Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
spanners that held the overhead joists. The fireplace
opening will be wider than doors or windows, and is
almost always in the gable end, or shorter dimension.
Short spacer logs, which were left between win-
dows or doors, are hard to locate. Remember that
most early cabins were built of complete, long logs
with the openings sawed out later. So plot the course
of each sectioned log from big notched end to small
notched end, by size, taper, and signs like matching
checking cracks.
Dismantling is slow and dangerous. Heavy logs,
sometimes with nails protruding, are prone to fall on
the unwary. And more than once, I have encountered
snakes reposing in hollows where chinking had fallen
out. Bees and buzzards love abandoned buildings and
make their removal an added challenge. Rats, dogs,
and birds have left their spoor (and desiccated car-
casses) everywhere, and dust is usually thick. Once I
even removed a roof to let the rain wash down the rest
of the cabin, but it didn't help much.
Respirators are necessary for everyone on the proj-
ect. Get good ones, with replaceable filters. They'll
cost $20 to $30 apiece but are well worth it.
My favorite dismantling time is winter, when poi-
son ivy, snakes, ticks, chiggers, and wasps are dormant.
Winter landscapes are better for spotting cabins, too.
Perhaps more involved than most dismantlings was
the Murphys'. It was a community affair, sort of a
house-razing, if you will. We converged on the impos-
sibly high mountain in Newton County, Arkansas,
with an assortment of four-wheel drives, one heavy
pickup truck, and several trailers. It was a weekend in
May, just after a lot of rain, so several folks got stuck
in mud holes in the old logging road that wound up
the hill. It was here we were challenged by a neighbor
who informed us the road was closed to the public,
and who never really believed the letter we had from
the former owner.
I spent most of an hour trying to convince him we
were all good old boys, not being helped at all by the
sunglasses and colorful garb of the others, while they
got their vehicles unstuck. Finally he and I recalled a
mutual bulldozer operator acquaintance, who was
then in jail, he informed me, and talked about some
other folks I thought I dimly remembered. He finally
even offered to help us out of the mud, except that his
back was sort of out, from having “drove fence posts
yesterday,” but by then we were ready to go, anyway.
Well, it rained all weekend. I was more or less gain-
fully employed at the time, and was expected to be on
hand for a special event at work, so my wife, Linda,
and I visited the site late each afternoon. We witnessed
the soggy camp as it grew soggier, the demolition of
the cabin and of the foodstuffs, the dampening spirits.
By Sunday we decided to evacuate the pickup and
its tandem-wheeled trailer before the alternate road
became impassable, too. This road ran straight down
the mountain over boulders higher than the red clay
was deep, so of course we high-centered often. Then
we winched back up to bring down most of the short
Restored cabins showing log and frame additions.
