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This is a summary of the construction of a couple of round timber structures built on my land to hold PV panels. These beautiful structures were entirely built from material taken from my land, with the exception of some concrete and fasteners.
Earlier this year I purchased 4.5 kW of Yingli PV [photovoltaic, or solar-electric] modules -- these will supply all the electrical power I need for my Pentagon House in the Hoosier National Forest.
Where to put them?
I looked at mounting them on the roof -- but the slope is very non-optimal, with obstructions, and, I'm planning in the future to add insulation above the shingles and covering it with metal roofing -- so installing the PV on the roof now would create hassles in the future.
So, I decided upon a couple of PV shading structures on the north side of my pond. Now, I knew how to build such a structure using treated dimensioned lumber from Home Depot, a chop saw and a screw gun -- but that is not what I wanted ... not what I wanted at all. I wanted something a bit more artistic ... perhaps, built of logs from trees on my property -- but had no skill or knowledge of how to do that.
Bird Snider
I was lucky to meet a Brown County native, Bird Snider, a banjo player in the White Lightning Boys and frequently at the Blue Grass Jam in Otis Todd's garage on Thursday evenings.
Bird is an authentic Brown County woodsman -- expert in the local fauna and flora; a legendary mushroom hunter; woodcraft artisan (he built his own log cabin all by himself made of huge timbers); home builder and musical instrument builder.
So, with me as Bird's helper, we embarked upon building a couple of round log structures. Note: when I say "we" that means "Bird doing all the work with TimE. watching, and providing a little help here and there, but mostly trying staying out of the way"!
Tues 10 Aug 2010 -- Day 1: Felling the Trees
Bird came by at around 11:00 with his chain saw and axe. We had previously identified trees for the posts, beams and rafters, putting purple ribbons around them.
This first day, working in about 95 degree F heat with 85% relative humidity, Bird fell about 10 - 15 trees, de-branched them and sectioned them. He worked without a shirt in shorts and sandels. When I cut, I wear the helmet, chaps, boots and gloves -- but trust me -- he works much more safely than I, and cuts a tree in 1/10th the time I could, never once getting the saw pinched! He plays the chainsaw as he plays the banjo -- instinctively!
I thought it was too hot to work -- but Bird just worked like a machine -- at the end of the day, I was sunburnt, eyes blood-shot, and reeling. And Bird did all the chainsaw work.
We took a nice refreshing dip in the lake at the end of the day.
When I bought my land in 1985, there was about 2 acres of cleared land. I planted a few hundred seedling from the DNR -- poplar tulips, white oak, red and white pine, dogwoods, red river birch, black locust, and many others. The Poplars are one of the fastest growing hardwoods -- most of those I planted back in 1987 were already too large for this work -- but some of their children were perfect. The poplars grow very straight and the lumber from these trees, if vertical and kept off the ground, will outlast my remaining years.
Wed 11 Aug 2010 -- Day 2: Fetching and De-Barking the Timbers
Today Bird brought his little tractor, and again working in extreme heat, we pulled all the timbers from the forest and began de-barking them with his axe.
Even with the tractor, often pulling 3 logs at a time, it took half the day to pull them from the forest.
According to Bird, the trees need to be felled while the sap is up; once the sap has fallen, the bark is bonded to the wood and cannot be removed. Bird says its important to remove the back because the bugs like to get in under the bark.
The first step in the debarking process is using the axe to cut and peal a strip off the length of the timber.
The next step is to use the axe, or another implement, to then peal the bark from the rest of the timber.
In some cases, for the thicker timbers, we took the bark off the timber in one large single sheet -- some of these we put between pieces of plywood in the Pyramid House to press them flat -- they can be used to laminate things such as table tops. After pealing the bark off in a single piece, both the bark and timber are slick with sap, and I've never seen such a low coefficient of friction before in my life -- the log would slide right off of the bark if on the slightest grade.
In other cases the bark was removed in long strips -- Bird demonstrated how these strips, when still wet and flexible, can be fashioned into baskets and mats -- he says [now that they have dried out] that I could throw them into the pond for a few days and probably get them workable again in the future].
In the "olden days", while the guys were debarking trees, the women would probably have sat around laughing at the guys and fashioning baskets and mats! (and maybe making food!). That would be fun, huh?
When the timbers are first debarked, they are beautiful! They look like marble or extruded plastic. Over a few days time the sap will turn brown and even mildew. We shall later bleach the timbers and treat with a good oil.
Below is a the day's work in debarking! We're about half-done with de-barking.
The wood siding on the car-barn/workshop to the right is also poplar -- it has been sitting there, untreated, for about 35 years, turning a nice grey. The timber structure I shall clean, bleach, and treat, and so it shall not be grey.
Thurs 12 Aug 2010 -- Day 3: Finish Debarking and Start Clearing the Pond Dam
Today was even hotter -- up to 98 F -- but the humidity was lower -- about 58%, and some of the day [de-barking operation] was performed in the shade, so much better.
I have a new job -- I make frozen fruit smoothies all day to keep us refreshed -- yesterday orange and apple; today, strawberry and banana. What to make tomorrow??? I also give ice-cubes with biscuits inside to the dogs [Nashoba, my dog, and Putter, Bird's dog] to keep them cool.
[Below: Putter on the left and Nashoba on the right enjoying their ice cubes].
We completed all the debarking of the logs today.
After completing the debarking of all the logs, we did work clearing the area around the pond for the structures -- cutting down pines and shrubs and using the tractor to move some rocks to begin lining the North side of the pond dam to prevent erosion from the water running off the PV structures.
This picture below shows Bird using the tractor to un-earth rocks from my rock pile and chase the snakes out, and the next pictures shows the beginning of work on the North pond dam, the building site.
Friday 13 Aug 2010 -- Day 4: Lining the Pond with Rocks
Today we harvested more good surface rocks from my land to line the pond, and did more clearing of the building site.
Having a tractor completely changes one's conception of what is, or is not, possible and easy!
While looking for good rock, Bird points out an artifact on one of the rocks -- this rock has been used, sometime long in the past, for cracking nuts. Nuts were placed in the depression, and then hit with another rock on top -- nicely breaking open the nut. Bird demonstrated this, and I will tell you, it works much faster, easier, and better than using pliers or channel locks.
Below is a close-up of the artifact.
By the end of the day we had the north side of the pond lined with rock.
