Winter is Coming! Can I Finish the Log Cabin in Time? Roof, Stove and Outhouse

Description

I knew it was coming soon, but not now! I have several things that need to be done before they're buried in snow and the ground freezes - finish the roof of the log cabin, build the outhouse, collect moss and clay for chinking, install the wood stove to heat the cabin, collect firewood....

Life at the cabin is getting more interesting with the approach of winter. The bear is still hanging around, presumably planning on hibernating on my land or nearby. The water in the creek is the highest it's been all year, with all of the rain and snow that fell this week. Cutting down dead trees and splitting firewood is quickly becoming a daily chore, especially with the wood stove almost ready to go.

It's also time to start stocking the larder with food for the winter in the cabin. Moose season came and went with no animals seen. Deer season opens next week and there are a few animals around, which would be a welcome addition to the storehouse.

Living offgrid is challenging, especially with zero electricity. Storing food this winter is going to be interesting since the homestead is not set up fully and there is no smokehouse, cache or root cellar.

The house, although a tiny home, is not feeling cramped so far. The loft is more than big enough to sleep two or more, which we did for the first time this week. Doug Outside and Joe Robinet stopped by for a night, and Doug stayed overnight while Joe had to go home.

We did have a chance to film a fireside chat about YouTube and making a living at something you love. It's not suitable for this channel though, so you'll have to check into Patreon to see what it's all about.

In my self reflections, I talk about visualization and how it helps me focus each day and perform to the top of my game.

That's it for now. See you next week up at the cabin.

Tags: bushcraft,camping,self-reliance,survival,log,cabin,log cabin,off-grid,self reliance,tiny home,small home,shelter,living off the land,homestead,woodcraft,woodworking,pathfinder school,dick proenneke,cabin living,alone in the wilderness,joe Robinet,hygge,shou sugi ban

Video Transcription

hey everybody welcome back to the cabin today's a thinking did I need to measure twice and cut once hopefully I'm gonna cut into this roof and get the wood stove installed today I need to do that before I do the roofing remember this decking is the actual structural roof so whatever I do here I need to reinforce laterally but my issue here is courses clearances so I want to install a safe fireplace so what I'm going to do is put a stainless steel chimney down to this point I come to down below the ceiling here so that I don't have to maintain the clearances that I do if I had a single wall pipe which in that case I need 18 inches of clearance with the double wall insulated pipe only need two inches of clearance now I wouldn't call myself an expert at chimney installations or fireplace installations but one of the first jobs I had when I got out of high school was installing wood stoves liners and chimney sweeping so I have a little bit of experience but of course it was a long time ago but anyway I remember the principals and I have instructions so let's get to work see what I can do so what I want to measure something really accurately better remember these tape measures have this hook that moves on it that's designed that way intentionally so that when you're jamming this up against something to get a measurement like that it's accounting for the width of this hook the metal on there and then when you hook it on to something like that and pull the measure is doing the same thing it's moving just enough to account for the thickness but it's not 100% accurate so what I do what I need extreme accuracy like I do when I'm cutting a notch like this I don't want I want a tight fit on this beam so take one of these fine lines I get the three for example and I'll set that number three so three inches on this line and then I know I need to go 14 inches over so three plus 14 is 17 so then I'll mark the 17 so that's extremely accurate down to you know 64th of an inch or something the width of that line

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just gonna skip dinner tonight actually you didn't prepare anything I didn't really plan anything for tonight so I thought I would maybe just blow up some water or something I didn't even let a fire today what because I didn't actually plan anything for dinner sort through my bear bag this is all the food that I accumulated over the course of the summer time of year that I should actually start eating some of the stuff just to use it up so it doesn't go to waste there's breakfast tomorrow buckwheat oatmeal maple sugar trail mix I'll be rancid a few days ago I brought one of my wife's sourdough bread loaves that's what's left of it I don't see any mold on there so that's that might be dinner tonight that's pretty hard though got a beautiful moon it's maybe half but it's all hazy in front of it's really really cool okay [Music]

again all last night we'll have a sleeping or just before I fell asleep I was visualizing what I was going to do today and it's a pretty effective technique for staying organized and getting focused on a task and completing it to the end so I'm gonna talk about that myself reflections at the end of this video but right now I'm going to eat lunch

