My lingering hiatus

It's been awhile and yeah, too long for those 3 or 4 readers still interested in this dream of mine. I have the regular excuses of too much work, too much at home and priorities that just push into the way. Truth is, time gets away sometimes when you let it.

We moved the boys to their new home, and made repairs to their bachelor pad while we made plans for spring like new shingles. The homestead needed work as well. Then the eldest needed medical help and we ended up having our own medical needs that came out well enough.

Time becomes preoccupied and I apologize for that.

Every so often, I question why I embarked on this endeavor. Many of the plans that were made have failed but a few came close to breaking even. The pond leaks, deer still tear up some of the smaller trees and rabbits clip most of the seedlings. We probably have a 90% failure rate after a couple of years' plantings.

It gets discouraging, especially when I walk the sweet corn that we planted to sell and find half of it knocked down after a storm. The pounds of hickory nuts that we picked up this fall and none were good, or the hundreds of red oak acorns that we planted two years ago and finding only a half dozen making their way a few inches high. It brings a pause to things once in a while.

So why am I doing this?

I guess it goes to the vision of 80 years from now someone, somewhere, will have the opportunity to make something like this:

Both chests were made by my father. The top three pictures are of the one made from box elder and the bottom two pictures are, of course, made from cedar. The cedar chest was one of several that he made for each of the grandkids but at the time, my youngest wasn't born. He didn't make one for him before he passed. It just seems that way sometimes. The box elder chest was part of what we received as settling things up after dad died and it seemed fitting that each boy received something made from their grandfather's hands.

We have several other things that dad made. Our kitchen table from red oak and a book case made from walnut and several other things come to mind but I'll leave that to when I can take pictures and share.

So this is why I'm doing what I'm doing. So someone could build a memory from lumber cut from our acreage. A memory that is as solid as the wood it is made from and then pass it on.

Stick with us. I might get it right once of these days.

Portable sawmills

I thought David would appreciate these:

It doesn't look like the Farmall C is powering the band, but Grampa and team were captured on film in March of 1954.

Move up 41 years and a crew using a Woodmizer bandsaw while my dad inspects the logs:

I must be getting nostalgic in my old age.

Headed to -20 at the homestead

But at least my water pump isn't frozen:

Grandpa found his pump frozen during the winter of 71. Grandma, in a safe warm house, chronicled him carrying a bucket down the hill to gather water in the creek in a series of photos. He would have been 72 at the time.

1971, Iowa, no running water in their house and I never heard them complain about it, but I imagine they did on days like this.

One of the neighbors thought I was crazy for working on the deck during the past couple of weekends of mid-twenties. Since I can't stand on the pond in the summer, this time of year is my only opportunity.

I think of my grandparents and their situation 40 years ago, and I think I can handle carrying 2x6s up the hill to the pond. Grandpa had a much steeper hill to carry his load.