Mountain Lane Homesteaders
Being "It": Part Two and Photos
Good Morning from the woods! As promised I'm back with a little more info on our past milling days. It's been fun to think back on how things worked and to get it recorded before time and other experiences dulled my memory. I use to remember everything so easily......not so any more!
How about starting out with a few pictures?
Unloading the trailer full of logs to stack by the sawmill.
The kids liked helping push them off and showing how strong they were! Mara wasn't about to be shown up by her brother.
Here's Charis giving it her best!
The biggest challenge we faced in milling was to make rafters out of the 24' long lodgepole trees which you might remember were only 7" at the butt! We wanted to leave them as thick as possible for strength but we faced quite a large taper in each tree. They all started out 7" in diameter at the base of the tree and by the time we measured out 24 feet of length, the tips were often only 4" thick. We decided that we needed to only use the ones we could make at least 4 1/2" thick on each end. This is when the trial and error method really took over full force. We would try starting at the thicker end of the log like we did with everything else we had milled and cutting down just an inch. We soon discovered that because of the way a tapered tree lays on the sawmill, doing this would leave us with a tip that was literally cut in half. We tried turning the whole thing around and starting at the thin end. That didn't work either.
The tension set in as we were having to discard tree after tree to try and get it right. Again, our resources and our time were dwindling. As an aside, a sawmill is not a quiet tool. At different times Sam and I would find ourselves reaching up and shutting everything off just so that we could think. In fact, in some cases the mill was off more than it was on. When a work day was done and all we had accomplished were the ways NOT to make the rafters, we would pack up and head out so discouraged.
In most cases, if we had what we perceived to be an unsuccessful day, it was usually followed the next time by success. We are beginning to figure out that while we were frustrated at the time by our apparant lack of progress, it was simply a slow step in the right direction. This was the case with the rafters. Somehow through all of our bumbling attempts we finally figured out a "skim and flip" routine that worked! We put the tree on with the larger end at the start of the cut and I would lower the blade so that it would just barely skim the bark at first. Just enough to go about 3 or 4 feet down the log before it tapered and wasn't being touched. This would give about a 1" wide strip of flat that the log would rest on when we flipped it over to skim a similar strip off the other side. Back and forth we went. Using this method of slow and steady, bits could be taken off the thick end of the tree without severely diminishing the narrow end. Eventually we were able to make all the rafters we needed for our cabin using this method. Some of them ended up having no more than the tiniest sliver of flat edge by the time we got to the tip but as long as we could measure it to come out to 4 1/2" we were satisfied.
During the process of attempting to make the rafters in this way, Frank would shake his head, full of concern that we would end up making a cabin that looked "ho-bunk". He was more than certain that these poles would just not look right. I believe it may have actually been stressing him out that we were not heading off to the store to purchase ready made rafters. Can you imagine the feeling of satisfaction we feel every time we look up at our ceiling now? The thrill in having "conquered" the poles?
So that's a brief look into what it meant for me to be "It". I learned a new skill. I hefted logs. I learned to trust myself. I learned that what might appear as a wasted day is really just a part of the whole. I learned more about Sam as he did about me. We've made memories that will last a lifetime. What's more? I had fun.
Here are a few more pictures:
Sam getting the logs all ready to go on the mill.
Here's the sawmill with me getting ready to make the first cut on a log. Charis is showing that she's ready with tape measure and crayon to do her job. Laying behind us in the background you can see some of the long poles I was talking about.
This picture shows some of the pieces starting to stack up. The pile of stones behind the kids are the beginning of a collection we're making for building the house. We are going to need soooooo many more!
We have so much work ahead of us and much more milling that we will need to do to make the lumber for our big house. We had planned to do things much like we did for this cabin......many many trips to Frank's place for hours of milling. However, in my last post I mentioned another amazing thing that has happened to us. As we spent all those hours at the sawmill learning how to make it work and building our home, we never in our wildest imaginations would have guessed that one day Frank would buy himself a NEWER FANCIER sawmill and then decide that he wanted to GIVE US his first one! He tried to sell it (purchasing it was not planned for in our building funds) and then he and his wife decided that really, we were the ones that they wanted to have it. So, sometime soon we will be picking out a location on our property and bringing the sawmill here to live.
We are so excited!
Being "It": Part One
Finding out what it meant for me to be head sawyer was a little like finding out what it means to be a parent. You read books and listen to lessons learned already by others who have gone before. Those are priceless resources. But no matter what, there are going to be those times that you face things that are unique to your own situation which cause you to blindly forge ahead into unknown territory using only trial and error methods with an ear tuned to listening to the still small voice inside, reminding you that you have been brought to this place and you will make it through to the other side.
Over the course of time I realized running the sawmill was about more than just learning the technical aspects of operating the machine. We needed to make 2 sided logs, 10" wide boards that were an inch thick, 4" wide boards (these are the "bats" or battons on the side of the cabin) and a bunch of 2x6's. My job was to not only operate the mill, but to decide how to get the most lumber out of each log. Notice the frugality here? No waste on my watch!
Our system was pretty basic at first. Two siding the logs was a great beginner lesson. A log was first placed onto the mill and made stable for cutting. The mill we were using was then lowered using a hand crank to position the blade close enough to the top of the log so as not to waste any, yet down far enough to take into account the taper so that it would slice a nice clean cut and take off all the bark on one side. Once the scrap was removed (and set aside to become kindling for our woodstove), I would raise the mill up to slide it back across the log to the starting position. The log would then be turned over and another cut taken off the other side. Once we had two clean sides we would measure the log and decide how much more to take off to keep our logs at a consistent size.
Since we had logs of various diameters we made two different cut sizes. Remember, we are taking these from our firewood permit and we were new to logging trees at all so the sizes we ended up with may seem small but trust me, they were heavy to lug out of the woods! Some logs when finished were a 6" thickness and some were 7". The kids got in on this part of the process by using the red loggers crayon to mark the size onto the end of the log as soon as it came off the mill. Once this was done the logs were stacked and set aside to continue drying out. Eventually a few of these were peeled and added to our "we can DO THIS" evidence for the bank but as our project evolved, most of them ended up later being made into floorboards for our cabin loft rather than waiting to be logs for the big house. Hopefully, having a little more experience now, we will be able to get some that are a little bigger around to mill for the house.
Having learned the basics of milling wood we were able to move on to a more challenging project which was to begin the process of making our wall boards and 2x6's (when first learning the "lingo" I was so confused when someone would refer to a "tubasix"). For these we did have some bigger logs to mill thanks to the generosity of our friend so the plans were made to mill all our boards 12 feet long, 10" wide, and 1" thick.
These logs were much bigger and of a different type of wood which is a harder, heavier wood, so our first new challenge was in how to get them onto the sawmill. The previous 6 foot logs we had used were able to be lifted right on......not so with these. There were a couple of big pieces of machinery that we were able to use, both a Kubota tractor and a big skidder. I had already learned to drive the tractor and Sam learned how to operate the skidder. HOWEVER, in the final analysis, we decided that trying to get those logs chained up to the skidder or tractor to be lifted onto the mill was just far too time consuming. We would get the chain around the log, get the skidder going, and inevitably the chain would slip and the log would fall to the ground. Time was precious and repeated failures to get those logs on the mill were intensely aggravating. Being who we are, we decided our muscle power was just going to be much faster so we devised a ramp system by laying a couple of boards with one end on the ground and the other end up on the sawmill. With Sam on one end and me on the other we would push and shove as best we could and often made use of a couple of poles with hooks on the end called peavey's for leverage. It didn't often take too long to muscle a log onto the mill this way. The fancier models have hydrolic lifts to take care of this problem but that's not what we had available!