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working off space-time sorry Tommy on alright Tommy up by tom yum soup Ravens are come in and check it is rosanoff whole oil alright I can make a meal out of this had this tea on the go all day which has been nice because it's been so cold with that wind it's kind of bitter out of the Northwest it's just above freezing but pretty good work conditions not complaining one thing about the weather forecasts if I had listened to it I wouldn't be out here working at all today or this week it was going for a pretty steady rain almost the entire week and as it turned out yesterday I don't think I got any this morning there's a little bit of snow hitting me when I was up on the roof but nothing really so we had to decide what I need to get done while the weather is good I ran out of boards unfortunately I need to rip some more buttons and three more four more boards roof boards got another probably three hours of preparing the boards and then another I don't know three or four hours of installing them because I have to work around that chimney get that flash didn't properly its watertight enough for now of what I need to do today and tomorrow is decide what I need to get done before the weather changes so this dry sunny weather

I need to get some firewood cut up you need to get this hose installed I'd like to get these poles buried in the ground in case the ground actually does freeze earlier this year if we get cold spell with a too much snow now it tends to freeze if we get a lot of snow first and the ground takes a long time to freeze it might help till January but anyway I'd like to get these posts into the ground for the the front porch roof got this blue tarp tent thing that I've been sleeping under and storing all my gear while I'm working on the cabin that's why I never show this this angle it's pretty hideous looking but I got to tear that down because if it starts snowing it's just gonna collapse on me anyway you have to get all that stuff stead of out of the weather and either into the cabin under the eaves or into the outhouse so I don't think I'm gonna get that wood house built in time so let's get some lunch made and it fueled up before I get back to work [Music]

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so much for the good weather the wind blew on all the clouds again it actually might rain or snow put the camera away it's getting pretty dark here too actually I think it's only about 5:30 Suns down so it every time Suns down oh it's after 6:00 on 6:30 and temperatures dropping rapidly

hey putting a base layer on alrighty at this time of year it's not even November yet but without rain all day and be getting wet while I was working on that outhouse finding it chilly so I'm putting the Cabela's silk layer which is lightest layer I can't wear the thicker layer basis base layers I always go with the lightest weight well I think I will just heat up some rice or something like that for dinner just maybe do some work inside the cabin not sure if the camera bill did pick it up if I do any work in there it's so dark with I'll give it a try

otherwise if you don't see me back on the camera I'll see you in the morning good night

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well if this is gonna stop you know they say there's no such thing as bad weather that's just improper year I've got the clothing I don't have the camera gear so not sure if I should just pack my things up and spend the rest of the day editing this video or try to get something done hands are frozen this kind of weather sucks it's right around freezing that's why it's snowing but it's really wet snow it's really damp not the best firewood but Lisa's dry I don't need much with the Kelly Kelly but it's trying to come out be nice is wet

