In addition to yesterdays post...

Brad requested a few pictures of the south side of the barn so I thought I'd throw them on here. I don't have any after the sheeting was installed but here are a few right before. Also I haven't cut out any of the window openings yet, as I'm waiting until I can afford the windows to put in them. I thought I did well with my selection of the windows in our house until I listened to a talk from Jack Hebert of the Cold Climate Housing Research Center in Fairbanks and was informed that vinyl sliders are the most inefficient windows on the market. As luck would have it almost every window in my house is a vinyl slider! So I don't want to make the same mistake with the windows on the barn but with the cost of good windows I don't see any getting installed any time soon. I thought about taking the vinyl sliders out of the house and putting them in the barn and buying new triple pane casement windows for the house but I think one more added project would leave me in a white jacket with my arms buckled to my chest...

Spraying the South side.

This side seems much steeper than the north side since there is a twenty foot drop instead of a 5/12 pitch roof below you.

Finishing up the BCI installation. The plan is to have large windows in the upstairs section of the dormer.

I'm really happy with the two foot eve that we chose. It gives it a really nice look.

Global warming or indian summer?

I'm not sure what to call or even think about the weather we have been having this fall. On Saturday it was almost 50 degrees here. Saturday was October the 24th, and the grass is still green (except where I dug it up). The weather has certainly been kind to me with all of my projects.


As always I have a ton of things to do before it snows and the ground freezes. My primary goal before winter was to get the roof of the barn insulated and sheeted. My secondary goal was to dig a 350 foot long trench for my power cable from the meter to the barn.


The insulation I was planning on using on the roof of the barn was a polyurethane sprayed between the BCI rafters we installed on top of the tongue and groove. The BCI's aren't structural, they are simply to create a cavity to hold insulation and support the sheathing for the metal roofing to screw to. I was a little stressed at our timeline of getting all the BCI's and soffit material on because the guy that was going to spray my polyurethane insulation needed the roof to be dry and the ambient temperature to be above 45 degrees. Being able to guarantee either of these things much less both of them at the end of September in Alaska is not very good. We had been getting a fair bit of rain that week and the temperature was between 40 and 45 degrees. At kind of the last minute I talked to some guys that did spray in insulation in my friend Brian's house and they could spray in temperatures as low as freezing and the roof could have moisture on it, but not raining. The added benefit was that the foam they use is a soy based product making it "Greener" than standard polyurethane. They also say that compared to polyurethane the soy based foam will not lose R-value as it gets older.

So on the 25th of September two trucks showed up ready to start spraying insulation. The day was marginal as it wasn't sure if it wanted to rain or not and the crew had to sit out two short minor downpours but was patient enough to wait for the rain to stop. They got the whole roof sprayed that day and we covered everything with plastic to keep the water off. Over the next week I had a crew of guys help me get all of the plywood sheeting on. I thought I'd give it a try on my own but after a day and a half and only getting ten sheets on (out of 120) I thought it would be smart to get help. It took six of us two days to get the roof finished up and ready for metal. I was hoping for metal before it snows this year but I am resigned to the fact that it will have to wait until next summer. My other goal was to get the power cable from the meter in before the ground froze. I have a remote ranch panel type meter that I located close to the barn last fall and the power company wanted $6k to hook up power to it. I decided it would be much cheaper to dig the trench and lay the cable myself and locate my meter next to my house meter which the power company only charges $300 to hook up. I got the trench almost complete when a hydraulic hose on the backhoe blew out, putting a stop to my little digging operation.


Luckily as always my dad was home to help me out. He got a replacement hose and finished the trench after I went back to work. I had hoped to have the cable in and trench covered over before I went back to work but that wasn't going to happen even before the hydraulic hose failure. Due to the 350' from the meter to the barn I couldn't use the standard 4/0 size service cable because it would have too much voltage loss, so I had to go one size bigger. Now one might think that wouldn't be too much of an issue, however since it was something I was in a hurry for no one had any in stock. Go figure. I tried every electrical supplier I could find and everyone was out, so I had to special order it. Luckily in the two weeks I was gone the ground didn't freeze and it didn't snow. Now I have my cable in and can spend the winter working on wiring. The only outstanding thing I have left that I wanted to finish before it snows is getting my windows in on the cupola. I ordered them in September and expect them to be done any time but haven't heard anything yet. Once these windows are in I have a couple of gaps to fill around the garage doors and then the barn should hold some heat this winter.

