Okanogan 14x24 by a lurker :)

[OlJarhead]

And a wonderful day it was!  These is just something about owning a piece of land and a cabin in the woods!

My wife and I arrived a short while after noon on Saturday and having not chained up at the start of our drive, and being somewhat lazy, I decided not to chain up even once I saw the driveway to our place was still quite treacherous.  Simply put:  why?  I have a tractor? lol


It was a nice, warm and sunny day so we parked at the bottom of the hill and hiked in the last quarter mile or so.  Thankfully I've walked over 260 miles in the last few moths and biked over 100 so I'm in quite a bit better shape these days!  The hike in was one to enjoy, not a chore!

My wife and I at the top of our place -- hiking is once again something I want to do!


After arriving at the cabin we fired up the big red beast and got the wood stove going.  Then after an appropriate amount of warm up time (for the tractor) and of course, gawking at the awesome place we have, we jumped on the Mahindra and drove back to the entrance to our place and I began plowing the snow and ice sufficiently enough to drive the truck the rest of the way in.  It was a breeze!


Those that know me know that something is missing in this picture -- my gut!


Once settled in we spent the day enjoying the place and when evening arrived we brewed up some coffee and noticed we still had some home made Kahlua a friend had given us   So ya, the coffee was even better!


Lots of snow still hanging around despite the temps in the mid 40's!  Heck, I think I saw it up to 48 at one point, but I guess when you have 12-15 inches of snow still on the ground it takes a while to melt.  This pic is of our Rye field -- or perhaps our future rye field considering nothing is growing yet! lol

This trip was more about checking on the place and picking some things up to bring home for other projects but it was a great trip and we were just glad to be back!

In two weeks we return and hope to begin expanding the orchard fencing in anticipation of the new trees we're ordering!

[OlJarhead]

I should add that the batteries were nicely charged and ready for us and everything continues to work well   It's so nice to show up at the cabin and have full power!

So this year our list of 'to do's' at the cabin are:

1.  Fence in larger orchard section to add 2 more trees outside current orchard and 3 inside.
2.  Plant 5 more trees and possibly some berries.
3.  Install new 2" main water line from Cistern to cabin and orchard (probably July)
4.  Roof porch and finish exterior of cabin
5.  Build 'deck' in front of porch and possibly begin deck around cabin (depends on milling operations)
6.  Plant 2 more acres of Cereal Rye
7.  Begin fencing East border (no fencing to date) and fix the rest of the fence around the property
8.  Install gates
9.  Finish interior paneling and trim.
10. Install floor
11.  Add instant on hot water system and finish plumbing (tub/shower).
12.  Start on root cellar (need to dig some of the pit out and build forms for the foundation (s).

Of course who knows how much we'll get done but that's the current plan

[new land owner]

I can't wait to get back to my cabin as well.  I have quite a list of to do's for this year.

I was wondering how the wood stove worked?  I bought the same one last year.  My main concern is how long will a fire last?  My camp is going to be insulated well but the nights get cold up north.

[OlJarhead]

Depends.

If you are burning seasons ponderosa pine (about the worst firewood you can have) a good sized load for this stove on fully open damper will burn well for about 2 hours.  In 4 you'll have some coals left.

On the other hand I've tamped it down and had it burn 9 hours to coals.

My best guess is that if you are burning Tamarack or better it's probably capable of going 6 to 8 hours and a well insulated cabin should be quite comfortably suited for this stove -- in other words, we're happy

[OlJarhead]

Getting exited!


We pulled out some blue stain from the shed that we'd milled up a year ago and set it on the new mill setup in order to rip it down to square it up.


The new mill height is awesome!  And since I can use it to rip boards faster then I could use my table saw I'm pretty stoked!  The working height is excellent.


This is what we plan to make our flooring out of.  We'll stain it with a light pine stain and then use a heavy floor poly coat type finish to protect it.


This stuff was very wet from laying on the ground for years and when it dried it often warped so now we are milling it down to square it up.  Then it will go on the table saw for finish cuts and finally will either get a Tongue and Groove from the router or be turned into window casing/trim/boxes or whatever else we want.

