Road Trip Photos - Cabin Work November 2016

Last photo of the old shed

We have been on the road again in November.  We have been visiting with family and friends in other parts of the state.  It is a beautiful time to travel here in Virginia.  The weather has been very mild, but dry.  We could use some rain.  Earlier in the year we were having fairly regular rain storms come through, but there has not been any significant rain for a while now.  Overall, the total rainfall was about an inch above normal, but that was mostly due to rain earlier in the year.

The new view.

The amount of rainfall affects the autumn colors of the trees.  When there is a lot of rain, the tree colors tend towards deep golds, dusty russets, deep crimsons, and brownish orange.  Some trees may turn bright orange if they are in direct sunlight.  The colors are blaze orange and bright yellows and reds when the weather has been dry.    Although it has been dry recently, the colors were of the more muted variety this year.  The colors were not there brightest, but our drive through the country was still beautiful.

An old house and barn.

At this time of year, we prefer to drive back roads and by-ways.  It takes us longer to get to our destinations, but we are rewarded by the beautiful scenery.  Taking the interstate is faster, but you miss so much along the way.  Sometimes it is important to remember that life is about the journey, not just the destination.   If you have the time, it is well worth taking the little winding highways where there are long areas of "no passing" zones.  You just have to learn to relax and not worry about being stuck behind a car that is going 25 miles per hour in a 45 mph zone.  That reminds me of the lyrics of a song, "Out here is fine, if you've got the time."  That is the attitude you have to take if you want to travel the by-ways, because not everyone out here is in a hurry.

Fire spotting towers are still used in some places.

As we reached the cabin, friends pulled up to their cabin within minutes.  We greeted each other and began the work of opening up our cabins.  Generally the first hour or so upon arrival is spent turning on the water and electricity, vacuuming, and unpacking.  After that, everyone is on mountain time.  It is time to relax.  The neighbors and I sat around catching up on things.   Then we decided to share some food  and have dinner together.  It was an enjoyable evening.

A view from the by-way.

The next day, it was time to get to work.  There is always something that needs doing.  There was a dead tree on the property that had to be taken down.  We cut it down one day and chopped the tree to length and stacked the logs.  Later in the week, after we had hauled wood up from the shed to the log rack on the porch, we re-stacked the remaining wood in the shed, then split and stacked most of the tree we had cut down.  My husband set up the logs and split them with a maul.  I hauled the wood to the shed and stacked it.   This was not the hardest work we did during our trip.

Road art at a Barbecue Pit.

It was time for the old shed on the property to come down.  The wood was so rotted, it would break off in your hand.  The shed was still standing but had such a lean to it that it was a good two feet lower than its height from years ago.  It used to be tall enough that my husband (over six feet tall) could barely see the roof.  Now it was down to chest level.  It was time for it to come down.  I don't believe it would have lasted another winter.  It was better to take it down while we had the time, rather than have to clean it up in the middle of one of our renovation projects.  Besides, the longer the shed is down, the more likely it is that snakes and critters would take up residence there.

My husband thought he would need to use the Saws - All to cut through nails to bring the shed down.  The wood was in such bad shape, that all we needed was a pry bar to pull it apart.  We removed the metal pieces on the roof.  They had been weighted down by rocks to keep them in place.  I think they were scrap from a different shed that had been torn down.  I am not even sure that the pieces had been nailed down.  If so, the nails were rusted away.  The only thing holding the metal in place was the rocks.  We pulled them down with a rake and the metal pieces came right off.

After the roof was off, my husband pried off the boards, I nailed down the rust nails and stacked the wood.  Taking down the shed took all afternoon.  We were very tired and dirty when we were finished.  That was plenty of work for one day.