Once the log was in place I would two side it like before and we would roll the log 1/4 turn so it was sitting on one of the other uncut sides. Next we placed a level on the edge to be cut and then shifted or placed shims to make sure we would get a straight cut. Once that third cut was made it was easy to finish the 4th. Now we had what is called a cant. We have several supporting beams in our cabin which were made this way. What we didn't need for a support beam of some kind was then milled into boards.
I began the milling of boards like you would anything you were new at that had great consequences.....very slowly and methodically. We had just so many logs and I wasn't wanting to mess up and ruin a single board. This involved having someone measure down an inch and mark a cut line for me to follow. One day Frank stopped by while we were milling. Seeing our method he mentioned that I didn't trust myself. Of course I didn't! He encouraged me to start "guessing" where an inch was. Was he kidding? Risk wasting a log?!!! Well, it was his mill afterall, I supposed he might know what he was talking about.....so I turned that handle a couple of times, gave the log a test cut and low and behold it was right on. It took me a while to get over my need to have someone "check it" every time but eventually I gained confidence and went on to furthur adventures in sawmill fame.
Often times, in order to get as many boards out of one log as we could, there would still be a remainder of inner bark on the corners of the cant. This is called wane. We were very particular about having as little wane left on a board as possible for two reasons. First, a board with wane has a tendency to bow. We were told that if it wasn't bowed too bad it could still be used but the bowed side would have to be placed facing the inside of the cabin. It wasn't possible to face them outwards and then eventually cover them with stain. Secondly, we knew we were not planning on insulating and would be looking at the boards ALOT. We wanted them to be as nice and clean as possible. It was always a toss up whether to begin sawing boards with a little wane on them so we could get more out of a log or to shave all the edges again until we had a nice clean cant to work with but decrease the number of boards. In the end we had mostly clean boards but do have a few in our cabin with wane on the edges. Over time I have come to see them as part of the charm of the place similar to the rain stains on our ceiling from all the times the rain leaked in...not something I would have desired to begin with but a reminder of all that we were going through at the time.
This seems like a good place to pause. Next time I'll tell you about the ole "skim and flip" trick we learned, post some pictures of our milling days, and fill you in on yet another amazing happening along the way in this homesteading dream.
Never in our wildest imaginations...............
Journey to the Dream: The Next Step~My Appointment
I am feeling the nudge once again to get back on track with the story of how we got from where we were to where we are (and where we still need to go!). If you've not read my blog before, the beginning of the story can be found in the category on the right called "Journey to the Dream". It tells about the countless hours our family would spend thinking and dreaming and figuring on how we were going to be able to pursue the dream of living in the mountains. That's it. No big plans for what we would do when or IF we ever got here. Just getting here seemed to be a big enough hurdle! If you are currently in a situation where you don't see how it will EVER be possible to follow the longings in your heart, homesteady or otherwise, take a peek at how things began to fall into place for us. Let me encourage you not to lose hope.
Picking up where I left off in the "getting here" process, we were madly stock piling as much evidence as we could to convince our bank that they wanted to be a part of this project we had drummed up! We had spent several days getting our poles out of the woods and had just completed getting all 100 we were allowed. During that process and a bit before, we also were able to harvest some other logs with our firewood permit that could come out of the woods in lengths no longer than 6 feet.
We were storing all of our wood at Frank's place (Our friend Frank the Logger) and he was going to let us use his sawmill. The original plan for our house is to use both stone and logs. We had decided that we would 2 side our logs (meaning that we would make 2 sides of the log flat and then peel the other two sides) so that they would stack easily one on top of another but still have the rounded look on both the inside and outside walls. So our next plan of action was to begin to create these pieces and have several stacked as part of that evidence I mentioned. We also had to make lots of boards that would become the walls and loft floor of our cabin.
I've been looking forward to telling this part of the story.
I remember standing there in the woodyard the day we went over for our first introduction on how to use the sawmill. It is a big, noisy, more power, machine. The three of us stood there and Frank began to talk about how to operate the controls as well as how to change the blade and other technical advice. I don't know what I had thought my role would be in this part of the project but the moment Frank looked at me and appointed me "Head Sawyer" I felt as if I had just made great advances in my career as homebuilder.
Sam and I had purposed to build this home TOGETHER. From the planning, to the collecting of our supplies, to the actual building. Although it's not always the fastest or most efficient, it's just how we work best. Together we are building a family, together we will build our home, and together we learn and grow. Unfortunately I have come to find out over time that although it's life giving to our marriage, it is not too common in our society.
Anyway, I had a glorious moment! I don't know whether Frank had been around us enough to understand how we worked or whether he had another reason, or whether it was God's divine appointment. All I know is that the stunned surprise in my face must have shown my delight. I was to be HEAD SAWYER!
I had no idea what it meant........but I got to be it!
Why halloween reminds me to be thankful...
October here in Northwest Montana seems to be the month for rain. This year we are still trying to finish our septic system before winter sets in. Last year it was THE ROOF. We finally had all the wood for the decking ready and were doing our best to get it all assembled so we could put on the metal roof. We had almost half of the boards nailed on and were steadily working away at the rest.
I mentioned in my last entry our frustrations with rain constantly coming inside the cabin. It made no difference to me whether it was coming from above and leaking through the tarps, often coming in around the area where our chimney went through the floor and dripping down onto the wood stove, or whether it was blowing in under (or through) our homemade door. Rain in the house is rain in the house no matter HOW it got there! Mostly it was a nuisance and somewhat aggravating.
At some point during the month we got the 2nd half of our cabin cleared out of all the tools and were finally able to move our bed in. The kids were still using the mats and sleeping bags since the loft wasn't yet complete. The addition of our bed right near the wood stove made everything a little easier simply because there was finally someplace cozy to be in our otherwise mostly bare necessity living quarters.
Changing subjects, but not really, what images come to mind when you think of halloween night? Maybe cold and windy or quietly eerie with leaves blowing frantically while a drizzle starts to fall? Yes......and more.
Last year, halloween day started out with the drizzles. As was typical for us, some places were leaking and I had several pans playing a musical ensemble of various pitches of drip noises. I phoned Sam at work and left a message with one of his co-workers to tell Sam that it was raining in the house again but just the same old drips. I was cheerful and Darlene commented that at least I was laughing and said she would pass on my message. Then I went to my bible study and afterward stopped at the grocery store and found some plastic buckets on the dollar shelf. I was excited to go home and reclaim my kitchen pots by replacing them with the buckets. Well, let's just say that by that time I was not replacing pots but rather adding the buckets to the new areas that were now leaking in. I went about my afternoon and emptied the pots or buckets when they started to get full. The kids came home from school, and we started talking about the Harvest Festival that we were planning on going to that night. I spent some time fixing my daughters hair and for a time, forgot about my bucket dumping routine. When I finally turned to look, the rain was no longer dripping steadily into the buckets but rather running in. We all started dumping buckets but by this time they were useless. To say I panicked would be an understatement. I grabbed the phone and called Sam. Darlene answered the phone again and all I said was, "I'm not laughing any more."
