Day 180 April 16, 2002

Summer is here! It got into the mid 80's today. Awesome. I continued polying the rails. In between coats I cut all the balusters to the proper length with 45 degree angles on each end. The balusters start life as an 8 foot piece of 3 1/2" x 1 3/4" pine. I had brought several home with me last week hoping to borrow a table saw to cut them in half length wise. I figured I would get a better result with a table saw then with a circular saw. I know it's hard to believe, but I don't own a table saw!!! Shocking. I don't want to buy one because A) They are expensive at $500. B) They take up a lot of room. C) I don't think I'll need it enough to make it worth the money. So I called my pal Butchie. He didn't have one. