well any way. I got out that way again today and there are a few changes.
My timing could not have been better planned.

This is almost the same view, but today.


This is really a classic and had so many neat features going on.

My opinion back then was a fear that some water damage may have taken place around a bad roof corner.
That did not out to be the case, there was however a little damage around the windows.

 But some real cool features. This interior wall, which you see a little further back in the photo was actually constructed with mortis and tenon joints. Usually interior wall were added later and not part of the construction.

 And these logs on the dog-trot were also M&T'ed in. All hewn with square nails.

 This opening would have been for the fireplace.

And you can also see the wood between the logs for holding the chinking.
Much of the chinking was still mud.

You can see the second floor joists here in this photo.

 A little more of the dogtrot framing.
The top log ran from left to right over the dogtrot.

 Look how unfinished the window logs are.

 The three guys working today had started tagging the logs.

All the stuff that was removed.

The only dogtrot I had ever done I gave away. I wish it had been as nice as this.

Nice day out log building hunting and working at the cabin.

Went for a drive out to the cabin today, but took a couple side roads looking for old log buildings.
Spotted this old farm house and the buildings behind, so I pulled up and knocked on the door to get permission to take some photos.
This old house could also be hiding a log pen inside.

Mostly I was interested in this old barn.

And as I walked up I could tell it had a log pen inside.

This one corner was exposed and you could see a log frame.

You can tell this building was never going to be more than a barn.
The logs aren't hewn, the notches are rough.
Bark still on the logs.

I love the hand made ladder on the right going up to the loft.

I would love to explore for all the hidden treasure inside.

 Also made it out to my place today and got a little cleanup done on this 55 degree Feb. day.

 I take so many photos of the cabin that I have been trying to find new angles for new views.

Here are a couple today.