Ready for insulation.

Spraying the north side of the roof.




Hopefully this will be enough to keep the barn warm.

It was definitely a soupy kind of day.

North side of the roof with the sheathing on. I was very happy when the last
sheet of plywood was nailed down...

I may not be good, but I'm slow!

And that statement can go for both updating my blog as well as finishing up on my barn. My problem with the blog in the summer is that I usually stay so busy that it is hard to take time to sit down and write. The rest of the year it is easy to take an hour here or there but our long summer days make it hard.

I did do quite a bit of playing this summer; I haven't kayaked since early July but my sister TJ and I took my Dynamic Duo tandem whitewater kayak down all three canyons of Six Mile Creek at a pretty high level. We not only survived the trip but once the fear subsided we actually had fun.

Thane and I made another trip dip netting for Red Salmon again a few weeks ago. It was a much better story this trip compared to the first. Our trip to the Copper River was a three day trip and took about 10 hours to drive round trip and we caught seven fish. Our trip to fish creek took about an hour and a half to drive and between Brian and I we caught 30 fish in about three hours. That is a successful fishing trip in my book! What wasn't fun was filleting fish until dark once I got home. Although I put a batch straight into a brine and smoked it the next day and it turned out quite good. I'd share it but I've been subsisting off of it all week.

The first of August I helped Sandi with her 3rd Annual Lazy Mountain Horse Trials. She started a first of it's kind horse event in Alaska that includes dressage, stadium jumping, and cross country jumping (3 events) all in the first Saturday in August. This was the first year I've been home for it, so it was great to finally see it since I helped build a lot of the cross country jumps for the course over the last few years.

By the time the end of June rolled around and I hadn't worked on any of my priority projects I figured it was time to get on it. Now as always I'm feeling crunched for time as fall and winter are rapidly approaching. In July I finally completed the rafters for the cupola (call it a clerestory if you want) and flew it up in one piece onto the roof. I started working on the cupola last summer but it stalled due to other projects. I was a little nervous that the joinery may not fit due to the twisting of a few of the timbers over the winter but luckily everything fit together and our raising was successful. Sandi's Grandfather Jim was here when we cut the original barn frame and came back in September 07 just for the raising of the barn so I thought it was only right that we should put up this last piece up while he was here to see (and supervise) it. Jim had his 91st birthday with us on June 28th and was eager to help on everything. I had to hold him back from trying to carry the bigger timbers but he helped move rafters as well as with the whole assembly. It was great having him visit again this year, I only hope I'm as fit at 65 as he is at 91 .

After we got the cupola in place I had to finish putting all of my SIP's (structurally insulated panels) on the frame and get started on the roof. Finishing the panels took a lot more time than I had expected especially since I had to order a few extra panels to enclose the cupola with and get them installed. Now we are working on getting the BCI's on the roof and the soffit material in place so I can run all of my wiring and install my sprinkler system before having all of the cavities filled with 8" of soy based foam. My goal is to have metal installed by the time it snows and depending on the weather that could range from the first week of October to the middle of December. Since I'm awaiting a new snowmachine I'd rather it snow before the end of October but not until I get the metal on. I'll post again after I get the foam sprayed, but in the mean time here are some summer pictures.

My parents enjoying a fire in the pavilion.

The pavilion after the addition of a key component; the hammock.

Thane got a climbing harness and 30 meter climbing rope for his birthday so we were repelling on the 22 foot high barn wall.

Our livestock guardian dog "Tumbler" beside the pavilion.

Checking Thane's setup before letting him repel from the rafters in the barn.

A family self portrait.