still don't have much to eat of course just what's in that bag snow again gonna be one of those days but he's really hurt the foreman that's all I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to film everything I'm doing today if not this video could just end at any time so thanks for tuning into it and look forward to seeing you up here at the cabin next week nasty weather I need to get this cabin done so I can spend time indoors on a day like this especially just doing interior work because there's a lot of work to do getting the floors done for example but then after that making cabinets and kitchen table some chairs all that kind of stuff that I can work on while I'm inside the cabin probably the best use of my time actually would be to start digging up some gravel and filling in that floor so I can install the wood stove cuz that's gonna make a big difference to if it's warm in there I can work on just about anything including the chinking I've obviously waited too long to be able to mix the clay and stuff outside comfortably but I can leave one section of the floor unfinished that's kind of my work area like one quarter of the cabin in front of the fireplace so just to the right of the door if I leave that as gravel well maybe put a canvas tarp down I can mix all the the clay chinking up there well I finish the cabin so I think that's what I'll do I think I'll just start bringing some gravel in and maybe hauling some clay up and storing it here by the cabin or even inside started collecting moss earlier this morning but my hands are frozen and all the moss is just soaking up so much water that it's heavy and it's wet I think it's probably better just to wait for another day that's a little bit drier so it's not a wasted day it's just that a cold damp day like this makes everything a little bit more challenging and a little slower and a fire so nice and warming it would be nice to have it in the wood stove I could get one going out here and it's a good skill to having to practice is here we go again good spilt a good skill to practice and get good at is his fire making in this kind of weather this damp cold stuff got it between seasons all the wood is saturated when you saw me chopping out and splitting pieces of cedar any wood that's bigger than say 3 inches in diameter should be have some dry spots in the center of it see if you could take your so if you can take your axe or knife and just split that up you can get dry wood from the inside of that there's no paper birch there's only a few I guess paper birch trees on this property somewhere down by the swampy part there but I do have yellow birch and you can use that bark as well to start a fire it's a little finer you just have to break it up so there's lots of tender is lots of dry wood even in this type of weather so I might do that might get a good fire going here and once it gets hot enough it actually will the heat will dry up any snow or water before it lands on the fire and if it's like I said hot enough enough convection current coming up that kind of keeps the snow and water off of it so it's not a lost cause when it's just just cold and damp but but nice to have the cabinet and it's also reminding me to get this front porch on because that would be nice to be sitting on the right now instead of out in the rain a lot of this capping building been about scrounging stuff so as much as I wanted to build this thing from the land we know that didn't happen now next one and put this one yeah I've been scrounging cheap materials so the wood stove I think that was one hundred and forty bucks Vermont castings really good stove the wood you know it was really really cheap I'm still a lot of the stuff I just been scrounging so this was leftover scrap from our roofing project I don't even know where I got it from my brother tpo of thermoplastic polyolefin it's a recycled plastic membrane roofing membrane I have that underneath those bottom hemlock beams that are down underneath the foundation to stop the moisture from coming up to the bottom I did that as well as the pine tar so that's why I wasn't too concerned about the wood rotting on the foundation plus that's all set on gravel right so not worried about those but the inside this section here I'm doing a stone floor to put the wood stove on it and for an entrance way when you step on the when you step inside the cabin you step onto stone instead of on the wood that'll be everywhere else so this I'm putting against the wood to protect it from all this gravel that might have some moisture in it but also to stop any rodents or bugs and stuff and coming in from the outside and getting into this section so I'm just going to tack this on first

put this 2x4 on that's another kind of protection to stop the concrete if I use that as a top layer for the stone from being great against the foundation logs yeah so this 2x4 kind of protect the old map from cabin idea kind of went by the wayside since I bought the wood stove I do plan on replacing this wood stove eventually with a stone fireplace and chimney right up through here but if I never get around to that on this one the other cabin for sure is going to have that but really always wanted to move stonework what wood stone fireplace so that's definitely happening on one of them

so I mentioned visualization last night and again at lunch today and what I'm talking about what it is it's a technique that a lot of athletes use and probably a lot of successful people but what it is essentially is that you think about what you're doing next or you wouldn't think about an upcoming event or task or something and you visualize every step of that that task and go through the motions as if you're actually doing the task in your head and I don't know if it's that simple to explain people ask me about design in this cabin about getting blueprints or something to be honest it's not something I've written down at all I haven't sketched anything out I haven't done any formal design work on this cabin it's virtually all been in my head so why that's relevant or significant is it's extremely helpful to get good enough at visualization that whatever you think about you can then put into action and make happen so when I was designing this cabin in my head I went through the whole process like how big up is going to be where I was going to position the door in the windows and if you've seen that video of positioning it in the forest that's where that comes from

