Yesterday was the first day of my log building course. It was a a good day, but I was really tired, and that seemed to make the hours drag on. In the morning we talked about some basics of log construction, and the history and evolution of not only the structures , but also the techniques and joinery uttilzed by log builders. It was pretty informative, but not really anything I didn’t already know.

We then went over our plans for the structure we’re building over the next 4 weeks. That’s is the basic “plan view” of the building above. I made it in Sketchup, and did it while James was talking about it and drawing a similar one on the blackboard. I would have just made some hand written notes to translate into Sketchup drawings later, but I completely forgot to bring a notebook, or even a fucking pen for that matter – I have a backpack with about $5000 worth of electronics in it, but it took me the better part of an hour to find a writing utensil. I plan to try and do everything in Sketchup, and the Gnome text editor, and then submit an impressive work journal at the end of the course. Not that I need to impress James – he already loves me I think! However, it would feel good for my own personal reasons to do that.

After all the classroom stuff, we quickly introduced ourselves to each other, then headed down to the workshop, where we disassembled some chainsaws, cleaned, oiled, then put them back together. Once we had a bunch of “good as new” chainsaws we went and watched as James unloaded some huge trees from the back of his boom truck, then we took lunch.

At lunch I headed over to Page’s marina to see about renting a cabin for a week when Holly comes – I would love to stay there, but I’m not sure I can afford it yet. Then I went and smoked some weed, and headed back.

After lunch we learned all about falling trees from one of the other guys taking the course. He’s been a logger in the north of Vancouver Island for over 25 years, and he’s incredibly precise with a chainsaw. He showed us all kinds of neat things, and did a few “domino” type drops, where he falls three or four of them at a time. At some point a tree got dropped on a fence, but no real damage occurred.

When I got back I called Holly, made some burgers, smoked a joint, then had a conversation with a friend who is going through some tough times right now.

Now it’s time to go wash my dirty bits, roll a joint, and throw on the rain gear. Stupid rain.