My summer wheels and kayak collection.

Thane and I above Willow Creek Canyon during a hike.

Sandi's Grandfather the Great Jim Farris, supervising the building of the cupola frame.

Sandi tasked with sanding even more timbers with Jim collecting the finished ones. There is no free ride at our house; old or young, come stay for a week and we'll put you to work.

Jim supervising the assembly of the cupola frame. Notice how much the 24' 8x8 on the right twisted over the winter. This made assembly a little tricky, luckily I had lots of clamps. There were several times when I ran into problems that I wondered if this little addition to the frame was worth all the effort that it was taking.

The assembled cupola ready for installation.

Sandi, Jim, and Tumbler waiting for the crane to arrive.

Before we could fly in the cupola we had to remove the two ridge purlins that were in the original frame.

Here we go, no turning back now. I was sure hoping my mortises in the rafters were in the right spot.

It fit into place faster than I could have ever wished. We had to pull on one leg with a come along just to line up the tenons on the back side and then a few hits with a big hammer and it was in.

The view from below.

Trying to swing a giant hammer and not fall off of the roof at the same time.

After the stress was over I decided that the extra effort was certainly worth it. The addition of the cupola changed the whole dynamic of the barn.

Starting to install the BCI's on the roof .

I took this while installing the SIP's on the end of the cupola, I thought it was a really cool view through the rafters.

Tumbler guarding my roof lumber package from harm. He slept up there all day.

All of my upstairs and lower West wall panels were raised from the inside of the building with come alongs and ropes, utilizing as many pulleys for mechanical advantage as possible.

Here is another view of pulling a panel into place from inside. I put up almost all of them by myself and only managed to drop one out of the second story to the ground below. After a slight amount of telling it what I thought of it, I climbed down and rigged it and hoisted it back up and into place.

All the SIP's installed and BCI's moving right along.

Most of the north side complete with BCI's. Luckily I have great quality help locally.

A view of the house and yard from the cupola. The pavilion is behind the spruce tree on the left.

TJ and I on Six Mile Creek in the Duo.

Dipnetting for the elusive Copper River Red Salmon

Well, last weekend was a lot of things; sunny, warm, exciting, a new experience, and more than anything it was labor intensive!
Sandi went to San Juan Island, Washington for the week leaving Thane and I to our own devices so we decided what the heck, lets go get some fish for the freezer. Some people may not be familiar with what dipnetting is so let me clarify; in Alaska if you are a resident you can get a dipnet permit for both the Copper and Kenai River and obtain up to 30 Red Salmon (Sokeye) from each river. A dip net is a large net (up to five feet in diameter) on the end of a long pole that is "dipped" into the river to catch fish. When you are "meat" fishing this is the way to go since gill netting is pretty much out of the question for personal use. I personally am not one to spend hours with a rod and reel trying to catch one fish. I commercial fished when I was growing up and I feel like the shortest amount of time spent to catch the most fish is the best way.

Anyhow; my friend Brian Berg was headed to Chitna with his family to catch some reds, so I figured what the heck. Thane and I headed up there on Friday morning to join in the fun. If nothing else we were ill prepared and ill equipped. I guess that is what happens when you kayak the night before a big trip and don't get home until after 1 am and plan to head out first thing the next morning. Since I don't really fish, I don't own chest waders, or any of that kind of stuff so I just took my kayaking gear figuring it would be good enough. After my first and only dipnetting trip on the Kenai a few years ago which consisted of standing on a boat with a net in one hand and a beer in the other and limiting out in a few hours, I figured how hard could dipnetting from shore be? It didn't take but a minute to recall that while on the Kenai I remember watching the guys dipnetting from shore and thinking to myself "boy would that suck" and let me tell you, it does!
I have never in my life worked so hard for seven fish. I fished all afternoon on Friday, all morning and evening Saturday, and all morning Sunday. I could barely lift my arms after we were done. As far as my kayaking gear went, my drysuit and rescue life jacket were bomber but my soft soled booties weren't the best. By Sunday morning my feet felt like someone hammered them for two days with a ballpeen hammer from all rocks in the river. The first night I only caught one fish. Saturday I caught two in the morning and two in the evening, and on Sunday morning I caught two also. When the fish are in thick you can get easily two fish in one pass but last weekend the water was a lot higher than normal and we just missed the first big run. Aside from smelling horrible and being really sore and tired, I had fun and plan to go back again next year. And after all, seven fish in the freezer are better than none!

