Gang Cutting

With all that tree trimming (last January already!) I've had a giant pile of poles/branches that are all about 15 feet long.  I set up a saw horse sort of thing and put about a dozen in there at once and cut them up.  do that for a couple of hours and you have a lot to stack up.

Its Curtains!

Melissa made cloth covers for the south windows that will work both for the summer heat and the winter cold.  They actually make the room seem brighter at night!

Little views of Life

The morning fog was creeping by the office window while my tea was cooling by the keyboard.

 Maki rolls were ordered by the pregnant lady, so out comes the fresh veggies and bamboo roller.

Moving Door

So, the French doors (south, center) have begun to move apart from one anther. I think it's actually the west side of the house is settling a touch faster than the east, and thus the frame is widening a bit.  Why this matters is the catch between the doors doesn't always 'catch', and the door stays open.

 So, even though I spent a bunch of time beveling (is that the right word?) the hinges into the frame back when I put them on, I realize the easiest solution is to move the west door slightly to the east. Here's what it looks like at the hinges before I started:

 And after I put in a little shim behind the hinges, all worked well:

oh, did I mention about the pumpkin?

So, yeah, not exactly about the house construction, but definitely part of the Journey in the Woods... Melissa is pregnant!

Another Knife Project

Well, this time I did manage to get some photos along the way. Here I cut a rough knife shape out of an old chunk of bandsaw blade (found in the woods):

 well, not too many photos. I then drilled 3 holes for brass rivets and added a piece of oak from a former handle of my framing saw (that had cracked under use a while back):

 and after some shaping of the handle and much filing of the blade, I got down to sharpening the edge with my nice japanese water stone.  Ended up pretty good!

Firewood measurement

So, I took a photo of the amount of firewood I used to heat the earth oven yesterday when we baked 2 loaves of bread, 6 trays of crackers and 6 trays of granola (sort of a light baking day).  This was it... 2 buckets of small sticks.  My chimney is doing a great job of a hotter cleaner burn.  It could have been a little hotter... so next time, maybe 3 buckets. 

I'll never get through all that firewood.

Back on Timber Framing

We've been working on the timber frame structure for the car port for a while now (usually in between getting urbanite and running out of it). Melissa, as usual, does the exact marking up with pencil (in the shade whenever possible); here she is working on a knee-brace:

Once she's done some markings, I get to do some cuttings.  Luckily with the knee braces, they are small enough I can hold them in the vice, which makes for much easier cutting. Notice the old buck saw that my mother bought at some rummage sale many years ago:

 Then the chiseling starts up, with careful work with the Japanese 'slick' chisel to smooth out the tenons that will slide into mortises in the posts and beams:

Bringing down some firewood

This should have been a video, but these photos make it look pretty cool. It was a high speed event.

New Handle

Put a new handle on an old knife... came out pretty well. Throws great now.

The basic bread

So, a friend asked to see the bread making process, instead of just the fire in the earth oven.

Recipe:

3 cups warm water

1/2 teaspoon of yeast

3 cups white flour

3 cups whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon of salt

stir

let it sit overnight, covered, so it looks like this in the morning:

 scoop it out onto a floured surface:

 fold it into thirds and tuck it into a ball (this is the slightly artful part):

 let it rise for 90 minutes, bake for about 25 minutes, cool, slice, eat: