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Before we launch into our Cabin Journal, we want you to see what drew us here in the first place! Click on a thumbnail to see a small sample of what we love about Mountain View Arkansas!
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Cabin Journal
©Charlotte Ryerson 2006-8
1
Finding the Land
The logs are coming in three weeks. Square cut red elm, hand hewn in the 1860’s, a disassembled granary from a farm in Illinois. Coming to Stone County on a big semi truck to a driveway too steep for the truck to get down. Coming to a husband and wife who have never done anything like this before. And the wife is no pioneer.
When I (the wife) was little I was the one of the five kids who had to be bribed, coaxed, encouraged up the mountain when our family went hiking. So when Jack started talking about getting some land, my idea was to get the roughest land possible because the way I saw it, there’d be no maintenance. No work. No bush hogging, no mowing, no animals but the deer and birds and bears, and my understanding was that they fed themselves. I envisioned a hammock between two trees. Maybe two hammocks, if Jack could stop pacing in a rectangular pattern long enough to join me. What was that about?
Well, it looked like my wish was coming true when we found 77 acres of raw land near Mountain View. If Sandy, our realtor, hadn’t walked it with us we never would have seen the soaring views off a series of bluffs or the two large waterfalls. In fact, we had to whack through so many briars we were covered in scratches, ticks and chiggers.
We were exhilarated by what we saw, but we thought it was maybe a little too wild for us.
And then the next morning, we both awoke with the same thought. We couldn’t pass up all that beauty.
Shortly afterward it became clear to me that Jack wasn’t going to let well enough alone. He started searching for an antique cabin, which had been his dream from the beginning. I knew that, but I figured the cost of the logs plus 77 rocky acres with no water and electricity would stop us.
It’s amazing how things sometimes fall in place, or as I was secretly thinking, the beginning of the road to disaster can look mighty smooth.
First, Jack met a man named Eldo Fletcher who lived on Roasting Ear Creek, rode a mule, and had just the kind of good sense you’d expect. He marked out a road that would take us down to the bluffs where Jack had a rough idea of where he wanted the cabin site to be.
I wasn’t there for the bulldozing. It made me sad, thinking that now the wild land would be scarred with a road. When I saw it a week or so later I was moved, first that men had the skill to knock mighty oak trees over with bulldozers, and then sad to see them lying horizontal, gashes in their noble sides, roots exposed. Then I thought of how real pioneers would have had to do this. We fancy ourselves to be enlightened with our advances and technology, but how many skills necessary to survival have we forgotten?
Anyway, suddenly we could drive into the property, teeth rattling all the way.
Then we got a good deal on the aforementioned cabin logs from Dean Poll up in Minnesota. To top it off, we got an unbelievable deal on an old pickup truck named Old Brown, already beat up so we didn’t feel bad about adding to his scars.
So we started looking over Jack’s rectangles. One consideration was finding a place that had enough dirt for a leach field—no easy thing in a county called “Stone”! So we started marking what looked possible, and our flaming pink and orange tape began to hang from trees and branches like surreal blossoms.
For me, it was all surreal, like a dream. We weren’t really doing this! But time marched on. In fast motion.
And now. . .yikes! The logs are coming in three weeks. I told Jack I was writing this and he suggested I add the sentence, “We are dead meat.”
If we aren’t, it’s by the grace of God, our big strong son, and a few good friends.
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2
A Rock Foundation?
After Eldo poured the footing, we had to find someone to come lay block for our cabin foundation. It was so odd that this was our first real snag. Why weren’t the contractors returning our calls? It was a small job down a steep driveway out in the country with no water or electricity.
It began to dawn on us. Not everyone thought this was such a romantic idea. And the logs were coming. We really wanted to have a place to stack them. A foundation would be a good place.
But the phone remained quiet. Could we really do it ourselves? How hard could it be, I asked Jack. And come to think of it, did we really want cinderblocks? With hand hewn timbers?
We looked around at some of the ones that were made to look a bit more like rock. But nothing seemed rustic enough for the huge red elm logs from the 1865 Corn Crib that Dean Poll was going to send down.
It had to be rock. We could get facing rock for the cinderblock to make it look like rock. But you can tell it’s just facing. Stacked rock--now you’re talking! We could get nice square cut ones, couldn’t we? And they would be as easy as block.
But not nearly as cheap. We found that out right quick.
Then I started looking around our woods, hollering “Just look around these woods!!!”.
They didn’t call this Stone County for nothing. The local story is that if you ever remove one rock from Stone County land, the next morning two will spring up in its place. We had tons of them! Suddenly buying anything for a foundation seemed downright silly. How hard could it be to use the free ones on the ground? What’s better than free? Man, we were gonna save so much money. . .
That’s when Jack started reading McRaven again. I forgot to mention him before, Charles McRaven, the grand guru of cabin construction whose book Jack had about memorized. The people in McRaven’s book gathered their own rock! And Mr. McRaven said to gather twice as much as you thought you’d need and it wouldn’t be enough.
Oh well, gathering rock, how hard could it be?
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Can you read his mind?
The footing, behind Jack, in front of Charlotte, awaits the gathered rock. . .stay tuned!
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3
Rock Gathering
It turned out I enjoyed rock gathering. The rocks in this part of Stone County are brown sandstone, but that doesn’t begin to describe how they look close up. In the various shades of brown there are streaks of dazzling purple, white sparkles, black and red stripes. Digging them out felt like unearthing treasure.
We took Old Brown up the driveway where a lot of stones had been at least partly unearthed by the bulldozer and began digging them out and picking them up, throwing them in the truck.
I had read about the rush people said they got lifting weights and never believed it but I have to say this was a total rush. Not only were those endorphins surging, but for the first time in my life I felt a little macho! Of course there were lots of rocks I couldn’t lift, but as the weekends went on I was able to lift more and between Jack and me we lifted some monsters into the truck. I began to actually see my muscles. If only Miss Griswold my high school gym teacher could see me now!
We’d get a load, take them down the driveway bouncing so hard I thought they’d all fall out of Old Brown, and then go back up into the woods for more.
Finally Jack thought we had enough to begin. The next weekend I stayed home and he went up to the cabin site alone. Later he told me he felt paralyzed for the first half of Saturday and just paced around, intimidated by the size and importance of the job. And then he told himself he had to just do it. He went to the White River for water, brought it back and started mixing mortar.
He laid the first stone. To this day I don’t know which one it is.
Then Miles came up to help. There were a lot of rocks that called for his muscles and when I see them now I think of him with gratitude. We wished he could have hung around longer. We missed him when he had to go back to Texas.
Later on mixing mortar became my job, also heavy work, and not as much fun as the rock gathering, but still immensely satisfying because it is the glue that holds the rocks together. Rocks! This was a foundation we were building, not a repetitive job like cleaning house!
By the end of those foundation days we were both exhausted, dirty, and more than ready to go back to the small apartment we had rented to save on motel costs while we were building.
What I remember most is that every sense of mine was heightened after those days. The evening shower felt primeval, every bite of food was tasted, and after dinner and a glass of wine we felt reborn and tender toward each other, seeing the scrapes and bruises that appeared on each other once the dirt was washed away.
The night music wafted in through the sliding glass door of the little bedroom, mostly insect sounds that rose and fell like ocean waves.
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4
Joists and A Dog Named Max
I never knew much about what goes in to supporting a building underneath. I had a dim awareness of the importance of it, in floors of houses that Jack and I looked at in our home buying past, floors that bounced or gave when you walked on them. That didn’t feel right.
And I also knew that if termites chewed too much of what was underneath, your cousin May would fall through the parlor floor today (forgive me, if you haven’t heard the primal termite limerick!).
Before we were ready to begin we gave the foundation a once-over with mortar, being sure all the joints were tight. I mentioned before that Jack went to the White River for water; we have no year-round live water on our property so we had to get all our water from the White River. In the mornings before we went down to work, we’d stop Old Brown at the river access and, using five gallon containers, we filled our blue barrel that our landlords Butch and Diane kindly lent us. It was beautiful there, cool mist rising, and often I wished we could just stay and play.
But Jack is a man possessed when he is in the throes of a project and there would be none of that. We used six by six by 20 pressure treated timbers for our sill, first laying down flashing and thin foam called sill seal. That was for the termites—or I should say, it was for the termites to blunt their teeth on. We had left holes in the masonry for long screws, and we attached the sill to the foundation with these, screwed down threaded metal plates, and then sawed the screws off level with the sill. Then at intervals, we attached U shaped metal holders called joist hangers to the insides of the sill. Jack cut the joists and we fitted them into the hangers. Eldo had poured us some piers down the center, and that was where we built our crude center posts. Then we put the center beam, shoved it really, on top of the posts, putting shims in until it was tight. All of that was sturdy if not pretty and so far the structure is working fine.
You might be wondering about building codes and things like that. Jack has done his homework, but out in Stone County there are no building permits to get and no building inspections. I love that, personally. It might be one of the last places in this country that you are given the right to fail and the benefit of the doubt that you’ll figure out that it’s not in your interest to fall through that parlor floor.
One Sunday during this time we slept in and awoke to see a beautiful face smiling at us through our apartment window, barking at us to get up! We were sure such a gorgeous dog must belong to someone and were horrified to discover it was one of the many strays simply abandoned by hunters and fishermen once the summer is over. Since there was no animal shelter in Mountain View at that time, most of these dogs, left to their own devices, were poisoned, shot, or met some other unhappy end pretty quickly. God bless Butch and Diane, who gave him a home.
When we were through with the joists we tarped the whole thing and then, as far as I was concerned, the fun began. Part of the fun was being dirty, sore, hot and hungry, knowing how good a shower would feel and how good the food would taste and how cool the breeze would feel off the White River. And now, added to that, was the fun of having a bundle of golden fur hurl himself at us when we returned home.
They named him Max.
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Part 5: A Journey of Logs
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Progress!
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Max says “yuck,take a bath!”
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I am staying home these first few days, keeping in touch by phone. Jack is up at the cabin site with our son Miles. They wait to get the phone call from the truck drivers who picked up the logs in Minnesota, announcing their arrival in Mountain View. I wait for Jack’s call and think about journeys..
My own journey and Jack’s sometimes feel like two rivers that separate and then come together. My musical journey is pretty much separate. In the cabin journey, he is the mighty Mississippi and I am a small rivulet. In fact, in the mystery that is marriage, I wonder that I am asked for or wanted in this at all.
My mind slips sideways to the journey of these logs. Once they were little red elm trees, and then they grew into huge ones. I had never heard of this hardwood, so common in the state of Illinois. The elms of my New England childhood were Dutch hybrids with their sad wineglass shapes, above the streets and greens they once ennobled, slowly dying from the disease that was named after them.
But red elm, I figure, must be a hardier tree. I learn when I do a little research that it is the same as slippery elm, the tree that yielded medicine for Native Americans. Slippery elm is still used for sore throats and respiratory ailments.
Then I think of the journeys of the men who felled these red elms so long ago, hewed them, and then fitted them together to make the 1865 corn crib on that Illinois farm where Dean Poll found them, still sturdy, 150 years or so later. Those men are all gone now, we will probably never know their names, and yet their work remains. What they touched will touch me. I wonder about my work; will anyone be touched by it that long after my own death?
And the logs--how old were they when they were cut? If the logs are as massive as they look in pictures, those trees could well have been 100 years old and that would make the wood that was soon to be our cabin older than this country.
When Dean brought them to his yard in Minnesota, they were just logs again. Now they’re coming to the Arkansas Ozarks. And I wonder, will this be their last stop on their journey or will they have yet another life somewhere down the road?
