Month: August 2018

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Salvage Lumber

Someone I know asked if I could build them a firewood shelter using a big stack of old wood that was piled up beside their workshop.  This was wood left behind by a previous owner,  most of it milled on site from cedar and douglas fir trees.  Old Douglas fir trees.

The other request was to make it visually similar to another one they already had to avoid having the “shiny new” upstaging the “weathered old”.

I am not quite finished but I have managed to find enough wood to build everything except the rafters.  I had to buy new 2×6’s for those.  I even found a few lengths of fir 6×6 so I could mirror the beam in the old shelter.  Did I mention how heavy 6×6 douglas fir beams are?  No?  Ok, how does 220 pounds sound.  And no helpers 😦

I also got to try my hand at a scarf joint.  Now before you start I know it should by at least eight times longer than the width of the wood, and preferably 12 times.  Problem is I didn’t have enough 6×6 to sacrifice eight feet for scarf joints.  Most of the beam parts were supported by two posts, and only a small piece in the centre would be suspended.  Since this small piece is only 5ish feet long and will at most have to carry two rafters I decided to go with a very small scarf with dowel pins.  I made sure the angle of the joint would aid in supporting the piece.

  • Lifting the beam

Sure makes a guy wish for a 10″ saw and some better chisels.  One last note: did I mention how hard old douglas fir can get?  No?  Check this out ->

Count’em up.  One carbide tooth left and it’s burnt.  I actually broke two driver bits as well.

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Three Trees

This is actually only two trees.  A single maple with two trunks off a common root have almost completely encased the bottom twenty feet of a cedar.  Very cool.

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Canning Starts

Even though the garden is quite a ways from being ready for salsa the island is continuing to be harvestable.  We picked up a couple cases of peaches on Friday and on Saturday while Kelly was preparing these for jam I went out to one of the many wild blackberry patches we have here.  After a few minutes I acquired a couple pails of berries and left behind the prerequisite amount of blood.  Blackberries bramble extract a fee!!

Jams done we still have a lot of peaches left.  As a trial I made my first ever cobbler.  First time I made it, first time I ate it.  YUM!  Definitely a winner.  We will be packaging up prepared peaches for the freezer so we can have cobbler through the winter.  Delicious.  

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There, that’s better

I’m not sure why the happened. Cedar siding on an old building. The building is actually pretty sound. Solidly built, no water damage and very little rot. I only had to replace the stairs and the deck rail top caps that had a bit of dry rot.

The only other time I’ve seen cedar siding buckle out like this was because of ivy growing under the siding. This almost looks like a tree branch was growing in it. After I took down the warped ones I noticed that they nested together very suspiciously. What’s that chance they actually put up warped boards?

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Visitors

Cass and Dave and the kids were in town for a few days this week.  We had a wonderful visit including a run up to Coombs and a couple of beach days. 

Coombs has changed a LOT since I was there last.  Granted it has been about 14 years since my last stop there but I have to say I’m not a fan.  The old market was a folksy place with local artisans selling their wares.  Despite keeping the goats  it now it looks like a flea market.  New buildings of glass and stucco with zero aesthetic value full of products which are just more made in SE Asia wares.  It actually reminded Kelly and I both of the last time we were in Los Algodones, everyone selling stuff out of containers from Malaysia and Indonesia.  I suspect it was either sold or has had some capital injection from overseas investors.  I doubt I will go back.

We also ran up to Cathedral Grove the same day.  I’ve been there several time in the last few years.  A nice place to spend a couple hours and if you have never been there it is a must stop.  You have to see what a 1000 year old cedar can look like. 

This was the first time we walked though the newer trails on the north side of the highway.  It is actually the better side.  Far less storm damage from the big wind of 1997,  has some fantastic root features and some very cool hollows.

Back on our little island we finished up with a nice beach day and a visit to the alpaca farm. I hope the kids had a great time, they looked like they did!