When you take down an old building, you always wonder what curiosity you might find inside.  This building had been used as a shed long before I ever arrived there, but I had always suspected that at one time it had been a chicken coop. We did not really have great expectations of finding much of anything and were seriously hoping that it had not formerly been used as an outhouse.  What we mostly found was nails.  Boxes of nails that had been there so long that the entire box of nails had rusted into one solid lump.  I guess other boxes of nails had early on been chewed apart by rodents and the nails had fallen all over the floor.  There were nails everywhere.  Nails that were three and four inches long, roofing nails, and huge staples.  The back of the staples was a one-half inch wide (12.7 millimeters) and the prongs were one inch long (27.7 millimeters).  There was only one "find" of real interest and it did reinforce my idea that it was originally a chicken coop.  Under the tarpaper, was a little hinged wooden flap.  We suspect that the flap was used so that someone could reach into the next and pull out the eggs.  Nailed to the flap, was a license plate.  The readable side of the license plate had been nailed to the wood.  Because it had been protected, the license plate was in really good condition.  It was a Virginia license plate from 1942.  So I guess we did find a treasure of sorts.  When my husband and I are doing a project we generally sign our names and the date somewhere so that it will document when the work was done.  Perhaps the license plate was this person's means of documenting when the shed was built.

The dragon's head.

The next day, we loaded up the van with as much of the lumber as we could fit into it and drove it to the dump.  Our neighbors said they would have burned the wood on site, but we had concerns that the would have been treated with some type of wood preservative and we had no idea what it might be.  Also, at one time DDT was commonly used for insect infestation.  Rather than risk inhaling unknown chemicals, we hauled the entire shed to the dump.  A trip to the dump and back takes about an hour and twenty minutes.  It took us to trips to get the entire shed to the dump.

The stream behind the cabin.

The next day, while my husband was working on cleaning up the other shed, I worked on picking up those rusty nails that had been lying all over the shed.  Although we had raked and cleaned up the shed, there were still plenty of nails buried in the dirt.  The floor had rotted out, and years of rain had washed in mud and small stones.  There were several inches of loose dirt filled with rusty nails.  We did not have one of those magnetized roller tools.  I was digging through the dirt moving it around inch by inch and examining it for rusty nails.  Since the nails and much of the dirt were the same color it was very difficult to see them.  I was at it for hours.  I picked up almost four more pounds of nails, one at a time.  That night, I dreamed about picking up those nails.  I could see them in my sleep. 

Painted windmill.

We saved a piece of salvaged driftwood that had lived on top of the shed for many years.  It looked just like a dragon's head.  It now resides on top of the shed for the hot water heater.  The rocks that were on the roof were piled up in a cairn around the metal pipe that marked the property boundary.  Now that the shed is down we have a nice view of the road that leads up to the spring box.    

At times, my friends have wondered how do I consider this to be a vacation.  I try to explain that while we work hard there, the work is interspersed with plenty of porch sitting time and visiting with friends.  Beyond that, there is something worthwhile about working hard work and getting filthy dirty and then coming in to get cleaned up and relax at the end of the day.  But more than that, we do the work because we love the place.  If the work is what keeps the place going, then that is what we are going to do.  This place is so special that it is worth every minute of the work.

One other day of our vacation, I spent cooking a Thanksgiving dinner.  I smoked a turkey on the grill and made stuffing, green bean casserole, and an apple crisp for dessert.  The next day we drove over the mountains to visit my mother and have a Thanksgiving dinner with her.  It was a few days earlier than the actual date of Thanksgiving, but we were nearby and the important thing is that we spent time with family.

1. On our way home, we took another scenic drive down Route 6.  There is still plenty of old Virginia farm buildings out there.  There is also a section near Wintergreen where you can feel the creep of modern civilization moving in.   There is a section of art galleries and restaurants.  New, modern, slick, and upscale.  It looks so foreign to me in this beautiful setting.  I guess some people like it.  In any case, nothing is forever.  I try to take as many pictures as I can of the old buildings before they disappear.  There are so many beautiful scenes that I miss because I cannot get a good shot while we are moving down the road.  I wish I cold get more pictures.  There are so many beautiful scenes out there.

There is always more to the story, but I will hold here and save the rest for later.  My next post we be on my progress on the Doll Experiment project.  Now that I am home, I will be trying to get back into the studio and get some work done there.,