A cabin begins?

Getting out to work on the property has been, well, a struggle. But I got out enough to start on what we will call a foundation for now. With no ferry, (a whole nother post right there) getting the materials across the bay to do this right has been nigh on impossible. So, I am exploring alternative building methods.

One thought was to go ahead and try building with just logs. Ever try to move a tree with a fourwheeler? Decided not to go that way.

A few days of head scratching, and looking at houses to buy (right), a chance conversation resulted in a Plan. I had been called to look at a broken dump truck by a neighbor (kinda), but he had fixed it by the time I got a hold of him. We got to talking and he offered to cut me lumber for the cabin on his sawmill. Lumber Baby! No stacking up trees I can't even move! Yeah!

So, we are going to put up a very simple 16x24 cabin with 12/12 pitch roof and a loft. It will be built on logs laid on the pad. I know I will be revisiting the foundation in 5-10 years as a result, but need it up NOW.

Also started working on the out-house, kinda important if we are going to out there working, ya know?

Here is the site as of today:

The way in!

This last week we worked on a way to get into the cabin without tearing up the swamp any further. It was getting a little soft from more than a few trips in and out over the last year with fourwheelers and the buggy.

 My Son Travis showing off the hard work on a boardwalk over the swamp, and our beater Honda 4wheeler.

This our other helper. A $500 Kubota 4x4 tractor I found in Cordova. This picture is Christmas Day 2012, and that lump of snow behind it is my Wifes' Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Finally, some progress!

Wow, almost three years since the last post. We are starting on our Cabin in earnest this summer (if it ever gets here). We got started this winter with some help from Hopkins Bros. Construction. They brought some equipment in and cleared the cabin site of stumps, leveled a pad, and hauled in a travel trailer to the site.

This is the Site before we went to work on it. You can see that we have to go across the Muskeg to get there. That is my buggy in front of where the cabin will be.

This is February. We built a snow road in with a D-5 Cat.

 A little equipment time goes a long way...

 Like magic, starting to look like somewhere we could live.

Todays Sidetrack: the Ship I work on in Cordova, AK. The M/V Chenega. 19,000hp Fast catamaran car ferry.

These are four 10kw Lister generators I picked up in Ketchikan. One will end up being the powerplant for our homestead. They were old Alascom units.