I can't wait to get the mill back up to the cabin and may even drag it up there next weekend!

[rugger8]

OJH - Not long, not long   The mill kinda looks outta place in suburbia   You will have to take her back to the cabin soon!

Jeff

[OlJarhead]

OJH - Not long, not long   The mill kinda looks outta place in suburbia   You will have to take her back to the cabin soon!

Jeff

Amen!  My yard isn't for mills! lol

This mill needs to be back at the cabin turning trees, which are too close together and need to be thinned out a little, into lumber!

[OlJarhead]

Did a bunch of clean up at the house today so I could get back to planing and staining trim wood for the cabin.  I also managed to rip down more of the lumber I had in the shed so it's now squared up   Gotta love having a mill in the front yard!

Now I'll have to start running the planer (tonight I think) so I can get enough of the blue stained, or partly stained lumber ready for a light sanding and coat of stain and varathane.  With luck I can have a bunch ready to take up to the cabin this weekend.

Weather at the cabin appears to be much colder this year then the last 3 and so it's unlikely I'll get plowing and planting my rye fields just yet.  Temps are dropping into the high 20's at night and only now starting to approach 50 during the day so the 12 to 15 inches of snow is likely to stick around a little longer.  However, the weather means I should be able to get a good slash burn going at least and with luck I can burn the biggest slash pile this weekend -- the one in the middle of one of our fields.  I also plan to get back to installing paneling in the loft if I have some time while I'm up there and can enlist my wifes help

[OlJarhead]

Between work and weather I've struggled to get the wood ready for the windows!  Can't really do much up there because it's quite cold still so with luck I might be able to get some varathane on it today but again, work gets in the way! DOH!

[OlJarhead]

The best way to describe a productive weekend at the cabin?  WOW!


We arrived with little planned because I hadn't finished the window box wood, the weather was too cold and snowy to disk a field or plant and I just wasn't sure what, if anything, we'd get done but we were going to go and have a good weekend regardless. 

Once we arrived, got the cabin warmed up and had a look around (our usual) we spent Friday relaxing and warming up the cabin in anticipation of temps in the mid teens overnight, which, without a fully insulated roof, means I'd be getting up a lot to stoke the wood stove to keep the cabin warm for the misses

The next morning was bright and sunny (and 18 degrees) and we decided to work on paneling the loft.  We spent the next few hours insulating and paneling but had to break mid-day for a run to town, we then got back at it and finished up the wall to the ceiling before running out of things to do (I hadn't brought my table saw along which I'd need in order to start the ceiling).  It was late anyway so we relaxed in the now much warmer cabin!


One thing we noticed RIGHT away was the humidity inside the cabin dropped!  It was down to 35% for the first time EVER.  WOW!  We didn't even have the ceiling completely insulated (about 95%) but it made a LOT of difference.  Time to put a pot of water on the wood stove.

That night I began to worry a little about the CO2 levels in the cabin and cracked the window over our bed.  Up to this point there was enough of a draft inside the cabin that we never worried about the stove sucking the oxygen out of the cabin but now it was a lot tighter and I worried, but only a little.  I cracked the window less then a quarter inch and went to bed.

Three hours later I woke up a little dizzy (I wake up often) and got up to stoke the stove a little out of habit.  I noticed that I felt dizzy and 'odd' so I cracked the window by the wood stove about an inch, stoked the stove and went back to bed.  After that I felt fine.  I can't be certain it was the stove that got to me but I wasn't taking any chances and put the outside air vent on my MUST GET ASAP list.  I wasn't having any of that again!


The next day I managed to get one window 3/4ths of the way boxed in.  We'd found we had enough left over Blue Stain pine to do at least that much.  Gotta love that stuff!

We also tried out my 'cabin bread' in our dutch oven

I use an old BBQ grate as a cook surface for the bottom of the oven (to get the coals off the ground) and used a LOT of coals because I wanted the oven around 500 degrees.


