Chinking

I spent the better part of Saturday and Sunday wedging sticks into the gaps between courses of logs. For the really large gaps I split small Sassafras logs into quarters. Sassafras is very soft wood, splits nicely and smells like root beer!

As you can see I also got the door and shutters for the window hung. Nice bug and rot resistant Ceder left in the rafters of the garage. I used some old cupboard hinges to hang them. After getting the wood chinking, door and shutters finished I decided it was finally time to check out the bags of cement that have been living under the workbench for the last eight years. I had been putting it off because I didn't really want to know if it was unusable.

Turns out the cement wasn't the only thing living under the workbench! A nice healthy Black Rat Snake had taken up residence in one of the open bags of cement. Looks like some mice had been living in it before him. I chased him off with a broom stick and low and behold the cement is still workable. There are three part bags and one unopened bag, all together probably 200 lbs of dry cement mix. Next weekend I'll start sealing up the chinking.

Today I raised my colors to celebrate the beautiful weather and the fact that the snake didn't bite me. Happy  Labor Day!