As Sam related this part of the story to me later he said that Darlene came to his desk, looked him straight in the eyes, and in a most serious voice told him that Darcy was not laughing ANY MORE! Sam phoned me up and I made my plea for him to DO SOMETHING. I was thinking gobs of towels. When Sam hung up the phone, he said he turned around and both Cathy (his boss) and Darlene were pointing at the front door. In other words, these ladies were right there putting themselves in my shoes and there was no question in their minds of where Sam should be at that moment. Yeah for girl power!!!
There was nothing the kids and I could do. There was absolutely no containing the water. Sam called a neighbor who came by with some more buckets and a bunch of towels but it really just didn't matter. Ultimately her being here had more to do with keeping me sane than drying up water. When Sam got home he says he remembers us all sitting at the dining room table singing. I have a vauge memory of that. I think I was trying to make the best out of it all and if I had been able to find my umbrellas we would have been sitting there underneath them while singing but at least we could all join in a hearty "SINGING IN THE RAIN, JUST SINGING IN THE RAIN........" to greet Sam as he walked in the door.
That night, I looked around and knew that it was going to be nothing but miserable for myself and the kids to sit there watching the rain come in while an emergency roofing crew gathered from our church to help get the last of the decking in place. So, as planned, the kids and I went into town and attended the harvest festival at a local church. We arrived back home a couple of hours later in the rain and darkness. The guys had every single lantern, flashlight, and generator lit spotlight outside so there was no light to see by in the house. There was also no place dry. Except one.
As I looked around at soggy box bottoms, wet clothing, and even wetter sleeping bags, the one place of refuge was our cozy bed. Of all things, the one area directly above our bed was completely dry. So I blew out the candle and told the kids to climb in. We all just stayed there until Sam came in too and moved a couple of them out and onto the areas right next to the bed into the driest sleeping bags we had. The decking was finally all in place and new rain was no longer getting in. Now as we drifted off to sleep it was only the sound of the water that had already gathered on the loft floor that was continuing to find it's way through.
I woke the next morning to a small hand in mine saying "Mommy...I'm wet" and I knew it had a different meaning than it did during those toddler years! The leaking in had ceased, but with the morning light I could see the results of the previous day's devestation. Absolutely everything was soaked......except our bed.
It was a week day. A work day. I turned and looked at Sam with wide eyes and said, "I can't do this alone." Then came the slow nodding of his head and the most comforting words, "I know. I'll call Cathy."
So this year, as halloween approaches and we scramble to finish our septic and gather our firewood, we are grateful to be dry as we remember back with thankfulness the friends that helped put the rest of the decking on that night, the friend who sat with me while the rain poured in, the boss who cares about us as a family, the ability to laugh and sing during the trial if only for a moment, and also the angels of mercy that stood on the floor of our loft all night long holding up some kind of covering just over the area of our bed.
May we always be so blessed.
A Year Does Make a Difference!
Before I started blogging I had not been very good at keeping a written record of our homesteading adventure. I have a few things that were written down hastily on a piece of spiral notebook paper and then torn out and placed in a folder. The trick would be to actually find these if I were to go looking! I knew I needed to keep track of all we had been doing but finding both the time and the energy to do that during the midst of the most chaotic part was difficult at best. In an effort to clean up scattered school "keep" papers recently I pulled out a folder I had on my desk and started filing away when I actually did come across something I wrote just last October. I thought that since we are now a year beyond where we were that day it would be a good time to share it.
Although our rain in the house trials would get worse before they got better, this is a record of a moment in time during our hardest time last year trying to get everything all ready for winter. We had been working day and night for weeks gathering our supplies, milling our wood, and getting the cabin up. We had no roof yet other than the floorboards of the loft. The rafters were in place and a few rows of decking but that was it. Rain kept leaking in regardless of the plastic we had set up. We were sleeping in sleeping bags on foam mats on our concrete floor. We had a porta potti, no running water, and no electricity. Our lighting was coleman lanterns and I cooked on a 2 burner coleman propane stove. We were living in one half of our cabin and the other half was still a "workshop" full of ladders and tools.
Stress was indeed high but so was the joy. We were DOING it!
A Victorious Day Indeed!!!!!
I can almost hear the sounds of flushing............
Who would have ever thought that 5 people could be so excited about septic tanks? Tuesday's delivery had the grownups dancing with joy and the kids playing some sort of leaping game from the dirt/rock mounds onto the septic tank and back. They wanted to know if they could get down inside the tank but a parent must draw the line somewhere 
.
Drum roll please..........
This is the tank that was set by the house foundation. I can't believe how huge it is! Sam had just finished getting the pit dug in the nick of time.
And here is the 2nd tank that was set to be hooked up to the cabin. This is the one the kids were playing on. Just one more trench to dig and then we can start putting down all the pipes and connections. Won't be too much longer before we get to retire those porta-potties!!!
Accomplishing the goal....and so much more.
My muscles are aching in remembrance of our logging days from last summer. Not because they have such a long memory, but because we went out and cut some of our winter firewood on Sunday afternoon/evening and they have been reminded that it's been a while since they've carried that much! Fun to know the wood we just now got, is going to be heating the wood we got way back last summer that is now in place as rafters in our little cabin.....
Pole gathering Day 3:
While it was just Sam, Stan, and myself (and kids of course) working in the woods, the task we were doing required hard physical labor but there was an ease and comfortability that made the day as much about enjoying our time together as it was about harvesting the trees. We took time to make fires and have relaxing lunches. Our daughters spent time with sketch pads drawing and then showing us their work. It was on one of these days that my then 10 year old son taught me how to look through the scope of his 22 rifle and knock down a pinecone.
I will, unfortunately, have no pictures to share of day 3 as being there with a large group of men and working at hyperspeed did not exactly lend itself to inspirational photographic moments! Hello help from the masses, goodbye to slow and steady!
As promised Pastor Jim had a crew of experienced wood guys up on the mountain before we even arrived. They were combining helping us get poles with gathering firewood for our church. We have a wood ministry where they gather many many cords of firewood during the summer and fall to give away to people during the winter who aren't able to get it for themselves.
When we arrived there were already several trees down on the ground and pulled up onto the road. Sam and Stan jumped right in to help with the sawing and the hauling out process while I went around from tree to tree measuring and telling the guys where to make the cuts so the poles were the right size. Once all the downed trees were cut to length I switched over and helped toss logs up onto the church wood truck while someone else loaded it to the brim.
Trees continued to come down like crazy. By noon twice as many poles were ready than we were able to get by ourselves in 2 days of work. Not only that, but they were of a more uniform size without as much taper at the tip as what we had been getting. By the end of the day we had our limit. 100 poles ready and waiting for the next stage!
Having experienced those first two days getting poles out on our own, we know that we could have continued to do it just the same way and we would have eventually reached our goal. But the time we were saved because of the help we received was a great gift.
The memories made that week are priceless. The poles were the goal but in process we learned new skills, exercized our bodies, engaged in extensive laughter, enjoyed nature, involved our children, and saw much friendship extended.
Life is good.
Learning...Logging...and Laughing!
Pole gathering Day 2:
Back up in the woods only better prepared this time. We were ready. I had been appointed kubota driver.
At the beginning of the day I was terrified and couldn't believe Sam really thought I was going to drive that thing. Sam had been given precisely one lesson on this contraption and had never actually driven it himself yet there he was giving me instructions! He informed me of what all the levers and such were suppose to do and then told me, "Okay, now turn it on." "No." Patient waiting and funny smile. "Turn it on.......". "NO!" (higher pitch than the first time). More smiles while he waited for me to get my nerve up. When I finally agreed to turn it on we had to go through the same conversation each time he wanted me to try each new lever! By the end of the day I was whipping around with no troubles at all and only one teensy little headlight poked out as a casualty to my learning.
This time the routine was that once the tree was cut and bucked (delimbed), Sam and Stan would get the cable all hooked up with one end attached to the back of the kubota and one end wrapped around the tree to pull it out of the woods. Sam was positioned near the base of the tree, Stan was on the road so he could see each one of us. I would sit on the tractor waiting for the hand signals to tell me when to start pulling. Since my back was always to Stan one of the kids would ride on the side of the tractor facing backwards to relate the hand signals to me. The hand signals worked for stopping or starting but since the trees would get hung up on branches or brambles we discovered that there were a lot of directions to "Go 4 feet forward" "STOP!" "Go 2 feet back." "Okay, go 4 feet forward" "STOP"! I don't remember how we happened to have our walkie talkies up there but it was a good thing we did. Eventually we got down a pretty clear system of beeps that Stan was using to communicate the stops and starts and then he could just tell me the forward/backward feet he wanted me to go.
This method worked like a charm until the time when Stan and Sam happened to switch places. I was doing my thing you know, forward.....backward........forward......and then all of a sudden Sam SCREAMS into the walkie talkie, "STOOOOOOOP!" Seeing as how I had not been given the afore mentioned beep that meant stop I slammed the tractor to a stand still and swung around to confront Sam who must surely have been going to accuse me of not following directions even though I had NOT received the stop signal. You know, Sam was quite a few feet away but somehow he managed to get the jist of my mood pretty quick.
He was very quiet when he announced that he hadn't known which button Stan was using for the "stop beep". So, with my big rig handling skills not in question, we managed to come out of that moment without any furthur marital discord!
Once a tree was successfully pulled onto the road it would be cut according to the 7" rule and then we would use the forks of the tractor to lift the logs and poles onto the back of the flatbed trailer. This was another lesson in marriage communication as I was to interpret all sorts of hand twisting motions to know whether they wanted me to tip the forks forward and back or move them higher or lower according to how they were trying to position the logs on the trailer.
At one point I was in process of getting the tractor into position to lower a full load of logs onto the trailer while Sam and Stan were repositioning one of the long poles. All of a sudden over the sound of the tractor I heard a loud shout. I raised the load of logs out of my line of vision so I could see the guys and there was Stan.......lying on the ground UNDERNEATH the pole. I jumped off the tractor to race in that direction and Sam was shouting to me to get the camera. As I could hear laughing I figured there had been no major injuries so I grabbed the camera and ran to take a photo of the moment.
Have you ever had the experience of working together with 2 brothers that are only 15 months apart? How about in the woods, with chainsaws and big equipment? Let's just say that the phrase that was coined during this experience was a determined, "Just let me do my THING!" So somehow, while "doing their thing" Stan ends up underneath a long and HEAVY pole while his younger brother is standing there laughing. And how's this for sobering. Uncle Stan had just minutes before asked our son Caleb to move aside a log that was lying in the road. For "some reason" Caleb had not gotten it done and it was that log laying there that kept the pole just high enough up that it didn't completely squash Stan. Caleb has enjoyed telling us that he was glad he had not obeyed!
At some point during the day, our church pastor (a former logger I might add), made it a point to come up and see how we were doing. We were feeling much more successful on our second day out having gotten something like 17 poles compared to 7 from the day before. However, if you do the math, the numbers did not look good for us to get out all 100 poles by the end of Sam's week off from work. Pastor Jim said he would see what he could do about getting some guys to come up and help out the next day.
Once our trailer was all loaded up (and the logs were secured this time!) we traveled back down the mountain to go take them all off the trailer and stack them in the wood yard. This didn't take quite as long as getting them onto the trailer but we were pretty tired by this point and backs were giving out. It was good to be getting finished for another day.
A hot pot of tea was calling. Time to get home and rest up for the grand finale of the pole harvest!
Seven Inches at the Butt?
It's time again I think, for another update on our do it yourself adventure. If you're a new visitor to my blog you can read more about how we got to this point by clicking on "Journey to the Dream" under my categories.
We were getting ready to "sell" the bank on the idea of making us a loan to purchase the land, add utilities, and build our house. Basically we only requested a small amount for the house part because we are doing all the building ourselves and we are planning to use as many natural resources as we can harvest...trees and rock.
One of the things we based a great deal of savings on was the wood we would need for rafters for both the "shed" we were building to live in temporarily and the actual house. For this purpose we were able to get a special pole permit from the Forest Service that allowed us to harvest up to 100 dead standing trees. The phrase "7 inches at the butt" became a normal part of our vocabulary during this part of the process! That was the requirement. We could take any dead standing tree as long as it was no bigger than 7" across at the base or "butt" of the tree.
Once again we had a plan. Sam's brother Stan was coming to stay with us for a week to help us get these trees out and to be a part of our fun. We had searched out an area ahead of time where there was a large stand of dead trees and Sam was using a week of vacation time from the bank so we were all set to go. We packed up a cooler of lunches and snacks and 2 big jugs of icewater as well as some pop and lemonade. The kids had their bags of activities to stay busy with during times they could not be of help. It took us probably an hour to get out of town and up where we had decided to cut.
That first day out was another learning curve day. We had to find some way to make sure our trees were the right size so Stan (A high school math teacher) did a calculation to figure out the circumference the tree would be if it's diameter was 7". We came up with some number around 21", cut a length of yellow hunter's ribbon to size and proceeded to wrap this around tree trunks to try and find the sizes we could take. After a while we figured out that the best thing to do was to cut the trees down regardless of size, cut the parts that were too thick to take out as poles into 6 foot lengths since we needed those too, and then use the remainder of the tree as the pole. That yellow ribbon was in constant use. We also had to hand carry every 6 foot section and long pole out of the woods by hand and get them loaded on the back of our truck.
Each pole measured between 20 and 34 feet long.
Great picture of me. And in case you are wondering...... yes, it's heavy. My shoulders are not made for this! I eventually switched to carring the log horizontally in my arms like a baby and it worked much better.
I think that first day we actually retrieved 7 trees. Lots of back breaking work and only a very little dent was made in the 100 trees we needed. It wasn't much but we were determined that the next day we would do better.
We drove slowly down the mountain so that the poles would not come sliding off the back of the truck or hit the road as we bounced along.
Now that I look at the pictures I can't believe we didn't have the trees secured somehow. Thankfully we were able to make it down without losing any and took them over to Frank's ("Our Friend Frank the Logger") wood yard where we would be storing them until we were ready to make them into rafters. Frank took one look at what we had "accomplished" and promptly offered the use of his kubota tractor, his truck, and his flatbed trailer for the next few days as well as a cable for pulling the trees out onto the road once cut so we could get more done. We unloaded our few poles and 6 foot logs and went back home to collapse and rest up for Day 2.
Check back next time for our improvements!
Wanted: Preferably DEAD!
How do you learn a new task? Sometimes we learn by watching others, sometimes just by experimenting, and sometimes by following written directions.
Since we are new to living in an area surrounded by the national forrest we were at first clueless to many things that the locals just know as a way of life. Getting wood for instance. We became friends with so many people who would go up into the woods, cut down trees, pull them out and take them home for firewood. But the house we were renting had propane heat so we hadn't actually experienced it for ourselves.
