There are no shortcuts in cordwood

Well, there are; but they come with a price. Most of the shortcuts we have taken have been caused by the fact that we were in a hurry. Most of them started with a phrase like, "We don't care what the book says" or "we don't need to . . ." and continued with the phrase, "we'll just . . . ." We are here to tell you that the people who wrote the books know what they are doing. Care what they say. And don't "just . . . ."


Some examples:
1)  "We don't care what the book says about pointing (the process of smoothing the mortar and tightening the joints with small, bent butter knives); we'll just use paintbrushes to jam the mortar flatter between the log ends. (Note the telltale phrases: "We don't care" and "we'll just.")  Jaki Roy was right: pointing matters. We have some walls to prove it. However, pointing takes time---almost longer than laying up cordwood.

2)  "We don't need to use a cutoff saw (which requires cutting the wood twice: once in the woods and once on-site). We'll just measure 18-inch lengths as we cut." There are those telltale phrases again. We now have walls containing log ends anywhere from 17 to 19 inches long. Wall surfaces that bubble and wander like sand dunes. Wall surfaces that are really hard to point well. Rob Roy was right: use a cutoff saw for exact lengths and 90-degree cuts.

3)  "We don't need to sort all of the logs; we'll just use them as we bring them out of the woods." So, the east side of our house is made of small logs ends and the west side is made of big ones. And it kind of size-progresses across the south and north sides. Sort your logs.


Cordwood is not for the hurried. Cordwood IS simple. However it is NOT easy. And as our friend Suzanne of Second Wind Farm likes to point out, simple is not always easy. Fortunately, cordwood is also very forgiving. So even with all of our ill-advised shortcuts, we have a house we love, which largely does what we wanted it to do.

Get 'er done

Earlier this week Joe calculated that we had about 40 more batches of mortar to go, of the 357 or so that this house will require. A "batch" is the amount we can mix in a wheel-barrow with a hoe at one time, and consists of about 34 pounds of lime putty and a 5-gallon bucket of sand. We are working on the last two of the 14 "panels," or infilled spaces between the post and beam framework. So the end is tantalizingly in sight.

Pointing mortar below window frame. These are our last 2 panels!

 But building with cordwood is slow, and mixing mortar is hard. I remember the first batch I mixed last summer. I thought I was going to throw up. It's easier now. Part of that is physical conditioning, and part of it is mental conditioning. We as a culture are not mentally conditioned for this kind of labor. It's not part of our expectation or world view, that we should endure pain and sweat, and do something tedious, all while not being entertained. It requires learning to focus one part of your mind on the work---a smaller part, as it becomes automatic---while letting the larger part focus on something completely unrelated. It requires entertaining yourself.

Last summer, the most we were ever able to mix and lay up in one day was 12 batches. On that day we had a big crew helping: Ian, Isaac, Heather, Heidi, and Holly, in addition to Joe (I was at "work," where, curiously, I was being paid to sit at a desk). The most Joe and I have ever done on our own was six batches, but this was on a day when we had all of the sand already sifted and measured, all of the putty mixed, all of the long ends scraped and cleaned, and nothing else that needed doing. This season, with the demands of the farm, the most we have managed in one day is 4 batches. More often we have only done 2 batches.


So we were lying in bed the other night, trying to figure out how many batches a day we'd have to do in order to finish before frost---while still putting up the harvest, mouse-proofing the eaves (look for our future post, "Rodent Wars"), fencing off the bucklings, building a ram pen, building a hay barn, bringing in hay, etc.---as well as hosting visitors for what is known around here as simply THE FAIR---and I said, "Hey, if we just put everything on hold except animal care and daily milkings, and milk earlier and work later, and live on cereal and peanut butter, we can do six batches a day and be done in a week!" After saner reflection in the morning light, we decided we would do this for two days, then take a day for other chores, then two more "push" days of cordwood, etc.---and still be done before THE FAIR.

So we just completed two "push" days. The day before yesterday we ran into some snags, largely resulting from the fact that we thought we had 3 windows left, and we only have 2, and one of the window boxes we'd built was the wrong size. This is what happens when you keep changing the floor plan. So we got 4 batches done amidst all of the figuring.

unpointed mortar filled with sawdust insulation, waiting for log ends

 Yesterday we got 6 batches done. We finished the morning chores and a quick breakfast in time to begin mixing mortar at 8 a.m.. We finished pointing the mortar at close to 7 p.m., and ended up milking in the near dark. The does were not happy. But they're not happy anyway, because they all seem to suddenly be in estrus, mooning at the bucklings, who are trying desperately to get to the girls through the fence. Got to get that buck pen built . . .

We're down to about 30 batches to go . . . and counting! Two halves of two panels left! We'll be catching up with other chores today, and back at cordwood tomorrow.

P.S. Eggs!

Have you ever seen such YELLOW eggs???

 We were thrilled to find our first eggs in the chicken coop yesterday!!! We got 30 chicks in April and have been waiting pretty much ever since for our own Sunnywood eggs. They are rather small, but delicious.