I am building my first home. Lucky me because it is in the woods! It is an adventure I surely will not forget.

Me with Rory

Thursday, May 7, 2009

No more nails

'Just spoke with logger and he said not to nail the trees. We'll have to take them out and retag with something else. He says paint. I forgot about the logger needed nail less trees for sawing.
Isn't there an environmental paint out there. Dig Safely used an orange paint that was gone within a month of application.
Logger called me to tell me to check into the incentives from the government. Logger is really being helpful by taking a personal interest in this project. It is nice working with my homeboys I mean... home town boys. lol

Monday, May 4, 2009

Tree tags

While I was out pumping the well yesterday, I measured and tagged about 20 trees. This way I can add up all the 39/41/45 etc. inchers and see what I have.
I want to have many in one size, so that the curve will be the same angle when the sawmill cuts them. If I have a flatter curve on one, and the next very rounded, I may get shelving, which I don't particularly want.
The most equal in circumference seem to be around the stream and power lines. They are between 39 and 45 inches mostly. There are some real fat ones deeper in the woods.
I calculated 37 inches to be the smallest I'd want for the house walls. That will give me an 8 inch square from the lower part of the tree, but possibly not as much length as the tree tapers. It looks like my bottom circumference goal should be 41 inches for the longest logs. I can use other narrow ones for railings, posts, stairs, etc.