Log Cabin Build: You Can Do This Too

Description

I install the upper course of logs on the walls of the log cabin and 6"x6" hemlock timbers to hold the upper floor. The log cabin is taking shape as I complete one log gable end and start the second one. Autumn is setting in, the trees are turning and the animals are on the move with animal tracks all over the trail and deer, sandhill cranes and geese in the fields.

In the second half, I talk about my physical and mental limitations and why you too can build a log cabin or do others things beyond your self imposed limitations. I prepare prime rib and potatoes for dinner on the campfire, sleep on the floor of the log cabin and get up early to go after geese for the freezer.

Tags: bushcraft,self-reliance,survival,log,cabin,log cabin,homestead,off grid,offgrid,dick proenneke,alone in the wilderness,joe robinet,catch and cook,airbnb,motivation,inspiration,autumn,ontario,canada,do it yourself,woodworking,carpentry,home building,tiny house,tiny home

Video Transcription

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

I guess all this stuff comes second nature to a carpenter it let me know carpenter if you're ever thinking you can't build a cabin because you're not experienced doing woodworking not really either my trade with sheet metal and I didn't do much woodworking other than hobby stuff at home well snatch your material and you just work with it read a couple of books look at a couple of YouTube videos figure out how to do it [Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

of course wherever I put began where the smoke goes there if it's not coming to me it's funny I didn't know this until got the cabman out but seems to be a pattern now that every evening the Sun switches around and comes from the east through here and blows the smoke back towards the cabin so I'm gonna have to be careful about that during you know campfires and fireside chats I'm probably still putting a green roof on this porc section green roof is decent in this summer when the vegetation is green it's what the fireproof got decent but fairly fireproof when it's green and then in the winter it's covered in snow but a nearly spring and the fall that vegetation is dead as you can imagine so it'll be whether it's grass excited or even lost dry it out in the middle of the summer got to be careful with spark so I'm gonna be luck fortunately there's not much soft foot on this property anyway so I'm not going to be building a Sparky players on this in this fire pit it's gonna be mostly maple n' and yellow birch burn so it doesn't spark myself I don't think it's gonna be an issue if it is we'll move the fire pit to another spot or have a second one it's cool spot down below closer to the water might be good spot for one that's just about ready all right I'm gonna eat this up and I think I'm going to get ready to go to bed immediately afterwards because like I said I'm tired I have to get up really early I have to be out the fields at 6 o'clock so I'll probably get up here get up at 4:30 just have someone open me auntie and then head out and be back here about 9:00 or 10:00 just to continue work on the guy mmm that's good I need to get some more bench I made move them around the player so I can move rink away from the smoke back from the fire yeah I think I'll make that door this week have a nice piece of stained glass that I actually had installed in the door of my chicken coop my godfather gave it to us for a wedding gift 21 years ago 21 used years ago Thursday actually it's my anniversary and just never had a good place for it so we'll make this door out of 2-inch pine with the stained glass in the center of it so that's going to be for another two or three days just doing all the detail work and then a couple of days on the roof and I'm inside getting the floor

this cabin feels huge to me that first cabin I build 25 26 years ago was only 8 by 12 not very good pictures of it I don't think and what wasn't many pictures back then but when my wife and I went there last year got a few pictures it was hard to capture really the essence of it and the size of it but 8 by 12 so basically this wall to that center part is 10 by 10 so 100 square feet cabin was to 8 by 12 96 square feets are pretty close in dimensions to half of this cabin anyway I'm rambling tired going to bed and get up early go hunting come back here and they'll see you in the morning I'll see you back here at the cabin about 10 o'clock good night 53

[Applause]

[Music]

