Winter comes quickly in the northwoods. The frost was heavy last weekend at Beatons. As we've been doing almost every weekend since August, we have been working on finishing the sauna haus or at least getting enough done so we can safely close if for the long winter.

Click on the box below to see the latest photos of the build-out

Beatons_October4_2008

Blogging from Beatons

This is my first attempt to blog from Beatons.

Being in the UP in not condusive to accessing anything remotely resembling a high speed internet connection. Yep, dial up is the only choice and at a whopping 24 kbps speed - it crawls at a snail's pace. Hence, there are no pictures with this post.

Today we got all the rafters in place on the sauna haus. Well, the guys are bolting them in still while there is some light left. But soon, we'll head over to Bonnie's for supper and an hour in her sauna to soothe the aching muscles.

My accomplishments today: 20 more ferns have been relocated, dodging the rain showers, 12 rafters painted, 1000 frisbees thrown for Mr. Teiko and my slow attempt to post to the blog.

Well, here's hoping the post makes it!

The sauna building is up!

It is amazing what six people can accomplish when they put their minds to something. With only the lifting power of three guys and a little extra help from three others, 10 beams, 3 posts, and 6 rafters where hefted into the air and up 16 feet to be put into place.

Adding the next layers of timbers, (king posts, side beams, ridge beam and the rafters) to the "dead nuts" foundation built last weekend by Todd and my dad, the building is almost completely framed in. There was some doubt by the elders if it was even possible to life 500 lb timbers with only three guys. But determination, teamwork and engineering ingenuity got that baby built over the course of the weekend.

When I wasn't helping to lift timbers, I hauled rocks to make some more retaining walls, landscaped a "fern gully" to help with erosion control, cooked food for the hungry workers, played with the pups, and painted all the beams with preservative.

Beatons Labor Day 2008 - The Build

To see the whole weekend of timber raising madness, double click on the photo above to go to the photo album.

Going to put up more timbers this weekend

Heading back to Beatons tonight to continue the timber raising that we began last weekend. One of the reasons we choose to go with a timber framed structure, is it's enduring nature, durabilty and strength. While we'll get plenty of use out of the sauna and future cabin, we are really building it for the next generations.
Pictured above is a 400 year old timber framed building in Bremen, Germany. Nestled in with other centuries-old buildings, these buildings really stand the test of time. I so fell in love with the Altstadt (Old City) when Todd and I visited.

Barn raising good time

Amazing.

That pretty much sums up last weekend's work at Beatons. My Dad and Todd worked their butts off raising the timber foundation of the sauna haus. With six posts glued into the concrete foundation, plummed and squared, they then proceeded to lift the several hundred pound cross beam timbers to their 8.3 foot high ledges.

From this foundation, the rafter and ridge beams will be placed next weekend to start to frame in the roof. The pictures don't really show how much physical labor was involved, but wow, My Dad was just an amazing master of the timbers. And Todd was no slouch either.
I was the chief painter this weekend. That involved, cleaning, baking and painting the hundreds of metal connectors that will be used. We went with a matte black finish on the metal work. It contrasts very nicely with the reddish colored Douglas Fir timbers. I also got to seal/paint all of the timbers to protect them from the elements.

Click on the gallery below to see larger pictures of our timber raising weekend.

A long weekend 'Up North'

Raine, me and the dogs headed up to Beatons last Thursday night for a long weekend. Todd and Ryann joined us late Friday night. Friday was Bonnie's birthday and she invited us out for a fish fry at the Root Cellar on Lake Gogebic. As you can see we had a pretty great time .
Bonnie's best birthday present is her new pup, Niinimoshenh or Moosha for short. The name means 'my sweetheart' in the Ojibwa language. Moosha is a Golden Retriever and is just a cutie-pututie. She latched on to Teiko right away.
Teiko was very gentle with the pup and was pretty fascinated by her. He even taught her where to go "potty" outside and had a few teaching moments of canine etiquette. This would happen when Moosha began doing something that Teiko didn't want her to . It wasn't a growl but more like a deep-chested rumble that was very quiet, but had Moosha obeying immediately. It was really interesting to watch how Teiko spent time with the young pup. Bonnie even asked if she could keep Teiko for a week to help her train Moosha. But it wasn't all play this weekend. Todd and Eric spent three days getting the timbers ready for the sauna house. The timber raising and buildout will be over Labor Day weekend. This weekend the guys cut all the rafter and beam pieces so the timbers will be ready to fit together. I spent Sunday morning re-staining the shed and outhouse while Beth hauled tons of rocks for a new stair well.On Monday, Beth and I built a log and stone stairwell into the side of the hill that leads to the new pier. It's so totally north woods! And couldn't have been any cheaper to build - All it took was several hours of hauling logs and stones and digging out trenches to set the logs. the material is free for the taking on the property, it's the labor and aching muscles that has a cost....

So a busy and fun-filled 'Up North" weekend. I've posted more pictures from the weekend at my picasa gallery. Click on the photo below to go there.

Beatons August 2008

The concrete has been poured

Last weekend we left Beatons with the floor of the future sauna waiting for the concrete. This past Friday, the new floor was poured. Yay! It looks great and really motivated Todd and I to work around the structure this weekend. Hauling rocks and boulders from all around the property, we were able to shore up the earthen walls around the sauna and build in a stairwell down to the pier. We did most of the rock hauling and Terra forming on Saturday with the last rocks being placed on Sunday morning before our drive home. She-Ra and He-Man heaved a couple of tons of rocks this weekend. Boy, did we sleep well on Saturday night after a day of heavy labor! Even the pups were exhausted. Pictured below are Teiko and Cita, sound asleep after a hard day of chasing sticks, swimming and digging at Beatons.

Up North, heh!

Spent a nice long weekend in the U.P. (Upper Pennisula, MI). The weather was wonderful on Friday where we spent the day on Beatons Lake, taking pictures, throwing Teiko's frisbee and plotting out the future cabin based on the architectural drawings.