MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES III
CABIN ON THE HILL
Wal, it warn't so much a cabin, as the idee o' one, but it worked out the same anyhow!
I couldn't begin to say exactly when the idea occurred to us, or why. I guess it was just something to do that summer. Us being the whole gang--my three brothers, a kid from up the hollow and couple of brothers from across the hill, probably more, but who was keeping count? Of course, the handiest place for a cabin was going to be on our hill since we had more votes than anybody else. And, besides, no one ever came on our hill except us, as far as we knew. And then again, it wasn't our hill, either. The land actually belonged to the guy my father rode to work with, but he never got out of the hollow to look at anything on that hillside so we kind of claimed it was ours as we were the ones who took care of it.
We cut trees for firewood and made basketball courts and campsites all over his hill. He knew about it and didn't mind. At least he knew someone was looking after it for him. We managed to pick all the blackberries off it too. The only thing we didn't get were all the squirrels, but there were plenty of them for everyone so why complain.
We picked our cabin site so that we had three goodly sized trees growing in the right spots for three of the corners, and a better than sapling sized tree for the fourth. The site was great, floor slanted two different ways, both downhill, but the view was great, especially when there were no leaves on the trees around it. We could see up the hollow for more than a half-mile, and, if you looked from the right spot, you could see the tavern over the other hill. And when the leaves were on the trees, you could almost walk up to it and never see it unless you knew it was there.
We began construction in the early spring by clearing all the underbrush and weeds in a circle around our chosen spot, then removing all the limbs from our corner trees up to about ten feet. We use d all the saplings in the immediate area for the side walls. We had to cut them just a little longer than we had intended as the cabin corner posts were just a little longer than we had intended. I need to say at the outset that we had decided that such things as rulers, squares and such nonsense had no place in our building. It should be noted here that after the initial clearing of the undergrowth, our work crew had diminished to those not excluded by the phrase 'probably more.' After a day of finding, cutting and limbing saplings we were down to the four of us and one of the guys from across the hill. That was alright, we had enough. The others just got in the way and bellyached all day anyway. Only two came back after lunch that first day, and they didn't show up again.
After getting the saplings attached on the sides (and this took about three weeks--we had to scrounge for nails anywhere we could and when we could.) We were then ready to tackle the roof. Now we were not engineers or architects but we could see we had a few problems right away. There was no way in the world we could span the length of the cabin with saplings, and to do it across from side to side would mean adding a beam down the center to carry the load.This would require some pretty hefty bracing and he saplings on the side were just not strong enough.
Some petty bickering arose and it was decided that each person would be responsible for covering only that portion of the roof that was above their bunk and it must be noted here that e had, at that point, not completed our built in bunks, either.) Complicating the problem was the disagreement as to where each persons bunk would be. After a few minor skirmishes, the fellow from across the hill quietly withdrew and we were left with just the four of us to complete the cabin. We proceeded to complete the shell and partial covering of the roof. Once saplings had gone across the beams (oh, the problem was solved by placing an upright beam in the center of the floor and radiating four larger sapling from it to the sides--not a perfect solution, but it worked) we gathered pine boughs and placed over the over the saplings. Not waterproof, but you'd be amazed at how well it kept out most light rains, and a misty rain was no problem at all.
Bunks were made of saplings (smaller) that had some give to them, usually hickory or (God forbid) sassafras. The normal bunk, if there was such a thing, were a combination of the two. Oh, mighty knowing woodsmen we were not. But I can tell you that sassafras, after it dries, is a s hard as a rock and is prone to break and give you a good jab in the nether parts of your body, or anywhere else it could.
We put a door on it, saplings of course. Never open right, never closed right, never had anything right about it, except that was the direction it swung --if you looked at it from the right direction, of course. How do you put hinges on a sapling? Not too easily and never effectively. We won't continue with that frustration. You can use your own imagination on that one.
But you know that old cabin was built sometime in the mid-fifties out of cut saplings nailed to growing trees and, no, I will not tell you that each year it rose five inches higher into the air, because it didn't. But it did stand for quite a long time for such an odd construction and we used it for hunting up through 1965. The bunks had rotted away and most of the side saplings were rotting away, all the roof was gone except for the beams and one small section. The door was gone the way of the rest of it. But the cabin did give a place to sit and wait for the squirrels to run in the oaks and hickories nearby. I thanked all of us many times while sitting there in that old cabin on cold wet mornings when I bagged a number of squirrels before anyone else did. And kept my seat dry at the same time.
Wal, it warn't so much a cabin, as the idee o' one, but it worked out the same anyhow!