Jack calls to tell me that since there is no way the tractor trailer truck could make it down our steep driveway, our friends at TD Lumber have graciously allowed them to be delivered to their yard. He calls back with even better news; TD has loaded them on to their smaller trucks, banded them, and brought them down our steep 1/3 mile long driveway! This has solved a huge problem for us and earned them our undying loyalty. The old logs have aroused some interest at the lumberyard. They may be midwestern Yankee logs, but they were crafted in the same way as the logs used by so many settlers in the Ozarks, and Jack said quite a few people watching them arrive there had old cabin stories of their own.
Jack calls again. The logs are unloaded and he and Miles are starting to sort them out.
“Are they nice?” I ask.
“Yeah, they’re really nice.” Jack says.
“Are they big, as big as they looked?” I ask.
“The average weight is 450 pounds.”
I take that as a yes.
Good thing Dean has numbered them! And good thing he and Jack can talk on cell phone. This really was a stroke of God’s grace; when we bought the property there was no cell phone service at all, and now there is a tower on the next ridge. But I have a sharp twinge of sadness at this in spite of the blessing. The wilderness is truly vanishing.
Still, all the way from Minnesota, Dean can walk Jack through what he says is the most important part of the log construction: getting that first course of logs level and square.
Jack, and Miles in the background, say I now need to come north; they need my help.
And I can’t wait to get there!
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Part 6: “Just Like Lincoln Logs” !
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Some of you noticed that I haven’t written anything here for awhile. I think it’s because I didn’t particularly want to relive this part.
While we were building the rock foundation I felt strong, Jack’s equal partner. I loved digging and lifting the rocks and watching a work of stone emerge as a foundation. I couldn’t wait to help like that when the logs arrived.
The first thing I didn’t know was how big those logs were going to be. And the second was one of the major truths of construction; the higher up you go the harder it gets.
When I arrived at the site and saw the logs, I was in awe. Each one was a work of art with its axe scars and dovetails.
As I mentioned before, the average weight of these things was 450 pounds and knowing what a misstep with just one of them could do to Jack and Miles was enough to terrify me. And then came the Sky Track, delivered by a huge semi truck on the roadside at the top of the driveway.
This was a godsend; it was like a forklift with a tall extension arm, which enabled Jack and Miles to start putting the walls together like a huge set of Lincoln Logs. Jack would balance the log on the forks and lift it, precisely positioning it where it needed to fit in the cabin wall. Miles would climb up the logs to guide it in. Then Jack would ease it down. I was amazed at his skill; all those years as a plant manager working around warehouses were invaluable to him in operating this giant machine. Once it was dropped in place, usually Miles would roll it a quarter turn so it would fall in position, with notches falling into one another. Several times the logs would rock back and forth, quite a few times they rolled off the structure, where fortunately Jack caught them every time on forks of the Sky Track.
Along with the admiration I felt, all this unnerved me. I had visions of Miles getting knocked off and seriously hurt or killed. On several occasions Jack would climb up with Miles and I had visions of the whole thing collapsing, which Jack assured me wasn’t likely. Likely wasn’t good enough! Many women would doubtless have done better, but for me, this was a world in which I was a spectator. I went cowering behind trees, hating my fear, keenly aware of my weakness, while the menfolk conquered the world.
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Below, Miles lining up the joists for second story
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Part 7: The Roof Structure
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After I realized, once the logs were all assembled, that the next step was still further up, (a structure known as the roof) it became clear to me that the best thing I could do for Jack and Miles was to go back home. The guys put up a protest, but it was a pretty lame one. Then Jack’s friend Greg offered to come up and help, and I saw my ticket back to Texarkana. What follows here is hearsay—on account of the fact that when I begged Jack to write this part he shook his head no, pointed at me, and said “You da man.”
Right.
He also didn’t take any photos, and after seeing what they had to do I can’t blame him! The roof of the cabin was to be a twelve-twelve pitch, which means that for every twelve inches across, it went up twelve inches. From the floor of the upstairs to the peak was to be around eleven feet, and eight feet from the top of the cabin knee wall to the peak.