For Christmas 2004 Sam received a chainsaw. Oh boy! We knew this was going to be a valuable tool for our future. We didn't have firewood in mind at the time though. No siree. We were going to use it to build a HOUSE. And this is how we came to find ourselves driving about one winters day with a firewood permit looking for dead standing trees to take down just because we figured we'd better learn how!
How hard could it be right? Find a dead tree, cut it down, cut it up, and take it home.
Right.
Let's see, first objective....figure out which wooded area is really forest land and which is private property. At least we were pointed in the right direction by the forest service on this one. There are an awful lot of trees around here on large privately owned woods and wouldn't it just be fun to have someone come out blazing because we'd just cut one of their prized ponderosas.
Next. We were told that we could take down any dead tree but to be sure not to take a tamarack (larch). These are a tree that look dead in winter because they drop their needles but they really are still living and get those needles back in the spring. Uh huh. Now how precisely does a city dweller tell the difference between one dead tree and another let alone one that LOOKS dead but isn't?
Also, no tree could be cut that was within 100 feet of any creek, river, stream, etc.
Okay. So we're off with our list of instructions. We've borrowed a neighbors truck for bringing back our kill. Driving, driving, driving. Finally we find the area we believe to be forrest land. Now the looking began. Here we were, 5 of us craning our necks to look out of our windows as we inched along the steep narrow mountain road. Is that one dead? I don't know. More driving. Oh I see one! Stop the truck to get out for closer look. There's a creek right there, can't do it. Driving again. Three kids in the car getting bored. There's one. It's huge. Is it dead? Looks dead. How do we know it's not a tamarack? We don't. Okay, so you get the point.
We went on like this for a loooooong time. Finally we turned the truck around, drove back to the huge tree standing there looking at us and decided that it was dead. Then the fun began as we made sure the truck was parked way back and waited for Sam to drop this great tree.
Safety First!
Several minutes of chainsaw action went on while the kids and I stood on the road and watched wondering just how long this was going to take. Every now and then Sam would stop to move around the tree and reposition the chainsaw. As I said, this tree was huge. He couldn't even come close to getting his arms around it. After an eternity had passed with the kids all getting cold and even more bored Sam yelled down that he almost had it. I looked at the size of it again and decided that I was going to move the truck even furthur back. One child decided at this point to remain in the truck. The excitement of the tree just hadn't lasted.
So then came the long awaited moment. I stood there watching and knew the time was coming near. I waved my arms and yelled to Sam. "How do you know that's going to fall where you want it to?!!" He looked at me with a duh sort of look and shouted, "I read the directions!!!" Let's just say that at the moment I finally heard the big tree crack and saw the branches swaying I grabbed both kids and shouted "RUN!" We took off in the direction of the truck that was parked way way far away and didn't actually see the big giant hit the ground but knew that it had by the sound of the crash. Only the wise child in the truck actually got to see the tree falling.
The end of the story? By my watch, it had taken 2 1/2 hours to cut down that tree from the time we had decided on it. The tree now lay in pieces to be thrown in the back of the truck. Lesson number 1: Don't fell a tree onto a road if you don't want it to splatter. We took as much as we could fit. The rest we left there. We had cause for concern. Those pieces of wood were awfully heavy. They were also awfully sappy. Hmmm.
Remember our good friend Frank the logger? Boy did he enjoy this story! Why do you suppose that huge dead tree was still standing there right along the side of the road and no one had taken it? Yep. Because no one else went out with their chainsaw and an instruction manual to cut down their first tree! We had just spent an entire day cutting down an absolutely amazingly large old tamarack that would have continued to live a gorgeous life. Lesson number 2: Learn to identify trees by their bark.
A photo of what recently live "splattered" tamarack wood looks like:
We never did go back to gather the remainder of that tree. We were too afraid of the tamarack police. First chance we got though, we went out with Frank and he showed us how a logger cuts down a tree. Amazing. Who knew it could be done so quickly?!! We've sure made progress since that winter day but I have to say we're still the kind of people who will try things out ourselves most of the time first before calling in the reinforcements. Must just be something in our natures.
But you know, that tree DID fall right where Sam said it would so maybe we're not too bad off right?
The bank wants to know.......Can they really do this?
We had a few strikes against us to begin with: No building to live in while we built, a highly unusual building plan, no building experience, no tools to speak of except a chainsaw, time limitations because Sam works full time, and being an employee of the bank.
Since Sam works at the bank one might be tempted to think that obtaining a loan would be easier for us than for someone else. Not so. One of the things they are very careful about is showing favoritism to employees because of the strict federal regulations. If there were to be an audit one of the first things they would do would be to inspect any employee loans. Therefore, loans made to an employee are held to the strictest standards.
On Monday I mentioned about all the supplies we wanted to collect before presenting our loan request. That's because we plan to build our house out of mostly stone and wood that we gather and process ourselves. We wanted to show that not only could we plan a house on paper, but that we were resourceful in acquiring our supplies and were willing to get out and get tired and dirty doing it.
Here is a list of some of the things we were busy with:
*Designing the house and getting accurate pricing on everything we will need down to the light fixtures.
*Planning how to build the "shed" we were going to live in temporarily.
*Figuring out how we were going to "live primitive" for a while which included cooking, laundry, lighting, bathing, and waste disposal.
*Requesting a special pole permit from the Forest Service to harvest dead standing lodgepole pine we would use for rafters.
*Cutting said poles and pulling them out of the woods.
*Obtaining another permit which allows any dead wood to be taken out of the forest as long as it comes out already cut to 6 foot lengths or shorter. This is technically the firewood permit but we made the Forest Service aware of how we were planning to use it and they had no objections as long as we followed the rules.
*Gathering lots of those logs and having them stacked.
*Two siding and peeling several of these to show how we planned to use them.
*Getting permission from the owner of our subdivision to remove a large amount of river rock that had been uncovered when they put in the roads where we were living at the time.
*Picking up, loading, and moving lots of those to pallets. These are good sized stones for building with so this was pretty heavy work.
*Milling the logs that were given to us into boards for our shed.
*Asking lots of questions.
*Deciding how and when to tell family and friends about our plans.
We didn't know for sure if we would really be able to get financing on such an unconventional plan but we were going to do everything we possibly could to make sure we did! I'll add more detail on some of these separate things in future posts and include some pictures where I can.
I'm not sure just what's in store for me today. It's cold and rainy so it's sort of one of those wrap up in a quilt with something good to read days. My Hobby Farms magazine just arrived and it looks like it's got some good articles in it this time. Home dairying, fencing, backyard grain production, and an herbed zucchini cheese bread recipe that sounds wonderful.
But first, my daughter has asked me to make some yams....the marshmallowy ones. Strange breakfast request but maybe it's the weather. Sounds good to me though so I think I just will.
Our friend Frank the Logger
In search of a tent we went first to our friend Frank. Frank built his own home and he's a big believer in pursuing your dreams. So when we asked if he had an outfitters tent we could borrow he looked at us in his Frank way and said "Yeah, what for?" After hearing our plan he scrunched up his face with a thoughtful look and said "Oh, you guys don't want to live in a tent. Why don't you just build yourself a shed like mine here and live in something like that? Only took me 4 days to build."
We went home and thought about it. We would need to double the size, his was only 12x12. We knew what we would use for rafters but that still involved buying lumber for walls, roofing materials, etc. We decided we needed to go back to the tent idea. When we went back to Frank he still didn't want to see us living in a tent.
*"As it happens", Frank had a pile of big logs he was thinking about using to make himself a garage.
