House and Habitat build thread:

Wonderful series of updates Cat. I enjoyed all of the pics and especially like the pond hopping report. To have a pond on ones property is a special thing for sure but to have a few on one property is more than awesome! Your lightning pictures are excellent. I have taken many lightening shots over the years but so far am swinging and missing. I plan to spend a month or so at my cottages this summer and will likely get more chances there again.

I'm with you in paying as you go;combined with your talents for getting things done yourself you can afford so much more than one that spends their income ahead and then pays interest on a loan. In my younger days some of my friends were paying up to 21 percent interest on their personal loans, can you imagine that??!!

Guys like you and many on this forum keep me moving; not that I don't relax a bit but you all help keep me in the game with constantly getting stuff done.
 
OkieKubota said:
No natural logs on the back porch...I thought it might "Overdo" the concept since this porch is going to be incorporated into the back deck we are saving up for. The back deck will wrap right around into this porch and it will be 44 feet long and 22ft of it will be roofed and the other 1/2 won't. We want to be able to use the back deck rain or shine...

Thanks - I can hardly wait to see what the place looks like in 5/10 years...It's a lot of fun to improve things as you are doing on your place as well. I like how you utilize the resources off your place...
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That's going to be one great deck! I love a half covered deck, works for any occasion and I truly love to be outside during a rain (as long as it isn't blowing sideways). Following your thread I've seen amazing changes since you started, can't imagine how different it will be in a decade!
 
dogghr said:
You know I always like you sunset pics Cat, but you might've outdone yourself on the lightning pics. Pretty awesome, and not easy to get such great pics. They actually make a sensor you can buy that attaches to the camera and senses lightning and triggers the camera. Most pro pics of lightning are done that way. Yours are just as good.
Place looks awesome as usual . Hope you never need the shelter.
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Here ya go, two of my favorites! (I've probably already posted these but I like them so here they are again).
Never looked into getting a sensor. When we get storms like this we unplug the TV and set in the dark watching. It feels like we are in the middle of the storm (if you look close at one of the pics you can see the lightning is between me and the trees, which is less than 50yards). I use my phone to take the pics so it's nothing special. Just got to get lucky once in a while.
And TripleC, you are right, I never get tired of the views here!
f3f3899d54fab8c0d4b8aa0a7af8aabf.jpg

4a16c3eb6082bbab17e61d27e468e3ba.jpg

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^ ^ ^Awesome. But you aren't getting me back to Kansas. You just can't keep a motorcycle on the road with that wind you guys insist on. Of course I kid, kinda. Beautiful state and really nice people. Still not sure why Dorothy was so worried of getting back tho. Lol.
 
Chainsaw said:
Wonderful series of updates Cat. I enjoyed all of the pics and especially like the pond hopping report. To have a pond on ones property is a special thing for sure but to have a few on one property is more than awesome! Your lightning pictures are excellent. I have taken many lightening shots over the years but so far am swinging and missing. I plan to spend a month or so at my cottages this summer and will likely get more chances there again.

I'm with you in paying as you go;combined with your talents for getting things done yourself you can afford so much more than one that spends their income ahead and then pays interest on a loan. In my younger days some of my friends were paying up to 21 percent interest on their personal loans, can you imagine that??!!

Guys like you and many on this forum keep me moving; not that I don't relax a bit but you all help keep me in the game with constantly getting stuff done.
Click to expand...
The pond hopping is fun. It isn't ideal as I don't really get a great run in and I don't get to work hard at fishing either. It works great when I'm limited on time and don't want to choose one over the other, I get to do both. The property is great for sooooo many reasons, I haven't even posted pics of the 3 creeks that run through it.
Good luck and post lightning pics once you get them. I use my phone, it's an old Galaxy Note 3. I can capture photo's from a video so it makes it super simple.

I had the same friends. They took out student loans for college and bought cars with them, run up credit cards on clothes and rent, ate out all the time, and then paid dearly for it! I've never been comfortable spending what I don't have so I avoided a lot of the high interest traps that caught so many others. I'm glad you avoided them too.
 
lakngulf said:
Did you try and fly a Ben Franklin kite on that stormy night? I would imagine that your storms up there can come it with some fierce wind!
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Lot of wind up here! And hell no I don't fly a kite, lol. I don't even like to go outside when it's like that.
 
dogghr said:
^ ^ ^Awesome. But you aren't getting me back to Kansas. You just can't keep a motorcycle on the road with that wind you guys insist on. Of course I kid, kinda. Beautiful state and really nice people. Still not sure why Dorothy was so worried of getting back tho. Lol.
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Lol, don't blame ya. I've never been a motorcycle guy but I use to train a lot on bicycle when I was doing triathlons. The worst is when a big truck passes you and blocks the wind for a moment, and then it comes back right after it passes. That can push you all over the place!

