Week 5

This week has been another busy week.

The first big announcement is that we have FINALLY finished peeling all of the logs that will be used for rafters and posts in the house. I don't know how the rest of the gang feels, but there were times I would see wood grain when I closed my eyes. While it was a great experience in learning the different ways to peel a log, I'm glad to have it out of the way so that now we can start using them.

We have also started putting in the foundation for the 'A' frame which is rumored to be possibly inhabited by our local tree climber, Sam. It's only natural that Sam would want to live in this thing because while he does love trees, and that is what the 'A' frame is made of, he's also leading the project from start to finish.

Grant the Viking has finished putting in the posts for the timber framed roof for the cob oven. With some consulting with Jim and a little help from me, Grant was able to complete the second phase of the project before he had to bake pizza that night.

Karen was busy in the garden this week and got a lot of planting and seeding down. We can't wait to be able to offset the our grocery shopping with the produce straight from our garden.
Karen also moved the compost pile to the back of the 'green tunnel' in order to create more space for another bed for the garden.

With the foundation laid, we got to work on pouring the posts cement foundations. These cement pillars will also give us the level of which to stack the wall's foundation stones up to.

While we have been working hard a few of us went off to hike up one of the main views in the area, and the main view of the house; Keeper Hill. Even though we followed the directions we still ended up getting... not lost, but not exactly to the correct spot we intended. With the help of some local knowledge we were able to find the spot we were looking for in order to start our hike and set off for the peak of the Keeper. It was rough going for a bit of the hike, but we found a nice big trail (read as: road) to finish up the last bit of the hike. We got to the top just in time to see a beautiful sunset and to take a few goofy pics.
After the hike down we also found the local pub where we talked to a few locals and shared a much deserved beer.

I'll be posting some more about the Rumford fireplace in my next entry, but for a short update:

We are going to have to redesign the smoke shelf as well as the flue for it, so that means tearing down part of the current setup which I know a lot of use don't want to do.

Head over to the Picasa pics and see what all went down this past week.

-Thomas