House of a Different Color

Last Sunday I went up to Fort Ouiatenon to volunteer at the Blockhouse. The blockhouse is open to the public on the weekends through the summer. Volunteers open, close and answer questions for the visitors. This was built in 1930 by a Doctor who believed he knew where the real fort had once stood. He bought the land and built the fort. Turns out archeological digs in the 1960's proved he was only about a mile off. Pretty darn good guess!

The Doctor used it to entertain guests and from what I understand held dances and parties on special occasions. He was obviously a history buff so no doubt he enjoyed telling his guests all about the Fort. When he bought the land it was used for farming so there were no trees on site to build with. Instead he bought telephone polls and had them delivered to the site.

The blockhouse rests on a concrete foundation which has no doubt helped it survive the years. He donated the land to the county and it is now owned by the Tippecanoe County Historical Association.

Close examination of the notches reveals the combination of techniques the Doctor used. On the top of each course he made a saddle notch to wick moisture and on the adjoining bottom of the next course he contoured the notch with a chisel to make a tight fit. Over the years the original daubing has been resealed using what appears to be Perma-chink or some such mortar. In places where the mortar needs repair you can see shake type shims of wood used as backing for the mortar to cling to.

The conical shaped roof is supported with no central center post using a secondary series of supports mid-way down the main beams like a large umbrella frame. As you can imagine I had a great time!

Happy Birthday!

Tomorrow will be one year to the day that I began posting on this blog. What a year! I truly had no idea if the cabin would come together when I started and I had no idea how many wonderful friends I would make along the way. Here are the stats as of this afternoon.

 

As you can see there have been over 7500 visits, digging deeper into the analytics reveals that those visits were made by over 4600 unique visitors in over 1900 cities in 69 different countries! This is astounding given that I can count on one hand the number of people who have physically been inside the cabin. 

In other news the voting for 2011 Shed of the Year has opened on the "Shed Blog" and I could use your vote. Voting ends June 5th.

Thanks again to everyone who has visited. As the Beverly Hillbillies would say ... "Kick your shoes off, stay a while, ya'll come back now ya hear?"

Eager Beavers

A friend of mine took me to check out some stuff being prepped for a yard sale and I came across these two eager beavers. Manufactured by McCulloch in the nineties, the Eager Beaver model #2014, is no longer in production. 

I got both of them for $30.00. When an old chainsaw won't start the first thing to check for is  a broken fuel line. The lines are made of clear plastic tubing that turns yellow and gets brittle with age. Both ran fine after I replaced fuel lines but one had a worn out sprocket and the other a couple of missing bolts. I was able to scavenge parts off one to repair the other.

Once I got the saw running I used it to clean up this winter's crop of fallen timbers. This year most of them are old Redbud trees. I estimate somewhere between 15 and twenty of them. 

I don't need anymore firewood and Redbud is not very useful for building anything solid so the project this spring is Wildlife Brush Piles. First you make a checkerboard structure with the largest of the timbers then build a crown for it out of the branches. This is the first of a total of four that I plan to build. They make great homes for small wildlife like rabbits, mice and voles who provide food for owls, hawks and coyotes.

I'll look forward to watching for tracks around these in next winter's snow. Meanwhile the trip hazards on the forest floor are getting all picked up which should encourage larger wildlife like deer and turkey to pass through more frequently.

Bangers!

First weekend of spring and I finally got my sausage and onions cooked in the new dutch oven.

One large onion, 1 package of Johnsonville Brats and two cans of beer.

Boil over an open fire, then crisp em up on the grill. If you do it right you can hear them crackle and pop on the grill, that's why the Brits call them "Bangers"

Then eat your fill and sleep it off.

Three cheers for Spring!

Create Your Own "Walden Space"

From the very beginning of my cabin building project the number one question people have asked me is ... "WHY?"

I found myself struggling to answering this question. 
"I have a lot of dead trees and it's getting dangerous to walk the property."
"I want somewhere to keep things handy for the cookouts we have in the summer."
"I'd like to have an option other than a tent for guests to stay in."
etc. etc. etc.

Truth is there are tons of good reasons for building an outbuilding but when the project is as (unique shall we say) as mine a lot of people think you're strange. Then finally one day I answered the question. Without thinking about it or falling back on my laundry list of practical uses for the cabin I simply said ... "No computer, no phone, no T.V., or any other source of tragedy, anxiety, or hysteria."

For the first time ever I got the feeling that the person I was talking to was completely satisfied with the answer.

Let There Be Light

The shutters on the window work fine to keep out gusts of wind but keeping them closed makes the cabin a dark place during the short winter days. Inspired by Russian John I decided to put glass in the window this weekend. My solution was made from a $2.00 furring strip from Lowe's and a few pieces of glass from some unused frames in the basement.

Two 8"x10"s and a 16"x20" did the trick.

It does not open and close but it can be removed easily and replaced with a screen when the weather warms back up.