Now if I could just get motivated to finish my barn......

Thane and I with both Brian and my Sunday morning catch.

Thane and Sydney Berg and Sunday's catch. Six Reds and one King Salmon.

Thane and Sydney in Brian's new Mud Ox.

Kayaking with my new helmet cam!

I have been pretty busy since my last post but haven't made time to put anything on here. I have done a little work on the barn but we are having a literal heat wave and have had 60 to 70 degree weather for the last two weeks. All of our rivers are running about two weeks ahead of schedule so my priority has been on whitewater kayaking. I bought a new helmet cam and have been videoing every run. I'll post a few tonight and try to get some more in the next few days along with some barn photos.

Enjoy .

Playing on Willow Creek

Little Susitna River May 12th

Little Su again...

First Canyon of Six Mile Creek.

We had to hike around the hardest section due to a log being stuck across the whole canyon, so this is the lower section of the first canyon. Notice my lines could have been better.

This is the first half of the Second Canyon. Compared to the Willow and Little Su, Six Mile has a lot higher volume of water and the canyons are very deep with lots of big boils.

The last of the white pictures with blue background...

Well I think I managed to hang onto winter as long as I could but I guess it is time to let it go. That is exactly why I ordered a new kayak! Time to start recycling all of this frozen water I've been playing on all winter.

My last time at home I managed one more trip with the guys to the cabin at Honolulu Creek as well as a few day trips from home. The guys at the Polaris shop managed to get my machine running despite several known manufacturing problems and it ran good the whole time I was at home. I can't say it didn't take a good beating but it did run well. Spring riding is probably the hardest time to keep from inflicting damage to both machine and rider as the snow is mostly good but has soft pockets and rocks, trees, and stumps sticking out. Oh well, I guess everything has it's price and that is why my Dragon just became my fall/spring rock sled! I have proven it can take a beating thus lowering it's resale value enough to just (and I hate to have to do it) keep it.

On my second Friday home I ran across a moose that had been killed by wolves about an hour from home, so I brought home some pictures. My wife being a large animal veterinarian who also teaches an Anatomy and Physiology class at the college thought I should go get it for her. I asked why a picture wasn't sufficient. So anyway, being the obedient husband that I am off I went....
Saturday morning I headed out to once again find my moose. Unlike Friday it wasn't sunny and nice, it was cloudy and wanting to snow. The best place to ride this time of year is about 20 miles up the road from where we live. This gets you deeper into the mountains and at a much higher elevation. On Saturday as I was working my through the swamps and trails to get up the pass to better snow I kind of crashed at a high rate of speed. As I was screaming across one of the swamps I hit a small bump that landed my left ski in a patch of rotten snow starting a chain of events that I still haven't completely pieced back together. Like most accidents it happened so fast I wasn't sure what exactly was happening, I just remember wondering how many more times I was going to cartwheel through air. After all motion ceased and I got enough of the snow that was packed in my helmet cleaned out to see, I jumped up and looked around to see if anyone might have seen me. I guess it was just out of habit because the reality of there actually being anyone around to see me eat it was less than zero. After surveying the crash site I determined a few things really quick. The first of which was that I could still walk, and the second of which was that my snowmachine was on it's side and facing the opposite direction that I was going. After looking my snowmachine over all looked ok and then I noticed that the rear tunnel behind the seat and the bumper were bent downward a fair amount causing the need for a bit of future body and fender work (the kind that involves a really big hammer). It looked to me like my machine went end over end at least once but couldn't determine for sure.