Dorothy must have been a hunter...
 
Funny you mention 'spring has sprung'......tooling along in the land of 'can't decide to be tame or native' and there is Indian Paintbrush...in FULL BLOOM!

So you mill this wood yourself or what? Looking at a fencerow which needs to be cleared and restrung......good sized post OO and a huge cedar which will make good planks needs to go. You got an Alaskan mill or know how to use one? And what do I need to due to cut and cure this cedar log properly?

Glad to hear things are going well in KS....the land of milk and honey!
 
I know a guy with a mill... I don't have an Alaskan mill but I did seriously look at getting one. Decided I like my chainsaw too much to go that route.

I can't claim to be able to tell you how to do it right but I'll tell you how I did it. I cut the logs and stacked them so that they weren't touching the dirt and so that air could move all around them. Let them set for a yr like this. Hauled them to my buddies place and spent a morning milling them. Then stacked them in a shop with a couple of 1x1's in between each one for air flow. Left them like this for a couple of months until dried and warping/cracking stopped. Finally I put them in the basement to acclimate them to their final resting place. Amounts to some short bursts of activity with lots of waiting in between.

Basically; cut, dry, mill, dry, acclimate, use.

Things are going well, thanks.
 
My youngest brother got a Alaska chainsaw "mill" and likes it so far. I would really like to get one of the woodmizer portable mills at some point. I love that rough cut lumber. My brother has been cutting a bit of this and that. He was working on a huge elm log a couple of weekends ago and I really liked the way the grain and color looked. If I can find enough elm logs I will consider doing the flooring and maybe the cabinets in my next house.
 
Turkey Creek said:
My youngest brother got a Alaska chainsaw "mill" and likes it so far. I would really like to get one of the woodmizer portable mills at some point. I love that rough cut lumber. My brother has been cutting a bit of this and that. He was working on a huge elm log a couple of weekends ago and I really liked the way the grain and color looked. If I can find enough elm logs I will consider doing the flooring and maybe the cabinets in my next house.
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That's something I learned from the guy I know with the mill; lots of "off" woods are really nice. He built much of his house with hedge and it looks great.
How does the Alaska mill treat his saw? Is it going to wear it out quickly?

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I would think that the constant running would wear a saw out faster. He was surprised at how long the chains were staying sharp. Though I know he got a particular type of chain.
 
There is a guy just west of Winfield that has a bigger mill,I wonder if it's for sale since he passed.He cut some planks for me when I had walnut chest made for my daughters
 
On drying logs Doug, to add to the process Cat uses, I also use AnchorSeal 2 . It significantly reduces any checking on the end of the log. It is put on with a paintbrush ASAP after dropping the log. It significantly reduces/eliminates end cracking due to drying for the couple of hundred logs I've saved for personal use. Here is the link. I buy it direct from them. It stays good for years in their container.
http://uccoatings.com/retail-homepage/

Moved this picture from the coatings website.And I can attest that the pictures represents what I have experienced using it.

Anchorseal-with-without-Block-English.jpg


Just below the seal picture on their website you will see a picture using log savers. I have not used them but see the Harden Lumber Co. buyer and others put them in the veneer and number 1 logs when they are grading and purchasing my logs. I plan on purchasing some of the log savers for use on any logs I want to keep for myself in the future. The savers are for logs that already have a crack starting in them when or shortly after cutting and are used in addition to Anchorseal2.

Edit: Note that softwoods don't crack as much as hardwoods so commercially Anchorseal is used on mostly hardwoods. I want minimal checking so use it on my softwoods as well even though it is not cost effective from a business standpoint. It is used just on the end grain(it can temporarily stain the grain). Also it is a temporary coating so it just gets the log thru the initial drying process. It is used for logs and not for like coating cookies cut out of logs for example. A coating called Pentacryl is used for wood turning, cookies etc. and I have not tried that and only just heard of it. Pentacryl must be quite common--even Walmart sells it according a a google search.
 
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