Look what I'm burning now coincidently! Bert, I scored this roadside fresh cut elm in upstate NY. Power company clearing discarded byproduct. I knew it was elm, but it was cut to 18 inch lengths already so it was too good to pass up. Well this stuff was the absolute wort elm I have come across. So I let them age for almost a year and tried again, still couldn't bury my maul an inch deep into the end after turning said end into chopped liver. I then divided the logs 3 ways approx 5 to 6 inch pucks and noticed they were by now spalted right through. This should help right? Wrong! I was astonished to find I couldn't even split these bowl blanks! So I seasoned them that way and here we are today burning them as more revenge than anything else. Actually, I have burned 3 of these ice cream cakes so far this year and have about 20 left, they just seem to burn hot for hours and hours. Elm is a real performer and I know its gonna be a commitment of labor once I pull the trigger on some, but mostly elm trees here don't live long and are small and dead bone dry when I come across them. Usually I can cut lengths of 4 to 6 inch diameter branches and the trunks only need one split in half most times, but this batch was unreal!
Very sad, but if sadly I know we cannot save them all. I like the show "Good Bones" because they are about like me and Katie. They will take a home right down to the studs, which is what we did in this house. Like simpletons, we owned this house (Tiny House) for 5 years and kept saying, "we should do something with that house", but never did. We did a cost estimate and figured it would take $10,000 to make it livable. We were way off. We put $1800 into this home and moved in. Most went to putting in electricity ($500) and insulation ($500), the rest went into odds and ends. Without question though, having a sawmill really helped. The floors did not sag by 4 inches granted...only 2 inches, and I do not joke with you. 2x5 lumber over an 18 free span, 2 feet on center. That was the greatest asset of the sawmill, I cut cut custom lumber to match all the odd sizes...inside walls for instance were not 2x4, but 2x2-3/4...what kind of size is that? I only like slate because we have a slate quarry here...use what you got, but if you look at Katie in front of her Crawford Stove, those are concrete countertops that we poured...in the dead of winter! Our gravel pit was froze at the time, so I borrowed some from the town. We get too much snow to spread straight salt on our roads, so instead they use sand on the roads for traction. The town tried to gate off the pit, but using a kids sled, and 5 gallon buckets, I could load my car with 9 buckets, making each 1/4 mile trips with (3) 5 gallon buckets of sand riding in the sled being pulled through the snow. 3 trips later and my car was loaded, gate be darned. I would mix it up with cement, and then rinse and repeat! But as a welder I have nothing against stainless steel, or any metal work. My other home has a standing seam copper roof on the cupola for instance. The weathervane is aluminum. I am glad you had the chance to look at that house in Monson. At the time it was for sale on Zillow, and we watched it for awhile, but then it dropped off the market. We looked all through it, and yes tried the doors, but they were locked??? Crazy, I have NEVER locked my house ever, I don't even know where the key is.
So true, its sad because they really can't be replaced since many times the work needed is custom and very costly. But houses today just lack the beautiful proportions and lines, not to mention much today is garbage construction. We do make up for it in technology as in engineering modern building materials, skylights, efficient windows, composite I beams etc... I like your area and I check out old homes there on zillow time to time because you still have a lot of historic homes and towns that haven't changed too much. I liked that the house you were investigating was near a lake and I would love an old home with waterfront! I visited Portland about 10 years back, but I cant take the long winters you have up there. I knew you probably already did some cement casting work. I thought that picture was a thick black granite slab. You did a great job and I love the rustic edges. I know what you're talking about with the crazy lumber dimensions of old. The only thing I can figure is they didn't have strict codes then and people might have just used what some local mill was milling and maybe even their throwaway's. Also the slow growth virgin timber was capable of doing much more than our commercial grade lumber today. Even my houses first floor was grossly under supported with 2 x 8 beams 20" spacing and many by now were cracked clean though in places. Underneath they were resting on one 5 x 7 beam that went through the middle of the house. It was sitting on brick columns every 8 feet or so. When we put on our addition (which I made sure blended with the original period architecture) I had all the floor joists sistered with modern 2x8s and also replaced that main beam underneath with 3 sandwiched 2x12s that now bridged the brick columns. I don't like bounce in my floors, but I wasn't able to fully get them leveled so our furniture will often lean forward from the walls unless we use shims. All part of the charm haha! Oh, I re-sawed the old 5x7 beam and made that my fireplace mantel.
I did steal this idea from other members here. I will admit it is a lot of additional work and can be a mess to clean up. I have a low spot in my yard I usually do this so I don't have to clean up the mess,but it's wet and soft out there. Empty I usually load full but I was in a hurry today. I run the saw right down the 2x4. I love filling the stove with the cut offs.