This recipe is a simple one:  3 cups of bread flour (I used about 1/4 to 3/4 cup home milled whole wheat and the rest white), 1 1/4 tsp salt (sea salt, non-iodized), 1/2 tsp yeast and 1 1/3 to 1 1/2 cups of well water (non-chlorinated water).  I put the try ingredients into a mason jar and tote along in case I want to make bread.  Then dump them into a large mixing bowl, mix in the water until the mix is sticky and well mixed (no kneading) and then cover with plastic wrap and a towel and let sit at room temp for about 24hours.  Once read gently pour out onto a well floured cutting board, form into a ball with well floured hands and then place back in the well floured bowl (or a towel) and let sit for 1 to 2 more hours while you get the oven ready.  Bake at around 500 degrees for about 40-50 minutes, let cool for 15 minutes and then serve.


The bread was awesome


A pic my wife took of our little cabin interior


That's me relaxing after lots of cabin work


HER kitchen! lol -- she calls it that


We put the subfloor in the porch and tiled the floor (the HD type faux tile that you just put together with a glued edge -- supposed to be more durable then linoleum and water proof).

Manged to get a few other things done as well and all in all had a fantastic weekend!

[OlJarhead]

Just ordered the air intake   $45 off ebay!  Considering I held off previously since it was $150 as quoted.

Also ordered a Cherry, Pear and a plumb for the orchard   all self pollinators and won't cause me to have to make the orchard bigger.

[rick91351]

Just ordered the air intake   $45 off ebay!  Considering I held off previously since it was $150 as quoted.

Also ordered a Cherry, Pear and a plumb for the orchard   all self pollinators and won't cause me to have to make the orchard bigger.

Good choice on trees.  Glad you had a good time up there 'roughing it' looks pretty enjoyable now.  Making great progress!  Hang in there!!

[OlJarhead]

Looks like I have about 4 feet worth of pine paneling I can make for the cabin before my next trip.  It will all be 4" paneling though and since I've been alternating 4", 5", 6" and 7" paneling I'll have to mill up an additional 12 to 14 feet of the other widths in order to finish the roof off.  I try to get fairly even numbers of each but that can be tough with trees of different sizes.

[OlJarhead]

Hmmm my math tells me I can go up the ceiling about 5 feet with the boards we just ripped square   Of course I still have to plane them and rip them down to 4" widths and then take the router to them but it's nice to know that I can get about 1/3rd of the remaining ceiling done with this!  I also have about 3 or 4 feet of 7" paneling up there now so with a few logs milled up I ought to have enough to finish the ceiling!

Then, however, I have to wait 8 weeks of drying before I can rip them down and begin the process of making them into paneling but it gives me hope for a finished interior this spring/summer!

[JavaMan]

Very cool!  Took me a minute to catch up because I've been busy around the house here...

Cabin looks great!

[astidham]

looking good!

[OlJarhead]

We plan hot water this spring!
http://marey.com/product_pdf/english/6.pdf

They say not to install outside but I'm installing outside (sorry Marey).  My plan, however, is to box in the installation and put a roof over it (the stack will go up through that) and to insulate the box but otherwise it will be outside for the foreseeable future.

However, if I get my composter 'room' finished it will be more like a 'basement' with surface bonded dry stacked cinder block walls (filled of course) and concrete floor (insulated) with insulated upper walls and an RV propane heater installed in the wall to provide heat to about 50-55 degrees in colder months (to keep the composting action working).  If I get that built (in a year or two) then the hot water heater will go inside that space also.

Either way, I'm set up for this RIGHT NOW except the gas supply (which I'm close enough on) and so my plan it to get this in the next month or two and install it.  Then it will be downright civilized at the cabin!

[OlJarhead]

Just bought the Marey 10l Heater!  WhooHoo!  Got it for $209 with free shipping

[OlJarhead]

Getting VERY excited about this next trip!!!