The first thing they did was figure the dimensions of the trusses.
“How did you do that?” I asked Jack.
“A squared plus B squared equals C squared.” He said.
I had this memory flash of high school geometry, wondering with my friends when we’d ever use this useless stuff.
Once they had the dimensions, they knew where they had to put the notch where the truss would rest on the log. Jack referred to this notch as a bird’s mouth. They also added 14 inches to the total length to account for the tail, or overhang.
Next, they built a jig to set the angle and assemble the trusses. This was a piece of plywood laid flat on the ground, with nails driven in as guides so that the boards could be placed correctly. They were first cut at a 45 degree angle and joined in the jig, nailed together. Then the bird’s mouth was added and the sides cut to length with angled tails. Collar ties were attached across the triangle for stability.
Once the trusses were assembled, the guys hauled them up from the end of the cabin and walked them down its length, spacing them and fitting each bird’s tooth to the top log of the cabin. Greg climbed up to help stand them up and secure them to the logs with lag bolts. The irregularities in the logs had to be accounted for so the trusses would stay level. After the trusses were secured they were sheathed with plywood.
You might be wondering how they did this, as high and steep as the roof was. Well, once again the Sky Track was invaluable. Jack put a pallet on the forks of the Sky Track, put Miles and a sheet of plywood on the pallet and maneuvered Miles to a spot where he could hammer the plywood to the trusses. It was pretty slick maneuvering I would guess—close enough to the trusses for Miles’ safety and not so close as to knock the trusses down.
It’s amazing how quickly the shell of a roof goes up. From what I heard on the nightly telephone reports, the progress at this point was fast and furious. To be honest, I was in awe of what my husband had been able to accomplish, and he couldn’t have done it without Miles and Greg.
Soon I was making plans to return. See you then!
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All the logs assembled, photo taken from kitchen addition foundation
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The jig for the trusses. Not high tech, but it worked!
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Miles and Jack getting ready to lift a truss. Note the bird’s tooth and angled tail
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Most of this was done from the Sky Track, but here, Miles is working from a ladder inside the second story
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Part 8 The Metal Roof
Well, I didn’t go back right away.
I started to notice a pattern here, that of me wimping out!
But this next adventure was also no place for me either—installing the metal roof. I like to think that wisdom sometime appears like wimpiness; once again I had nothing to add and a lot to subtract. The crew had to tie themselves to trees; no I’m not kidding! The roof is a 12 /12 pitch and once the metal was attached, it was slippery. Even Jack didn’t want to go up there. And aside from being there, he said he didn’t do a whole lot except that he and Miles drilled the holes in the metal before they handed them up to the roofers, who could then quickly screw them to the roof. This also enabled the holes to be in straight rows; this would have been hard on the steep roof!
I did have a small part in choosing the roof material and color. After a lot of discussion, Jack and I chose metal because of the possibility of fire. I had seen beautiful cedar shake roofs at cabin restorations, namely the one in Norfork Arkansas, done by Charles McRaven himself, and they are undoubtedly the most beautiful with antique logs. But not fireproof, and that consideration won the day.
We chose gray because it seemed to blend in best with the forest. A lot of people choose green with logs, but in our woods gray was definitely the most invisible, and that was what we wanted. I have always remembered what Frank Llyoyd Wright felt about houses; they should blend in with the scenery and not be a jarring note. The woods surrounding this little cabin are so breathtaking that we felt like nothing should be loud; a house should be a whisper here, like the wind.
Gray was a good choice. In just the few months since the photo was taken (below) the roof has dulled and on gray days especially it almost disappears.
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Sometime after the roof was installed we tarped the unchinked cabin to keep the winter rains out, see photo, left. We also sheathed the kitchen addition with tar paper. The foil insulation was a mock up of the placement of our proposed door and windows. Stay tuned for “Doors and Windows” next time!
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