15
Jun

Log Rhythms: The Log-Raising!

Log Walls Up

Lakeside view of Solitude this morning…

As a blogger I do not spend inordinate amounts of time promoting my blog on social media. There are several reasons for this: A) I do have a life! If I actively worked all the major “avenues” of social media, I would never make any progress in the other “arenas” of my life. B) Some sites require a master’s in computer science in order to post links. C) Some claim they have major followings and then really don’t. D) Some are photo-based and as you have probably noticed, I’m not a great photographer. (I do have future plans for working around this, though!)

However, there would be no MaryAnn In Progress if it were not for Facebook. I began writing “Notes” on Facebook nearly 10 years ago “just for grins” and the response was surprising to me. Several faithful “followers” suggested that I needed to write a book and the DSL finally suggested that I “own” my writing. Hence, a blog was born!

So yes, I do promote MIP on Facebook very faithfully and I have even succumbed to a Twitter page, although I find the popularity of Twitter something I will never really understand completely. Early on I learned how an FB event page can help move certain events forward: I planned a surprise 17th birthday party for my daughter on FB and my Komen 3-Day Walk team and I raised over $ 2300 in a small town by creating an event page for a huge garage sale.

While promoting our event on FB last week, I jokingly talked about how all this rain is a result of Texans praying! The combination of rain and log-raising is not a good one! Especially early-on! Since we’re building lakeside, the cabin site dirt is very sandy and gets into everything, drainage-wise, and that, combined with heavy, repeated rainfalls has sometimes turned our crawl space into a swimming pool! Our builder and the hubby have been working diligently to stay ahead of this nonsense, but the heavens haven’t exactly cooperated!

Texans pray for rain almost constantly for good reason. Probably 95% of the time parts of Texas are either at near-drought or full-on-drought conditions in the summertime. It’s part of that “The stars at night are big and bright” beauty of Texas skies most of the time.

Drought is a nightmare in Texas. It dries up ponds, streams and even small lakes. It kills crops. It kills animals. It so cracks the earth that house foundations crack and doors and windows won’t open or close. It can even create plumbing and electrical problems, if severe enough. You would think a good thunderstorm would be welcome during a drought. But no, that’s bad, too. A lightning strike could land right in the middle of a dry grass field, start a grass fire and burn up everything in its path in a matter of hours.

Thus, Texans are seldom at ease with praying for rain to stop. So, when a friend questioned if he should stop praying for rain on FB, I replied with, “At least until Sunday,” meaning after our log-raising last Saturday. Well, the “stoppage” worked!

It was a gorgeous, but really humid day at the Reserve and we welcomed friends and guests to our little part of paradise and had a wonderful time. Three courses, or rows, of logs went up and the “dove-tails” (notched ends of logs that are put together to form the corners of the cabin) are now evident! Since a log cabin has to go up row by row all around the exterior of the house, it’s a very unique way of building nowadays.

Our Reserve neighbors allowed people to see their Katahdin log cabin and I think all who saw it were favorably impressed. In fact our builder, who has never put together a Katahdin cabin before, says he is really impressed as well. Katahdin logs are pre-cut and numbered and bar-coded (They even have our last name on them.) so that the builder merely puts them up in that numbered order. Some log suppliers just send the logs and then the builder has to cut the logs to fit the design of the cabin on-site. This means more labor and labor cost for the builder.

Even if logs are pre-cut, they don’t go up as planned on-site. While some log suppliers actually assemble the home at their mill first, there can still be differences on-site. Our builder said he has built a pre-cut home before, but he still had to cut a lot of logs on-site to make it work. On Saturday he made one slight trim to one Katahdin log!

We ate a wonderful lunch provided by our Katahdin dealers and got to see the window-framing going in so we could really see if the view from the windows was what we hoped for when positioning the cabin. With maybe one or two exceptions, we positioned it well! From my bedroom window I will be able to see our other future cabin, a bevy of sweet gum trees, the lake, of course, and the lake island where heron cranes and egrets land.

The surprises of the log-raising? Facebook allows you to decide your “audience” for your posts–only friends, only friends of friends, and a public setting. Normally, I only open my posts to friends or friends of friends, but for the Log-Raising, I opened it up to the public. Thus, we had people attend who simply saw it on their Facebook feeds! The power of social media–go figure!

The other surprise? We got 7 inches of rain at the Reserve on Sunday and Monday. Kayaks floated away; our “burn pile” is now lake-submerged and we had one issue with drainage not working as hoped. Our builder is pretty confident that the sand sneaked onto a drainage pipe and clogged it before we could get gravel on top of the pipe (thanks to a ridiculous amount of prior rainfall) and once that part of the pipe was cleared, things began to drain as planned.

The hubby went back to the Reserve yesterday and further moved dirt in order to make rain drain away from the cabin, but parts do need to “remain open” so that pipes can be connected to the eventual septic system. Since we don’t have a basement, we wondered if we would need a sump pump in Texas. I think the answer is now a definite YES!

In investigating the options, I think we’re leaning towards the “expensive side” because the higher-priced pumps have a battery back-up. Since there won’t be “full-time” residents and guests at Solitude and lightning is often a feature of Texas rains, a battery back-up system makes sense. Thankfully, sump pumps, even the higher end, are relatively inexpensive.

Even with all the rain and issues presented by such unusual circumstances in Texas, I can now report that all the walls are up at Solitude! The next step is to construct the porches and porte cochere (covered entrance) of the cabin so that the roof can begin to be constructed.

Thank you to all of you who visited and/or worked on Saturday! And many thanks to our neighbors and dealers for all of their generosity and hospitality. For those we met for the first time on Saturday, we hope to hear from you again and are happy to answer your questions about your own log projects in the future! If you were unable to make it this past Saturday, just get word to us that you are coming our way and we’ll roll out the Welcome Mat!

And feel free to submit a comment or question on the Log Rhythm posts to let us know how you’re coming with your own log homes! We love to hear about new ideas and plans. After all, another log cabin build is in our future!

Friday’s Post: Ears

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 15th, 2016 at 11:10 am and is filed under Log Rhythms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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  1. June 15th, 2016 | Liesa says:

    Looking GREAT! Prayers for weather will remain general and for the
    best so building can progress nicely!!! Liesa

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