I couldn't begin to say exactly when the idea occurred to us, or why. I guess it was just something to do that summer. Us being the whole gang--my three brothers, a kid from up the hollow and couple of brothers from across the hill, probably more, but who was keeping count? Of course, the handiest place for a cabin was going to be on our hill since we had more votes than anybody else. And, besides, no one ever came on our hill except us, as far as we knew. And then again, it wasn't our hill, either. The land actually belonged to the guy my father rode to work with, but he never got out of the hollow to look at anything on that hillside so we kind of claimed it was ours as we were the ones who took care of it.
We cut trees for firewood and made basketball courts and campsites all over his hill. He knew about it and didn't mind. At least he knew someone was looking after it for him. We managed to pick all the blackberries off it too. The only thing we didn't get were all the squirrels, but there were plenty of them for everyone so why complain.
We picked our cabin site so that we had three goodly sized trees growing in the right spots for three of the corners, and a better than sapling sized tree for the fourth. The site was great, floor slanted two different ways, both downhill, but the view was great, especially when there were no leaves on the trees around it. We could see up the hollow for more than a half-mile, and, if you looked from the right spot, you could see the tavern over the other hill. And when the leaves were on the trees, you could almost walk up to it and never see it unless you knew it was there.
We began construction in the early spring by clearing all the underbrush and weeds in a circle around our chosen spot, then removing all the limbs from our corner trees up to about ten feet. We use d all the saplings in the immediate area for the side walls. We had to cut them just a little longer than we had intended as the cabin corner posts were just a little longer than we had intended. I need to say at the outset that we had decided that such things as rulers, squares and such nonsense had no place in our building. It should be noted here that after the initial clearing of the undergrowth, our work crew had diminished to those not excluded by the phrase 'probably more.' After a day of finding, cutting and limbing saplings we were down to the four of us and one of the guys from across the hill. That was alright, we had enough. The others just got in the way and bellyached all day anyway. Only two came back after lunch that first day, and they didn't show up again.
After getting the saplings attached on the sides (and this took about three weeks--we had to scrounge for nails anywhere we could and when we could.) We were then ready to tackle the roof. Now we were not engineers or architects but we could see we had a few problems right away. There was no way in the world we could span the length of the cabin with saplings, and to do it across from side to side would mean adding a beam down the center to carry the load.This would require some pretty hefty bracing and he saplings on the side were just not strong enough.
Some petty bickering arose and it was decided that each person would be responsible for covering only that portion of the roof that was above their bunk and it must be noted here that e had, at that point, not completed our built in bunks, either.) Complicating the problem was the disagreement as to where each persons bunk would be. After a few minor skirmishes, the fellow from across the hill quietly withdrew and we were left with just the four of us to complete the cabin. We proceeded to complete the shell and partial covering of the roof. Once saplings had gone across the beams (oh, the problem was solved by placing an upright beam in the center of the floor and radiating four larger sapling from it to the sides--not a perfect solution, but it worked) we gathered pine boughs and placed over the over the saplings. Not waterproof, but you'd be amazed at how well it kept out most light rains, and a misty rain was no problem at all.
Bunks were made of saplings (smaller) that had some give to them, usually hickory or (God forbid) sassafras. The normal bunk, if there was such a thing, were a combination of the two. Oh, mighty knowing woodsmen we were not. But I can tell you that sassafras, after it dries, is a s hard as a rock and is prone to break and give you a good jab in the nether parts of your body, or anywhere else it could.
We put a door on it, saplings of course. Never open right, never closed right, never had anything right about it, except that was the direction it swung --if you looked at it from the right direction, of course. How do you put hinges on a sapling? Not too easily and never effectively. We won't continue with that frustration. You can use your own imagination on that one.
But you know that old cabin was built sometime in the mid-fifties out of cut saplings nailed to growing trees and, no, I will not tell you that each year it rose five inches higher into the air, because it didn't. But it did stand for quite a long time for such an odd construction and we used it for hunting up through 1965. The bunks had rotted away and most of the side saplings were rotting away, all the roof was gone except for the beams and one small section. The door was gone the way of the rest of it. But the cabin did give a place to sit and wait for the squirrels to run in the oaks and hickories nearby. I thanked all of us many times while sitting there in that old cabin on cold wet mornings when I bagged a number of squirrels before anyone else did. And kept my seat dry at the same time.
posted by tanstaafl | 5:19 PM
1 Comments:
Industrious young people, lol. I would have liked to have heard the squabbling. The most we ever had in town to compare to that were the refrigerator boxes my grandmother scouted out. At family reunions, though, we did have a sort of clubhouse--didn't require any effort on our part though. It was a little cave on a hillside by the creek. And, you know? I can't even remember now how to get to the place we used to have those reunions. There were bulls, though, loose in those woods...so we had to be careful. But it was pretty exciting, for young kids, that threat of being chased by bulls.
I love these, Tanstaafl. I really am enjoying them, and somehow they are reminding me of things in my own childhood I'd not thought of in a long, long time.
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