One down and three to go

     Now that an embarrassing length of time has lapsed since my last posting, I have positive progress to report on the house construction! We have completed one whole section of four sections (in the timber-framing world they are called "bents") of our main house frame. This first section was a huge hurdle for me personally, since I really had no experience cutting this kind of joinery, only having ever worked with squared-off timbers before, AND there was the seemingly insurmountable problem of actually lifting and maneuvering the massively heavy timbers on and off the framing bed! But once we started in, we slowly and awkwardly figured out how to cut each special joint (the notch made where two timbers come together) and we found friends who liked us enough to come help us lift the aforementioned massively heavy timbers each time we needed to add a new piece (6-8 able-bodied men/women on average!) When we finally finished one whole section, we had a big lifting party to get it off the framing bed and onto the ground so that we could set up the next section, which is already underway, about half finished. So below is a picture of the relocated first section, ready to be adjusted and ratchet-strapped in place for our future raising day when all four will go up together.... or so we pray.

     We have been doing all this work on the "framing bed" that we constructed especially for the task, a perfectly level and purposefully-spaced grid upon which to lay out the timbers. It helps us determine at what positions to line up the beams in order to get consistent heights for the first and second floors, to know where the cruck timbers should cross to support the ridge poll, and where the feet of the building will stick out and sit on the padstones we set last summer. It has been surprisingly solid, though it looks like it should collapse under the weight of several tons of timber. See picture below... We roll around logs, pivot and push them into and out of place to cut the notches, and it has not budged! When we are done this phase of construction, we will dismantle it and reuse the wood we built it with to construct our first floor joists. 

     We have been doing all of the construction at this phase with only a few key tools: mainly chisels, mallets, saws, levels, a string, and the tool that I am using in the below left picture, a scribing compass. This was one of our big investments for this project, but it is a very cool tool and well worth it. Once set level, it can be used to transfer the curve of one timber onto the one below it and vice versa. Knowing this allows us to remove wood from both the bottom and top timbers so that they will fit perfectly together, despite the irregularities in the contours of their curves. We end up with each joint being somewhat like the one shown bellow, with several flat parallel planes being cut so that they connect flush with the ones in the connecting timber. The dove-tail shape helps transfer any sideways pressure from the cruck into locking the joint more securely together (and prevents them from slipping out), PLUS the peg hole you see drilled here will eventually be filled with an oak peg, which further secures it together. For the raising and this phase we have been using removable metal pins which our very talented blacksmith neighbor Brian custom made especially for this project. Thank goodness for all of our hands-on friends!

The mallet is one my grandfather used to make wooden sculptures

     One of the other projects we have been working on this summer has been building a dock into our pond. One day a few months ago as were watching the spring rain rapidly filling the level of the pond, Mike got a certain look in his eye and determined it was time to get the dock in before it was too late! Within a day or two, he had located rot-resistant white oak from our land and had set it into the ground to form the moorings of our soon-to-be dock. We then ordered some planking from one of our local mills and had it nailed in, just in time for the summer heat wave to hit. Almost as soon as it was done, our friends from Philly came out on a camping adventure with their two boys, Nino and Niki, who were in the water almost non-stop. Our neighbor's daughter Ella and another few community kids, Etta and Oliver, plus Nino have all been learning to swim this summer and our pond has turned out to be the perfect spot for it since we have a bit of a "shallow end" where they can practice. This was an unanticipated additional benefit to add to the list of why having a pond is amazing. We also have been using the water to keep our new little trees alive during dry spells, plus hosting a healthy frog population who saw the "vacancy" signs and moved right in. 

Sitting on the dock of the bay...

Nino and Niki, our resident frogs

     Our land continues to amaze me, week after week, as it unfurls new beauties to behold. This summer, it seems, has been entirely different than last when we had a bad drought, as the wetter weather has brought out terrific wildflowers that I had not seen before, coneflowers, oxeye daisies, bright orange milkweed, black-eye susans, blazing stars, etc. It also brought on a surge of mulberries, the biggest, juiciest, sweetest ones I have yet tasted. All the while Mike and I were planting our hundreds of little trees, including 25 native mulberries, it turns out we actually have four mature mulberry trees already on our land, full of low-hanging branches and ripe berries! This discovery felt like a little surprise gift from our land, and for about a month and a half, we were harvesting bowls of delicious purple-staining berries. Yum. Between that and the bountiful wood nettles on our land, we were bringing in daily edible harvests. Our little tree seedlings are for the most part doing well, by the way, with about a 5% die-off rate so far (about half that were non-native eastern white pines and fussy flowering dogwoods). In particular, our 25 paw-paws all took to the places we planted them which feels like an exciting victory (they are notoriously bad at being transplanted, and we were forewarned that they would likely not make it). But visions of delectable paw paw fruit (somewhat tropical and custardy, almost like a less-tart mango) propelled us onward. I hope they continue to survive the heat and the deer, who may also have an appetite for paw paw! 

     Another fun experiment in edible planting has been our wheat crop, which we planted as a dam-wall stabilizer while the native grasses and wildflowers get established. We sowed a bag last fall and didn't think much of it until we realized this July that we were surrounded by mature grain-heads full of wheat berries ready to be harvested! We didn't have much intention of actually doing it, until our friend Selma, visiting from Philly, decided she wanted to try it out. So we harvested a couple of bowls worth and went through the process of rubbing out the berries and winnowing the sheaths away in the wind by pouring the berries back and forth between bowls. Amazing how it all works using no fancy machinery, just these ancient techniques! We then tried grinding it in a hand-cranked grain mill, mixing a dough from it and using a sour-dough culture to leaven the dough. Finally, post-baking it became little buns which were quite good, though not terribly efficient in the making.

     Another practice we have started which is relatively inefficient, but still, a satisfying step toward self-sufficiency, has been hand washing and line drying our own clothes. We picked up this double-basin washer at auction, and combined with a washboard, soap and water, makes for a rather meditative ritual. These kinds of additional labor-making practices can quickly fill up a day and when one has a sense of scarcity about time (as I often do), that can be quite frustrating. I can see how my fast-paced, efficiency-seeking, east-coast upbringing has conditioned me to avoid or expedite such labor. I often have to consciously slow myself down and remind myself that I have no deadlines or anywhere to be except the present moment, because I can easily slip into being a multi-tasking stressed-out maniac if I am not careful. So taking care, relishing these little rituals--"chopping wood, carrying water" as it were--is more and more a part of my days as I transition into this liefestyle. Selma and Niki also tried out the old-fangled clothes washer while they visited, and, I think, enjoyed it!  

    So, where are we now? As many people reading this will have heard, while on a family-visit in Ohio, Mike recently broke his neck, an unexpected and serious new development. He is super fortunate to be making a full and relatively quick recovery right now, and we are still figuring out what this means for the rest of our building season (and how soon we can return!) The especially unfortunate bit is that his injury will mean no "heavy lifting" for him for awhile and, ironically, we have pretty much nothing but heavy-lifting ahead of us on the house for the rest of the summer. But I am hopeful I will find help to keep going with it while Mike keeps the hammock warm and the hearth-fire (or cook-fire) burning. For now, gratitude to our bodies that enable us to do this work and keep going, day after day...