We have granite quarries here, but it is closer to the ocean. I was going through the Maine Geologist Website, came across an obscure Excel program based on all quarries that ever existed in the State, then did a search for my town. To my surprises a slate quarry came up. I called up the State Geologist (believe it or not they are not inundated with calls from the public) and he told me my town never had a slate quarry. I said, "well your website says so." He laughed, I knew it better than he did. This did not surprise me. When I cleared a forest out back of my house into field, I was hitting so much slate that at first I pushed it in the woods with my bulldozer, but then I realized they had some value and started sorting them out. A slate boulder is hard to split, but once it splits, after that, peeling off the layers is obviously easy...in fact too easy. Sometimes when I polish the slate, the vibration will separate even more layers. That is enough for a church-going man to say bad words (me). If you ever work with concrete there is one trick you can use that few people know of to make it super smooth: Bondo. If you read the can it actually states that it can be used on concrete, and it sands to a very smooth finish! So I have thought about making a concrete farmhouse sink that no one would know was not slate. Incidentally, in Monson, slate is black because it is mixed with graphite (by nature, not man-made) and so it is black in color. At my house, slate is very blue, and is not nearly as good as theirs in quality. This is my slate entryway. I pushed the boulders out of the ground. Split the rock, dug the gravel for the concrete surrounding the rock, and mixed it all by hand (cement mixer). I don't have limestone here so I had to buy the cement to make the concrete, but it kind of shows just how much I try to use what I have on the farm to build my homes.
Aww shucks no Katie in the photo I was hoping I could squeeze another one out of you haha!. Seriously though, you made a nice warm entrance to your home there and the floor is an eye catcher for sure! I'm always walking bare foot in my home and that slate floor makes me feel like my feet would enjoy it. The way you talked about the slate peeling apart I'm guessing those tiles are approx 1 inch thick? I have slate like that at my house that I scrounged when someone local put them to the curb. I know how brittle they can be and use them outside around wood stacks to keep the weeds from growing. I originally wanted to make a slate walk with them, but too thin and brittle, actually maybe they are different then yours because they vary individually from pale blue to gray purple and even reddish brown. I like the little accents you put into the details like the crucifix cutouts in the base board molding, and nice use of space with the bench seat and built in storage!.... Firewood? I'm assuming you will pass this home to your children because I don't think you could sell something that has such a personal connection to your family. You made that home a family heirloom while also tying it in with the local natural resources. How do you put a price on that? Good work!
Bitte. If you are a true hoarder you take what you get. If it's 24 inches long it's only going to fit on an angle in a 21" firebox. So yeah you cut it in two. I don't Really give a chit how straight the stacks are, but 12's in with the mix is no big deal. Burns fine in NS.
You almost did, that was when I found out a whole folder of pictures is somehow missing. Anyway, it was one of Katie and our youngest at about a year old. We were up in Monson exploring the area and on this back road came across an old section house that belonged to the railroad. I am not sure how much longer that building will stand as it was pretty rotted/vandalized because of its isolated location, but once served the railroad. There is still a siding there, though it no longer serves the Slate Quarry up on the mountain (Borestone Mountain) since that became part of the Audubon Society. The picture is nice because it shows a lot; first and foremost that Katie really has no issues with dressing up when we go out exploring, but also the interesting section house. I am not sure what you call it for architectural style, but I would say it was built around 1900. A nice T-shape layout with a bathroom added later. I'll have to spend some time and see if I can find it. By the way, and I do not say this to be mean at all, but Portland is not really the true Maine. You really have to get inland a bit more to really see its charm. If you ever get a chance to schedule a vacation, Greenville, located on Moosehead Lake, would be a great place to go. You have to go through Monson to get there, but once there, there is a lot to do. We like eating at the Black Frog, a Mount Katadin cruise is nice as it is an old ship that once pulled wood across the lake for the River Drives, and the logging museum is really interesting as well. It has a nice tour of a Logging Barons Mansion that is a true Victorian. If you are a veteran, a trip to Elephant Mountain not only shows you how remote Maine is, but takes you to a site where a B-52 crash landed, and is a true memorial site. where lives were saved and lost one cold January. Borestone Mountain is not far away, and is a nice hike and shows almost all of the North Country at its summit. Again, a lot to see, but it is easy to spend other people's money when suggesting a vacation.