*"As it happens", those logs were stacked in Franks wood yard right next to his SAWMILL.
*"As it happens", Frank offered to give us all those logs.
*"As it happens", Frank wanted to let us use his sawmill to make them into lumber.
At this point it became apparant that our plans were beginning to take on a life of their own.
So we let go of the tent plan and adopted the shed plan.
We still had a lot of work ahead of us to convince the bank to take a risk on our project. When it came time to make our presentation, we wanted to have as many supplies gathered as possible to show them just how serious we were. We had to prove that we could gather the materials we needed for the house which included stone and wood, and show them a design that would meet the criteria for a house built "to code", and now we were adding milling logs into boards and designing a shed to the mix.
With Sam working all day during the week, this left late nights and weekends to accomplish the goal. Starting right then in mid March we began to put every spare minute toward the task at hand. Every Saturday and Sunday as well as every evening after Sam got off work were filled. Some nights we would meet over at Franks place to mill wood and some nights we were up late in front of the computer finding pricing for building supplies we had never heard of. I would price and price and price things while Sam would be sitting at the dining room table with a great big fat book about International Residential Codes. Of all the things we had to do to get ready for that bank presentation it was the brain work that was the hardest. The physical labor we were doing was tiring but made us feel so alive.
We were learning and doing so many new things. Life was busy but most certainly exciting. Frank continued to play a big role in our success. He had taken us under his wing. Time and time again it was his grin that spurred on our far fetched plans. He provided us with that initial wood supply and added so much more as time went on. He loaned us the use of his trailer for pulling trees out of the woods. He taught us how to use his sawmill. Frank was intrumental in helping us get to where we are today.
One thing though, the next time Frank says "Only took me 4 days"......I will be asking A LOT more questions!!!
What is a YURT?!!
Before we were going to convince anyone we could build this house we wanted we were going to have to convince ourselves that we could actually live on the land while building. Continuing to pay rent plus our new land payment would not be an option.
The first thing most people think of when considering doing something like this is to purchase a mobile home of some sort, park it on the property, and live in it while building their house. Though this is the perfect answer for some, it wasn't what we wanted. First of all we weren't able and didn't want to have to spend the money on one and second of all it just didn't appeal to us. So we began looking into our options.
There was the Yurt idea. If you've never heard of one of these you can type the word into google to see what they are. Essentially they are portable round structures created out of a lattice design with a dome type roof and then covered in a heavy canvas. One of our friends mentioned that they look like a circus tent.
Here is a photo of what one looks like.
These are based on a Mongolian design that nomads have used for years while moving from place to place. We were fascinated with this idea. We did a lot of investigation including going to visit a yurt maker in NW Montana but finally realized that the cost of getting one with all the extras we would need such as a wind kit and snow load kit would have been too expensive. Our temporary living had to be something we could afford to do without added financing. We investigated actually making our own yurt from designs we found but felt that any energy spent on making something ought to be something more permanent. Although this option didn't work for us, we really think they are neat and I'll always wonder what it would have been like to live in a yurt. (Maybe on another adventure!)
So, the yurt led us to the next idea one step down. A tent. Yes, I can hear the gasps now. At one point in my life I would have been gasping along with you! So that you will understand the transformation that was taking place in me, you should know that I am like most females I know. I need stability. I crave order and beauty. A lovely home large enough for my family of 5 is my dream.
For years my mom got me a subscription to Victoria magazine (that's NOT Victoria Secrets!) and each time an issue arrived I would fill up our big tub with some bath scent from Crabtree and Evelyn, light several candles, and disappear into dream world while I drooled over all the old beautiful homes with lots of built in this or thats. Antiques and lace galore! The gardens were stunning cottage flower gardens. Most of the photos came from the East Coast where all the very old homes and antiques live. I dreamed of the day my home would look like one of these. Little did I know the journey to getting there!But we were in Montana now and our dream was within reach. Somehow we found the article I have listed on the sidebar about the Tent in Tok. We were fascinated with the fact that these people packed up everything, found a remote property in ALASKA and lived in a TENT for 13 months! They spent every single day during the winter going out and cutting 2 cords of firewood. One they used to heat their tent that night and the other they sold to get enough money for gas and food so they could do it all over again the next day. During the coldest part of the winter they were burning a cord of wood every day! We figured, "Hey if they can do that in Alaska then surely we can do it in Montana."
So off we went to ask if any of our friends had an outfitters tent we could borrow during our building process. Not glamorous by any means but something we thought we could live with and most certainly within our budget!
Oh the adventure of it all....
The wild woods were calling
Another chapter in the Dream.
We had made it to Montana. We loved the house we were renting. We spent hours sitting near the river at night while being warmed by the fire from the pit we had made out of river rocks. We rested and recovered from the hard times we had faced.
We felt God had given us this place as a refuge for a season.
After several months of simply being, and enjoying, we began to think about what must come next. What we saw locally in houses for sale was depressing. Nothing in our price range was going to satisfy our souls need for beauty that was for sure.
As "fate" would have it I one day came across a magazine I had never seen before. The Feb/March 2004 issue of Mother Earth News had a cover story called "Build Your Home for $5000". I picked it up, read the article, and bought the magazine to bring home and show to Sam. Thus the adventure began.
We started looking up anything and everything we could find on the internet about people who had moved to bare land and built their own homes. Every personal story we read was full of adventure and challenge. Each persons story was as individual as their handprint. The reasons people did what they did were vast. Many had philosophies about the earth, many just wanted to be far from the reaches of mainstream society, and many just wanted to have a beautiful home of their own in the woods. Whatever their reasons, their stories inspired us. I have added some links in the sidebar to a few of the stories we enjoyed.
We began to look for undeveloped land. Prices in our area were rising rapidly due to growth so we knew we needed to move quickly. We had hoped to find a place with at least 20 acres. We looked and looked (I am a shopper arounder and a very SLOW decision maker). One of the first properties we looked at captured our hearts but wasn't as many acres as we wanted. We continued looking. We found another one with 20 acres......it was too costly. We found another one (20 acres).....but wells in the area had to be dug so deep for a tiny flow of water that it would have priced us out just to put in a well. Most other places we were finding were either treeless or so far out it was another mountain safari to reach them. Since Sam works in town and we don't homeschool, the daily trips would have been too much.
Our thoughts kept returning to that first property we'd seen. Lots of trees, a creek on the property, 10 miles out of town but still on a county road, only 7 acres. After about one full year of looking (I did say I was slow!) we finally decided to make an offer on the 7 acres. It had just been sold. I was heartsick. I had trouble letting go. For a week I mourned. Then I decided to pray. A dear neighbor agreed with me and we began to pray that if God had this property for us and we had moved too slow, that He would return it. That was in mid February 2005.
One month later, on March 15th I got an e-mail from Sam at work. The bold red letters said, "GUESS WHAT! THE 7 ACRES IS OPEN!" This time there was no waiting. We made an offer that day. It was accepted and the land we thought we had lost had been graciously returned to us. In my heart I knew it was God's confirmation that this was where He had been leading us.
Our next challenge was to get the bank to believe that a city couple from Iowa who had never built anything could and would really build a house for the small amount they said they could.
Stay tuned!
Where to live.....
The continuing saga of our journey.
