From The Archives; The Very First Mountain Man Monday

This blog is officially closed until after the first of the year.  I intend to spend the time enjoying the holidays and some time in prayer reflecting on my path in the coming year.  For those who might be dropping by, I decided to pull some of my favorite posts from the archives.  So, without further ado, here from March, 2008 is the very first "Mountain Man Monday."  Here it is:


I can't say anything about Mountain Man without it being LONG so be prepared.

If it were not for my Mountain Man, I would not be able to live my dream on Red Pine Mountain for it is he who keeps everything running. From the time he awakens in the morning until he comes in to cook dinner, he is busy working on the farm.

For those of you who just started reading this blog, here's a little background. We live on a 300 acre farm which is heavily forested. Mountain Man makes his living by creating beautiful timber framed houses and barns from start to finish; meaning he does his own logging, saws his own timbers, all of it. You can see some of his creations by clicking HERE.

One of the things I admire most about Mountain Man is his respect for the land. He never cuts a tree without a specific use for it and he never touches ancient trees. He does not use big equipment designed to tear up and destroy the land and he is always respectful of the fact that we are just stewards for this moment in time. And, because of Mountain Man's philosophy, our woods appear as they did many years ago. That fact in itself is unique in this day and age of clear cut logging.

Last spring, Mountain Man started building a barn for me. It has been a long process and it will take quite some more time as the project gets put on the back burner for paying jobs. If you want to see some of the earlier photos, click HERE.

What better way to start Mountain Man Mondays than to show you the work he's done recently on the barn.

This is the tack room he is creating for me. The ground heaved this winter so he had to rake all the gravel and get it level again.

My favorite wood has "blue stain" in it. This stain is created when fresh pine lumber is going through a drying process during warm, humid weather because the high moisture content of the lumber can't evaporate quickly enough. It's almost a mold effect and if it is confined in a building while it is drying, it will create mold instead of the beautiful blue stain. It is considered a flaw in the wood but I think it is beautiful so Mountain Man created blue stain wood especially for me. Here's an example.
We've been going back and forth about the flooring for the barn but we decided to go with wood flooring instead of concrete. Once the decision was made, Mountain Man headed into the woods in search of the perfect Red Pine logs. Here they are at the log landing.

(I wanted to follow him in the woods to watch him actually cut the trees but he said no.) Anyway, he had to cut 5 trees for the flooring for the barn.
Next, he takes the logs down to his sawmill where he starts to cut them into the boards for the floor.
So you can get an idea of how huge these logs actually are:

And, then finally, just some videos of the logs going through the sawmill.



And, one last picture of the sawed logs set out to dry.
Okay, after all that, he still did MORE chores and then came in and cooked me a feast. That's why I love my Mountain Man!