I can literally picture myself walking into this cabin that could do that right from the beginning and then of course there's things that change throughout the process because this is a very organic build it was based completely on what materials I had and on the site when I came to the site and I saw the orientation where it was going to be in relation to north-south I was able to start visualizing where I wanted rooms to be for example where I wanted windows to be but then things change like what materials I was able to get so the logs that I cut down found I couldn't lift them so I had to shorten the logs eventually ended up with these logs that I used on this cabin once I cut down on Terry's property and on my other friends property for my next couple of cabins I'm already visualizing what I'm going to be doing with those to give you a better idea specifically of what I'm talking about I'll talk about the last couple of days working on the cabin so two nights ago I knew I had a bit of a window of decent weather that I had to work with I wasn't sure if I was gonna get rained out at least one of the day so I started visualizing okay what can I do in the rain and of course I have decent rain gear so I can work outside but there's certain things that have just you need to have completely dry weather for so one of the things I decided I could do was put in that wood stove

now if it was pouring rain I could do the interior work and if it was decent enough I could cut that hole through the roof which is what I ended up doing so to make sure I had all the right tools and all the right material I visualized exactly how I was going to do that so I knew I had to get inside climb up into the rafters there and drill holes back out through the roof so that I could see from the roof level where the cutout needed to be so I literally pictured exactly that what - I was going to use how I was going to do it what problems could arise and this is where visualization becomes so important what problems could arise and how to mitigate those before they arose so for example I knew there was going to be nails in those boards where they overlapped and am I going to hit those with my axe or do I use my good axe or do I drill extra holes first locate the nails and then stay away from it with the axe so that's one of the problems I was able to avoid by knowing what the issues were going to be so throughout the process of this cabin build whenever I've issues or a change of plans and like I said it was a very organic build so it pretty well every day was a change of plans

it was able to visualize once I I was able to think about what I was going to do visualize what I was going to do that day or the next day prepare the night before get the materials and then do that work so why is this important outside of this cabin build well it decreases anxiety and I think that may be the greatest benefit in fact not sure what the book say but I would say for myself going through difficult periods being able to visualize the scenario the experience or the upcoming event has allowed me to prepare mentally for it and kind of mitigate or or think through the issues that might arise so this became extremely extremely important to me when I was in that financial difficult when the business went under and I started getting the calls from the lawyers and getting people knocking on the door serving me to attend court the stress of course was immense but as those events start approaching or as the meetings with lawyers were approaching the night before in particular I'd visualize exactly how that day was going to go and how it was going to respond to these people and it was amazing how closely reality resembled what I had visualized what I had dreamed the night before and I think that prep work which is also something of course you do when you're studying for a test and then you go to write that test or exam the following day when you're prepared you're far less anxious and this visualization is my way of preparing for those stressful events so it's something that it served me extremely well throughout my life and it's something I do literally every single day every single night every scenario every event coming up I'm preparing for that mentally I'm visualizing exactly how I anticipate that event going and I'm preparing my mind for what I need to do to deal with the situation now I'm not sure if this is normal thing or if everybody does it I'm sure everybody does it to a certain degree but I think it's worth

affecting that becoming much better at it and using it all of the time it's worth finding a good book so if you'd search visualization maybe in the athlete section of your local library or on Amazon then it's worth picking one up and learning a little bit more about that technique I know that's not that deeper reflection it doesn't seem all that important or that big a deal but to me it actually is it's one of the my top habits I think that has allowed me to get through some of those tough times and and to turn some other things into into success so I did want to share that before a lot of other things that are on my mind anyway I'm loving this day it's beautiful out here I can't can't even describe it it I can only show so much on video but sitting here looking at the forest with the leaves down settling in here getting the cabin closer to the point where I can start making some progress inside and getting it comfortable and getting some wood piled up and the site cleaned up and the roof on just feels good so really really looking forward to the next few weeks up here plan on spending a lot of time just working on the cabin and leaving some of the other things going on in my life I put them aside for now enjoy this weather before the snow comes and then that's a whole nother season of enjoyment here at the cabin so thanks for tuning into this video thanks for watching to the end and I look forward to see up here at the cabin next week take care

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