Our new job was secured, but before leaving Montana to go home there was the issue of where we were going to be living once we moved here. After our wonderful night at the resort we spent the entire next day with a realtor looking at houses. (This is the same lady who had taken us on the mountain safari when we first arrived). After many many discouraging attempts we realized that there was no house for sale in our price range that we would even come close to wanting to buy. The plan to rent was really almost no better as we had been told that there were very few rental places in the area. Enter the next WOW moment of our trip. We asked the realtor if she knew of any rentals available. After first telling us that she didn't know of any she paused for a moment and sort of smiled. Then she said, "You know, I like you guys. I might just be willing to rent you my place. I wouldn't be willing to rent it to just anybody, but I LIKE you guys!"
This lady had purchased a home and had owned it for less than a year before meeting and falling in love with someone out of town. She was spending less and less time at her home and more and more at his but still wanted to keep her place to allow a little more equity to grow before selling it. So she invited us to drive out and look at it. During the 10 mile drive out of town I wondered how we were going to gracefully decline if her place was less than desireable.
As soon as we pulled up into the driveway my concern immediately vanished. The house was small but very nicely kept and had a garage and a beautiful large yard out front. It only got better as we went inside and I saw the nice clean BIG kitchen with TONS of cabinets and counters (my own kitchen at home was very small and lacked enough cabinet and counter space so this really gave me a thrill!) Right off the kitchen was a little dining area with sliding doors out to the back yard. The view? More unkept city houses all crowed together with people everywhere? Nope. We found ourselves to be looking out across the beautiful Clark Fork River with nothing on the other side but trees and a little sandy area of beach. The bank of the river was literally at the edge of her back yard. She had made a path that sloped down where you could walk right up to the waters edge and on the bank leading down was a beautiful rock garden with strawberry plants scattered all through out.
Well, of course you know we had just found what would come to be our place of refuge, rest, and recovery. We worked out all the details with our new friend (whose name is DeeDee by the way!) and headed back to Iowa to pack up, sell our house, and say our goodbyes. Our visit to Montana and the job offer was in mid August of 2003. We returned to stay at the end of September and Sam started his job with the bank on October 1st.
This move from Iowa to Montana, from a big city to a small town, from everyone we knew to everything being new was just the beginning. In the days and months to come we would begin to open up our eyes to a whole new vision for our home.
The job and how it happened.
I had last stopped writing at the part of our story where the kids and I took off in search of ice cream while my husband completed the rest of the interview. We all enjoyed that treat and then went back to our hotel to wait for Sam to get back. We had started that interview at about 4pm, the kids and I left at around 5:30pm, and we waited for Sam until 9pm. Boy was my mind ever spinning while I waited and wondered what was happening! When he finally did arrive (the bank president drove him to the hotel) we were starving and he was filled with hope.
After a modest meal out, Sam and I spent long into that night talking about what the reponsibilities and benefits of this job would be. While we were still excited about the possibilities we were concerned at the issue of salary. Turns out, Sanders county is the poorest county in Montana. Therefore, the salary would reflect that. Same job description in Missoula might be $10,000 a year higher in pay. Same job in a BIG city would be much higher in pay. We began to wonder if we could even meet all of our expenses. All the other benefits were great and the days off were amazing but we went to sleep without that sure sense of what we should do if given an offer.
When morning came we had to check out of our hotel and get started on our journey home. Remember, one night was all our $600 trip money would allow. When the phone rang and the bank president (Mike) wanted to stop over and talk with us before we left I went into a state of panic. Surely this meant they were NOT offering a position since if they were going to it could have been done over the phone. He was coming to meet us to say "Hey, nice to meet you but I'm here to let you down easy." I told Sam that when he arrived I wanted to just stay in the van and not be present for the bad news. It wasn't until I realized that we might lose it that my mind became clear to the knowing that this really WAS what I had been wanting.
Minutes later we were all checked out and in the van when Mike drove in. Sam got out to meet him. They spoke for about 20 seconds and Sam came to the window and said "Can you come over here for a minute?" Not what I wanted to do!
As we stood there side by side we experienced one of those life changing moments. Mike told us that they would like to offer us the job. But that they didn't feel we had seen enough of the area so they had booked a room for us at Quinn's Hot Springs Resort so that we could have another day here and all go swimming that night in the hot springs pools. Jaw drop, silly grins. "We would also like to advance you $3000 of your first years salary to get you some money right away. In addition we will pay for ALL of your moving expenses including the moving truck, gas, lodging, and food along the way." Were we interested?
At that moment, all doubt about should we or shouldn't we was immediately gone. We stood there looking at each other with smiles a mile wide nodding our heads and shaking hands. We had been bold enough to ask for the cash advance but had assumed that it was what we would use for moving expenses. The offer of the advance PLUS all expenses paid was "abundantly more than we could possibly ask or imagine". God was indeed blessing this move.
We spent that day looking about our new town with the knowledge that we were once again employed, heading into a terrific adventure, and had plenty of gas money for the trip back to Iowa.
That night we celebrated! Dinner for 5 of us at the resort restaurant, a swim in the hot springs, and the best nights sleep Sam and I had had in a very long time!
The Family Interview
Here I am once again traveling along the road of memories.............
After 24 hours of being in the car, very little sleep, and a safari ride up and down a bouldered mountain road that has made most of us a little sea sick, we were headed off for "The Interview". Due to the fact that we had not expected a 6 mile distance from the main highway to take us well over an hour we were now pretty pressed for time as we rushed along to our hotel. By the time we arrived we had about 45 minutes to run everyone through the shower, change clothes, and get to the bank. Different from any interview I had ever heard of, we were ALL going!
We arrived at the bank at 4pm and were ushered in to the conference room where we all sat down at a big oval table. Sam was dressed in his nice bankerly clothes and all the rest of us were in shorts. There were about 4 bank officers present as well. There were introductions and laughter over our jaunt up the mountain. The area we were in was well known to locals. It is recommended that you don't go up "Snitch Creek" (pronounced crick
) without an invitation or you'll likely be met by someones gun!
Once we got started into more serious matters our two oldest children sat quietly drawing and I kept the youngest on my lap whispering promises of icecream for staying nice and still.
One of the main things I remeber that interview being about was whether or not we really were ready to live in such a small community. We had been living in a city of 120,000 people and they were all worried we would get here and hate it. Often the eyes were on me. Comments like, "Our movie theater plays one movie a week on Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm." "The nearest Walmart is an hour and a half away." "The newspaper comes out on Wednesdays." We later found out that they had trouble in the past hiring employees who thought they wanted to live in a small town. Their experience was that it was usually the husband who wanted the mountain experience and that the wife ended up hating it. Being a hunting community there are not a whole lot of "girly" things about. If you were a shopping addict you could forget it! My honest response was that I couldn't say for sure having never lived in a small town but that I was fully a part of the decision process and was not being pulled along for the ride.
The next issue: If finances were so tight, how did we plan to be able to move here if hired? We had actually talked about this in the van heading over and had decided we would ask for some kind of a hiring bonus. Never mind that we had never experienced that sort of fancy thing before, what did we have to lose by asking?
Sam was hysterical. He was so relaxed it was funny. I remember him leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head relating all the harrowing experiences of the past year during our self-employment. Being a bank, when the inevitable question came around "Is there anything on your credit report we would need to be concerned about?" Sam got a big grin on his face, nodded his head, and replied "ABSOLUTELY!"
I, being of sound mind, realized this was an excellent opportunity for the children and I to head off for that icecream!
How we got there and what happened next....
Montana here we come! Oh yeah. The gas, hotel, and food............