It all goes well I'll be milling a LOT of lumber for paneling, flooring, the deck and so much more

[OlJarhead]

Almost ready to tow up to the cabin

I really can't wait either! (can you tell?).  It's going to rain on us (60% chance) which I don't relish but I plan to fall at least two big trees (maybe 3) and drag the logs over to the mill.  We've also got 4 small logs ready for milling.  My goal?

75ea -  3/4" x 8' pine boards -- blue stain preferred -- for the flooring (I need about 200 square feet worth and have some of it already but extra will be nice)
150ea -  5/8" x 8' knotty pine boards -- for paneling
100+ - 2" boards (dimensional lumber but I may go with rough cut sizes too)

Overall goal is to mill a minimum of 150bf/hr for 10 hours -- though, honestly if we can mill 200bf/hr over sustained periods I'd be a LOT happier

[OlJarhead]

Wow!  What an awesome weekend


After getting the mill to the site late Friday night we crashed in the warm cabin (it was in the mid 40's) and started early Saturday after a few foibles.  First up was a couple blue stained logs for flooring.  These were small 8 footers but produced some very nice stained pine!

Next up -- BIG LOGS!
\
Out first log measured over 16 inches at the small end and scaled out at 180bf on the International 1/4" Scale -- which means we would get over 200 board feet from it  


This was the first 16 foot log we've ever milled so it was a learning experience but it was satisfying!  Loading it took some work but we'd get better


Something about a big pine on the mill that gets my blood pumping!


Burning slash gave us a place to make lunch


Making the can took a while on this first big log. 


Whittling away at it.  Soon we'll have it ready to mill 5/8" paneling.


This log was about as big as we could mill with the little LT10 -- but at about 1200-1400 lbs I was pretty impressed with the mill!


Making the paneling


A days worth of milling.  It was a slow day because we had some learning to do but overall it wasn't a bad day either.

[OlJarhead]

Day two started at 7am with me taking the tractor and chainsaw up to the Rye field I wanted to build and looking for a big pine to fall.  Honestly I hate taking down these big guys but I also wanted to open up this acre for Cereal Rye so decided I'd take this last 'big' pine and put it on the mill.  All the rest of the trees will be smaller unless they are somewhere I don't want them   but again, I hate to take the big ones!  I'd rather take smaller trees around them so they can grow even bigger

The snow was really coming down at times and made it a cold and wet day!


After Saturday's 30 minute load time for a big pine Sunday's (this pic) 6 minute time for a 1200-1400 pound log was VERY nice!  We were getting it down!


We can handle logs up to 24" in diameter but that's the upper limit for this mill.  Anything that size or larger will likely need some chainsaw slabbing work to make it fit the mill.  In this case the big taper meant I had to slab off some bark so the mill could take it down to a CANT.


Making the CANT


A log this size takes us about 90 minutes to mill into 2x's but I suspect with time we could get that closer to 60 minutes.  Total lumber produced from this 16 footer was about 185 board feet.


It really wasn't a lot of fun milling in this weather!  And we had very little time to protect the lumber so we'll have to get back soon to improve the stack.


The last log was milled at 1 3/4" to give us slightly larger then dimensional lumber though not quite 'rough cut' sizes.  When these dry they will likely come in at about 1 5/8" thick and will be used to build the deck and outhouse.


Heading home!

I'm very happy with the mill and how easy it was to drag into our remote location! 

[OlJarhead]

Looking closer at this stack and I realize the following:

2x6 studs run about 57c/bf so there's about $70 worth of 2x6's here (they would have to be ripped down to that size which is my plan).
1x6 pine boards run about $3.97/bf at HD so there's about $1100 worth of 1x6 pine boards in there (again, need to rip them down)

So to put this into perspective if I had to buy the lumber at HD or similar store it would run more over $1k whereas we just cut the trees down, bucked them into logs and rolled them on the mill   OF course paying someone to do this would run about $450 for the day (setup included) but that's still a savings of OVER $600!  Can't beat that!

[new land owner]

Nice job with the mill.  My brother in law has a similar one and he milled all of the siding for my camp and enough wood for the ceilings and wainscotting.

[OlJarhead]

Thanks

Gotta love having a mill in the family!