The Chicken Tractor: It's light but sturdy, egg boxes are easy to clean, and eggs are easy to gather. The roosts should be out of raccoon reach, birds should be able to get out of the weather, and the whole contraption should cost little to nothing. Read the rest of this entry »

Port Angeles country estate: It was never supposed to be a house. A fresh start, become a landholder, love an old way of living. The cabin was to be home during construction of the real house, then came the county. Turns out even here one must obtain a permit to pursue life and liberty. And so began the metamorphosis. Read the rest of this entry »

The stumps supporting the house are all gone now except one for memorial on the NE front corner. Their service as a foundation was indispensable as it took years to afford a concrete foundation. However the real blessing of the old stumps are the shakes. Few building exercises are as rewarding as the ancient art of splitting shakes from a bolt of cedar by hand. Read the rest of this entry »

Con­tin­ued from Cedar stumps

“The idea was to let in the log beams for gird­ers. My help for the day argued suc­cess­fully to place them at about 6 or so feet high on the stumps. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Not want­ing to argue too much with the only other will­ing able body in my sphere of influ­ence capa­ble of lift­ing a log or two and not really weigh­ing the con­se­quences of start­ing my cabin floor well above head height, I gave in.”

 

 

 

And this is today.

Let in knees with steel hardware

Here’s a spot where a bracket just won’t make the grade.

Close up of beam joinery

 

 

 

Port Angeles home, farm and land: It all began with four 600 to 900 year old cedar stumps felled some hundred years ago. Read the rest of this entry »