After I got going again it didn't take too long to get to the place where the moose was awaiting my arrival. Once I got there and did a little excavating I determined that the moose wasn't facing the same direction that his antlers indicated. I had to chip a little ice to get him out but luckily the animals that had been there before me did most of the work and his head was basically ready to be strapped right on the back of my snowmachine. The interesting part was the ride home down the valley in rotten snow with a giant rack on the back of my machine. I only clipped one tree. At great risk of looking a bit like a redneck I did this favor for my favorite wife.

I was pretty sure that after Saturday's crash that I was done for the season so I spent Sunday cleaning up my snowmachine to park for the summer. I did however get curious about how hard it was going to be to take the bend out of my tunnel so I got my big timberframing sledgehammer and worked the dents right out. I may have missed my calling in the auto body industry....
I was planning on putting things back together enough to store it for the summer on Monday and then spend the rest of the day doing a little spring cleaning around the yard. At 8:00 AM Bill called and wanted to know if I wanted to go riding. It took all of about twenty minutes to put my machine back together, gas up, and strap on an extra two gallons of gas (turns out that wasn't near enough). It took about thirty five minutes to get up the pass to meet Bill who came from the Palmer side. I was extra cautious and rode slow through the swamps as the snow was even more rotten than on Saturday. I have to say that once we got to the top of the first pass the snow was great and combined with the sunshine it made for an epic day. I did incur a little rock damage that limited my ability to turn right, but not enough to make me miss out on this great day of riding. It was actually running out of gas that did that! Luckily with my two extra gallons and the two gallons that Bill was kind enough to loan me I made it about a third of a mile from home before running out.
All said I put 1230 miles on my Dragon from December 23rd to April 20th and another 205 miles on my friend Lukes SkiDoo XP because my Dragon was in the shop for three weeks. I think I'd have been over 1500 miles if I'd have had my machine all of March which is a huge increase over the 800 miles from 2007 and less than 600 miles last year.

I got to ride a lot this winter at the expense of putting off any and all projects for the winter. The downside to that is that now I have a ton of work to do this summer. Stay tuned for hopefully future progress on our barn and landscaping in the next few months.....

Ash from Mt Redoubt layered in the snow.

Headed for the cabin; what more is required aside from gas and beer?

Riding into Honolulu Creek valley head with Denali in the background.

Stuck Fest 2009! Three out of four of us in this photo were stuck (Clay was over the far creek bank). We went down Little Honolulu Creek and all went from good to bad in a hurry. Boy did I do a lot of shoveling...

Our evening fire at the Cabin.

This was the best stuck picture of the weekend. While trying to get up this ravine which is steeper than it appears I got stuck after I encountered a large clump of alders at a high rate of speed. Clay thought he could make it to the top on the left of me however he met the other clump of alder and ended up keeping me company. In this picture I have rolled my sled upside down to try and get it out of the hole it was in. Before I could get it all the way over we had to roll Clay's sled over to get it pointed downhill. The funny part was that when we rolled his back on it's track it took off down the hill before he could get on. He did manage to do a superman leap and catch the bumper and drag halfway down the hill before letting go (at a high rate of speed) to watch his sled narrowly miss a big birch tree at the bottom. It was quite funny. Although I must say that had he not have helped me roll mine all the way over I'd have probably ended up in the same boat.

Looking across the valley at where we had ridden the previous day.

Spring riding up the pass from our house. Things were starting to really break up.

Wow, look an antler....

Is it frozen? Ummm, no it appears to still be attached to a head...

Right behind the gas can is where the tunnel bent. The bumper was bent down a bit too.

Ok, come on Mr Moose lets go...

A touch of digging and chipping of ice and out he came.

My redneck picture of the year...

Bill Hall headed up this hill.

Looking down a valley; Denali is barely visible in the background.

Bill and I taking a break.

My Dragon from the top of this saddle. We left here and rode right up the ridge on the right and stopped at the top for an even better view.

The view from this side was spectacular!

Looking back up the ridge.

Looking at it from the bottom.

My favorite parting shot; Mt Redoubt is steaming in the distance (right of center).