No offense taken at all. The trip was not exactly a tour of Maine by any means, but a class trip where we stayed 4 days in a Portland Maine hotel with 23 students and 6 chaperones. It was 2007, I was teaching in Jersey City's Visual and Performing arts program which is a college prep program for students who plan to go to college for art after graduation. We get inner City students all kinds of scholarships so they can afford to go to Schools Like Rhode Island School of Design, Cooper Union, Pratt Institute, and basically any ivy league-ish art school. These are expensive schools that they would otherwise not be able to attend or even think about applying too, but they build their portfolios really to help them attend any art school as not all will get accepted with full scholarship to the big ones. They are the cream of the crop art students in JC and so we take them on these art education trips as part of the curriculum and as a reward. The gist of this trip was to visit the Winslow Homer house on the coast of Scarborough and we painted seascapes from the rocky shore. These paintings are then displayed in an art show back at the Jesey City State University Gallery with the idea to sell them sold off to help raise money for the next trip. At the time our school was housed in one of the campus buildings of NJCU, but we are a high school program. Anyway, the other thing we did was visit the Norman Rockwell Studio and visit various museums. I did get to see Victoria Mansion in Portland early in it's restoration which is my favorite time to see old landmarks when they are in a state of neglect. I like things with a patina of age and and can definitely do without all the decadent shiny gold leaf and gilding. I would take the NYC of the 70s bad old days over the cleaned up soulless city it is today any day! It's now basically an extremely expensive city with a New Jersey mall theme filled with transients, banks, Duane Reeds and restaurant chains. Ahh I miss my old New York City, but I digress. Anyway, of course we ended our Maine trip with taking the troops to (I forget which seaport it was?) have an authentic Maine steamed lobster. Unfortunately at the time the price of lobster was so high we had to settle on getting them lobster club sandwiches. Many wished they had a simple McDonald's burger instead haha! This next story was the first time I realized all areas were not like NYC and surrounding area. The teachers had this plan that on altering nights half of the adult chaperones could go out to a local bar for some night life exploration. Well on my particular night it was 10:30 by the time the students were all in their rooms and accounted for. I walked a few blocks to a nice looking Portland bar by about 10:45 pm and ordered a beer. That's when I heard LAST CALL! I looked around to see if I was in an old age home, but there were lights turning on and young people all around me putting on their coats to leave! I couldn't believe that this "hipster city" was a sleepy town! In my area a bar just starts to get cooking at 11 and doesn't close till at least 2am and many times 4am. Since then I discovered most cities out of our little region here all close after 10:30-11. Even recently on my trip to Colorado we were in Fort Collins which is a City known for its local breweries and bars, but even there the bars close at 10:30 and there is a curfew! Now I don't want you to think Im a drinker because I'm not, only socially, but I just find it one of the big awakenings of travel across this country. I asked a fort Collins bar tender what is up with the curfew? He said the city officials claim nothing good happens after 12 midnight. Actually that makes a lot of sense. Anyway I will refer to your list if planning to visit Maine without 23 students in tow haha! I know Maine is really a place that needs to be given proper respect and an extended visit is in order to explore its natural beauty and local people like yourself. Monson definitely seems like a quaint area and a good starting point so thanks for thoughtfully putting together a little tour guide and bucket list for me! I hope you find those missing pictures and they are not lost forever. If you find them definitely post them on a thread here. You certainly love that area and it deserves a special thread in this forum.
Perhaps I do not have the patience for shorties - I find dealing with them a pita. I do, however, make plenty of cookies as circumstances permit - nothing wrong with cookies. I cut my wood to 17” and that fits n-s in the IS. Two levels of those splits then I fill the rest up e-w.
Thanks for the Holiday Picture! I can tell Katie is more than just a pretty face and has a lot of depth and a great personality. I am so happy you found your soul mate even if it took some trial and error. I was lucky I met my wife Beth in 1985 at age 18 and we have been together ever since with 2 very bright children. A boy and a girl now 22 and 20 respectfully, though both of them have not really been in any meaningful relationships yet nor are they particularly interested. Oh well a sign of the times I guess. Funny you should reference James Wyeth since Andrew Wyeth is one of my favorite artists in the genre of realism. He was a great painter and seems he loved to document places with patina and history as well. I will have to research that story about his son, but I do know that Andrew himself was involved with some controversy having an affair with his model Helga. Beth and I are both artists and art teachers and we met at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. I was there for graphic arts, but when I saw her on campus and found out she was a sculpture major I changed my major to sculpture. This was not just because I loved being around her, but because I loved working with wood and was only in graphic Illustration because though I can also draw and illustrate I thought it would be a better career path for paying the bills. Switching to sculpture I was much happier and in my zone. You and Katie are artists in your own right and one of the great signs of being a true artist for me is not to be afraid to express yourself. In other words to be bold and confident which the two of you exhibit as a team with an eye for a vintage aesthetic. It's very charming and I love it. I also love this country and its localized history and related colloquial cultures and traditions. These treasures are rapidly being erased by the wrecking ball of globalism so looking forward to that thread...Thanks again!