I don't remember exactly how it came about (many things about those days have become foggy because so much was happening so quickly) but upon hearing about our interview in Montana, one of our family members who understood the call of the west promptly mailed us an unexpected gift of $600 which we determined was enough for gas there, a one night stay once there, a bit of food, and MAYBE enough to get back to Iowa. So............we went to the library and checked out 100 library books to keep the 3 kids (ages 10, 8, and 6) occupied in the van, loaded up and took off. The red engine light? Still on. Only prayer kept me sane over this one. I had to force myself not to think about the "what if's" of vehicle breakdown somewhere in South Dakota or Wyoming in the middle of the night.
We knew that $600 was only going to last so long for a 3000 mile journey so we saved everywhere we could. We packed food to take along rather than eating out and we also planned to drive as long as we could into the night and then pull over to a rest stop to sleep. I can't remember how far we made it during that first part of the drive but I know that by the time we actually made it to our destination we had been in the van traveling in the same clothes and with little sleep, WITH 3 KIDS, for about 24 hours straight. Thankfully there were no mechanical breakdowns.
So now we are nearing the little town with the "drool property" I talked about a few days ago where it was advertised "40 acres just 6 miles off a paved road where you can watch bears, mountain lions, and big horn sheep from your living room." I was looking down at the map to see how close we were getting to where we needed to be when my husband Sam started shouting......"There's a BEAR, there's a BEAR, THERE'S A BEAR IN THE ROAD!" I looked up from the map just in time to see an adorable little black bear cub waddling across the road. IT'S a SIGN! God is indeed blessing this trip. I will always believe that the bear crossing that road was put there by God just to bless US and let us know that He knew the desires of our hearts.
We went just a few more miles after that moment still high on the thrill of seeing a BEAR........when we stopped and called the realtor to see if she would give us directions to the property. We still had a couple of hours before the interview was scheduled and wanted to go and look at it. She hesitated on the phone and said something like "I think I'd better just meet you over there and you can follow me up" indicating that it was not an easy place to find.
Without going in to every single detail about that excursion I will just tell you that it may have been only 6 miles off the paved road, but it must have taken about 30 minutes to go those 6 miles. We are talking a real mountain road here folks with ruts and boulders like our poor van had never seen before! As we were creeping up this moutain I was getting more and more stressed, the kids were beginning to feel car sick, and my husband had a grin on his face like the Cheshire cat! I don't even know that the run down places we were driving by or the dirt driveway with the keep out sign chained shut by a row of beer cans phased him. Anyway, by the time we got to the top, let's just say no one was drooling any more! Sam looked around and asked 1000 questions while the girls looked up at me in fear..."MOM......?????" and Caleb sat in the van looking like he was going to be sick. After assuring the girls that we would NOT be living up here and getting Sam back into the van we began our 30 minute trip down. By the time we were at the bottom even Sam had to admit that this place was just a little more "remote" than even he was willing to go!
Unfortunately I am out of blog time for right now as it's time to think about making supper but I'll write more soon about the interview. Thanks for dropping in with me while I take my trip down memory lane
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He Leadeth Us......To MONTANA!
Good morning. I have just spent a long time reading and reading some blogs and my eyes are already tired but I get started and just don't want to stop. They are all so WONDERFUL!
Yesterday I started to tell the story of our adventure in moving to Montana. It is such a miracle story. We had no income, no savings, no cash. Everything that could be liquidated was already sold. What does someone do when finding themselves in such a situation? Well, look for land to purchase of course! As I mentioned, we found a property that just got us even more excited to move to the "wild west". So I said to Sam, "Well, if we're going to move there you're going to need a job. Here. This is a list of a bunch of banks in the area. Call them." Which is exactly what he did.
After several aborted efforts he finally made a phone call to a bank in a small northwest Montana town with a population of about 1200 people. It was 6 miles from the "drool over" property. He was put in contact with the president of the bank and was on the phone with him for I think about 2 hours. After hanging up the phone Sam came to me wide eyed and shaking his head. "You are never going to believe THIS!"
Although the bank was not advertising for any openings, they had been "searching" for "the right person" for a position they were creating for about 2 years. Turns out the bank president had told my husband that if everything Sam had told him on the phone was true, it seemed as though he might just be that person. Of course he couldn't just offer him a job over the phone without meeting him......."and your wife and kids".
How many future bosses want to meet the wife and kids?!!! To add to the wonder of it all, Sam said one of the interview questions was whether he was the kind of guy who was involved with his kids. Did he, you know, go to school events and things of that nature? The kicker was that he WANTED him to be that guy! Being a small community, this was how he was going to get to know the people in town! Could this be for real that there really was a job out there where the boss wants to meet the wife and kids and actually wants the employee to be an involved parent that attends school plays, sporting events, and Christmas programs? I guess only a trip to Montana for an interview would let us know.
The problem now, as you may have already surmised, is how in the world are we going to manage a trip to Montana that may or may NOT produce a job? Gas, food, and lodging for 1500 miles (one way!) and a van with a bright red engine light. Hmmm.
A bit of our Montana story........
I thought I would share some of the tale of our journey to Montana with you all so you can understand the gratefulness we feel to have landed here on this most awesome and beautiful piece of earth.
For many many years my husband Sam and I would sit and dream about one day having enough money to move out west and buy property in the mountains to build a home on. Most of those conversations just centered on BEING in the mountains with no real goal in mind. Seems like Saturday morning breakfasts over pancakes with our kids was when the conversations would always begin. Unfortunately, as a young married couple with 3 kids, the imaginations and dreams always bummed out when the "how can we make it happen?" question would arise. We were a single income family so that I could be at home full time with the kids. The income to pick up and move across country (we were in Iowa), purchase land, and build a house just was NOT there.
After painting houses for several years, a short art business, more house painting, working for a finance company, and giving a try at self employment in the insurance and investment industry, we were burnt out. Try as we might to figure out how to "make it" enough to finance the dream, it just wasn't going to happen.
Finding ourselves once again in job transition Sam looked at me one day and said, "You know, why don't we just move to the mountains?" After I stood looking at him like maybe he had gone insane he continued..."We've always talked about wanting to move west into the mountains. If not now then WHEN?" I had to concede the point. We were in job transition anyway and our kids were getting older and settled into their school. I had just "graduated" from an 11 year period in MOPS (Mother's of Preschoolers) and was wondering what was next for me. BUT HOW? WHERE? WAS I REALLY READY TO MOVE? We finally decided that Sam would continue his job search locally but would also begin looking into something "West".
Once we were both fully on board with the possibility of moving to pursue the dream even though it meant moving far away from friends and family we stopped trying to figure out exactly HOW to make it happen and just let ourselves start believing that perhaps it COULD. We did things backwards of most "sensible" people. Although there was no job in hand we sat down at the computer and started looking for properties in 5 different western states. When it became clear that it was just too difficult to cover such a large area we decided that of all the 5 states, Montana just FELT right! So, we narrowed our search and found a property that got us drooling and pointed us in the right direction.
I think it's time to end this post before people decide it looks too long to read but I'll pick up the story at this point next time. I'm hoping that there's someone out there who is dreaming a dream and can take heart from our story that they really CAN come true even though you may feel like it is utterly impossible.
About Me
My husband and I along with our 3 children, moved from Iowa to Montana 3 years ago fulfilling a long time dream of living in the mountains. Last summer we purchased and moved onto our bare land and are currently living in our home made cabin which has evolved from a shed to a barn to our cabin and future guest house. The foundation for what we now call "The big house" is dug and waiting for our next burst of energy!
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