you can see I'm a little bit soggy today and I have to admit this has not been a very productive week up at the cabin got that video last week and I talked about the gable ends and how he's gonna have the ridge pull up and things are just not working out that way I think I might have it up by the time I publish this video but I'm not gonna have it up in time to edit the video and get it published so that will be next week so if you were looking forward to that I know some of you were I apologize I don't want to take my tools out in this kind of weather it's been raining on and off all day it's like 30 degrees Celsius with the humidex even though it's mid-september and it's the bugs are actually out the mosquitoes are hatching and it's one of those days I could just get you down but actually as I'm working here and not having to think about you know in detail but what I'm doing my mind's wandering and I was thinking back to some of the comments I got on that last video and one in particular kind of sticking with me as I'm digging this hole for the outhouse not very it's not very exciting and not very fun but what I was thinking about it was the this guy who said something like he clicked on this video because he wanted to learn how to build a log cabin and he said he did learn something and what he learned is that you can't do it doesn't have the experience doesn't have the tools and of course anybody can get the tools and the experience comes with actually doing it you know I don't want to give the impression that I really know what I'm doing I'm sure there's some log cabin builders that have clicked on this video just out of curiosity and would have some comment comments on how I'm building it but you know I didn't really set out to build a a cabin of this size first of all but I'd really in said hotel so to build it you know a commercial perfect log cabin or home to me this was just a cabin in the woods and it still is that through the build process so I'm constantly reminded that I'm not a carpenter and I'm not going to profess to be a carpenter I don't want profess to be an expert log cabin builder or woodworker so I just wanted to make that clear first of all that I built the cabin 25 26 years ago when I was 21 what team thing I just had a hatchet and an ax and a saw and basically cut the notches loose with the with the hatchet stacked it all on the ground and and called it a cab and now it's still standing so I learned that from that cabin and I also learned from watching dick brenneke and and reading dick Brennan keys journals that even though he was a carpenter he chose to just build his cabin raid on the gravel and it's standing forty years later so not concerned about that but the point I wanted to make is that you don't have to have be an experience you don't have to be an expert at something in order to give it a try and and accomplish something that you can be proud of so I'm proud of that cabin that I built when I was 21 but and I'm proud of this cabin I'm 47 now physically not 21 anymore got the aches and pains of an older guy don't have the strength I don't think that although I'm starting to think I might be building that strength up equal to or greater than when I was 21 but I you know what I was sitting at a desk for the last 15 years I was not in very good shape I have some chronic injuries from hockey I've got a sore neck but so I little Sloat's a little bit forward that hurts me when I'm sleeping I've had a bad back in the past but this cabin build has strengthened my back I no longer have back pain which is great joint in pins man and my shoulders and my elbow so even though of fairly strong arms my chest is not the strongest in my shoulders because I can't do bench press movements so I haven't been able to develop these muscles very well so I have these physical limitations but more than that you know I have the same mental limitations everybody else has you might have seen me mention things like this in the past but when I was younger when I was in high school I was painfully shy and I didn't participate very well in in school so as a result I never graduated high school my see think two credits short still I'm not going back obviously 20 30 years later but I never did graduate high school so I failed grade 11 English twice and I failed grade 12 english twice and and it just gave up after that I finished out my four years of high school but I didn't go walk away with the Diploma because I just couldn't get those English credits that were mandatory the main reason for that is that I was painfully shy I didn't want to do the project where I had to get up in front of the class and present it so ironically Here I am talking to a camera and maybe it's because of the camera that I can do this in front of hundreds of thousands of people in some cases on my videos and you know that's one of the limitations that I overcame but I think but I think what's even more interesting that I failed English like I said four times and didn't get my diploma as a result but you might not know unless you follow me on Facebook I actually write for Ontario tourism and for some canoe canoeing and kayaking magazines so that started last year so like I said even though I don't have my English credits that I couldn't pass English in high school you know 30 years later Here I am writing for a living it's how I earn part of my my income and you also might not know that that I have a high net worth so because I didn't get my high school diploma of the options for a job where I didn't have that many options for employment of course but I was able to with a grade 10 education take a trade so I became a sheet metal worker following in the footsteps of my father so that was a limitation that I had to overcome early but - despite my lack of education I was able to start off my own companies in my 30s and long story short that I'll get into another time on another video seven years ago I ended up seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in personal debt that guaranteed some business guaranteed some business debts business credit and a long story that I want to tell like I said on some upcoming videos for sure about that probably the highest points of my life and the lowest points of my life but that $750,000 that I was in debt I'm no longer and actually turned it around and out of a a seven-figure net worth so I do want to tell that story but that's not to brag it's just to show that there's that anybody can overcome their limitations maybe not to know everybody has a different degree of success that they have in mind and and not everybody can achieve exactly the same thing but you can certainly achieve probably more than you think you can and I think this cabin for me at this stage in my life is sort of my proof to myself or the test that I'm giving myself to show that I can do something physical still I've I've achieved what I want to achieve in business I I've achieved some extreme low points which is can be looked at as an achievement because you learn an awful lot from your failures and you know Here I am like I said 47 years old I've had success I've had failures I've had success I've had happiness and about a good place in my life and it's because I persevered it's because I overcame limitations that that I either set myself or reset for me and I'm hoping that the very Lisa that's what this cabin build is for other people who are watching me do this it's an inspiration to get out there and you know get outside your comfort zone and push your limits and achieve something that you didn't think you could achieve or even better achieve something that maybe somebody else didn't think you could achieve so that's my rant for the week guys I appreciate you if you stuck around to listen to this and and like I said I do want to tell the whole story about my life up to this point and and how bad it got at one point for me and my family and how I turned it around and and you know achieved happiness and success so like I said I hope this cabin bill does that I hope this cabin build is it's inspiring for you as it is for me and that you'll stick around to see it to the end so thanks for sticking around like I said to this point thanks for watching the video again if you wouldn't mind just hitting that like button below and subscribing it really helps they help set my channel and it inspires me further to keep going with this and I want to know that I'm on the right track and that I'm doing something that's meaningful and so so hopefully you have a great week and I'll see you up here again at the cabin next week take care guys [Applause]