house stuff 071

house stuff 071
Originally uploaded by Woody Dam Road

Here's our modest little place how it looked last week. Finally got the joists for the deck laid out--no decking yet! All the structural lumber is pressure treated stuff from a local building supply place. We're going to deck it out in cedar though so anything that the kiddos can come into contact with will be inert (and pretty looking, I might add). I bought the cedar from Robbins whose place is not two miles from us. He runs a two person logging operation where he fairly sustainably cuts pine. He keeps the cedar for himself and mills it on a band saw mill and then sells it on the side.

Recently Robbins has been logging a few acres of our neighbors property so Ossie has gotten to see Richard Scarry's account of What Do People Do All Day firsthand, for himself. The other day, Ossie went with me to Robbin's place to pick up some cedar. This was a drawled event, in time without rush, where the destination is approached sideways. It's one of the things I love about the rural South.

Ossie was shy at first with the unfamiliar dogs that were first to greet us but soon enough climbed out of the truck and, in affirmation that all was alright, listed the names of our dogs for Robbins. Ossie wandered with his new dog friends between stacks of cedar and around the mill while Robbins and I talked. We checked out the pool, chatted with Robbins' wife and daughter, watched a blue bird tending to a new nest, and then loaded cedar. It was the perfect way to procure lumber.

On the way back home, we stopped at the place where Robbins had finished logging but still had cedar logs stacked waiting to be brought back to his place. Ossie and I talked about the whole process, from tree, to being felled, to Robbins' mill, to lumber, to us buying it (in this case for a job I'm working on). We smelled the cedar and picked up a piece to bring home and share with momma.