Last Saturday we made alot of progress on the cabin. We were able to get half of the chinking done on the front, and trim on the top two windows. This allowed us to take the top layer of scaffolding off and then during the week we were able to get both the lower front windows installed. We also got all the wood cut out of the east lower window. On our first window openings, we didn’t cut the logs to fit, we let them hang into the opening to save time and said we’d cut them later. Fortunately, we changed our minds after two because there was no time saved. On the contrary, it was difficult, tedious, and time consuming.

The chinking went much, much faster this time, because Roy and Dad constructed a giant hanging mortar board. We had been using two hand held ones that we made, that were about the size of a large pizza box. It worked well, except that they were very heavy…especially full of mortar…and we were wielding them on scaffolding. It was slow going. The new board is long and attaches directly to the logs, so we don’t have to hold the weight with one hand while chinking with the other. It is a very welcomed innovation. We were able to get halfway down in one short day (we didn’t get started until one o’clock due to work obligations), so one more full Saturday and the front should be finished and all the windows in (it is my lofty goal anyway)!