Rafters are hung!
Wow! This weekend was quite an accomplishment! As you can see from the pictures, we got all the rafters hung, let me explain how our day went Saturday:
Casey and I got to the cabin about 8:30, armed with hatchets, saws and plenty of optimism. I had to jump the tractor off, since the battery had gone dead earlier in the week, and then realized that the belt which goes from the starter to the flywheel was missing. I retraced my steps from Thursday, when I had used the tractor to spread gravel, and found the missing belt, or at least what was left of it. We managed to thread the belt back onto the pulley for long enough to start the tractor, but after pulling only 2 rafters from the woods, it decided to lay down and die, since it was no longer receiving enough voltage from the battery to spark the coil. So we then proceeded to load each pole onto our shoulders and carry them out, one by one, on foot. I say all this to explain why it took us until 11 am to finish hauling all of the rafter poles down to the cabin. Needless to say, we had a lot less energy and our optimism was running low after all the trouble that morning. But after a few minutes of rest, we started right in on the rafter manufacturing process.
We cut a flat edge on all 14 rafters, much like what we had done earlier to the floor joists. After the last one was finished, Casey said his goodbyes and departed with his wife, Jenny, to spend the rest of the afternoon with her. I went and grabbed a sandwich for lunch and headed back to the cabin. It wasn't long before I heard the sound of an engine purring and I could make out the shape of my Dad's 4x4 Toyota through the trees, following the narrow pathway that winds down to the cabin. After he showed up, things kicked into high gear. We made a great log-peeling team, as he would turn the poles while I peeled them, making both jobs much faster. We peeled the remaining 12 rafters (Casey and I had already peeled 2) and by the end of the afternoon, all 14 of the poles we had cut were perched as pretty as could be in rows on top of the cabin.
It won't be long now until we have a roof! Stay tuned for more updates!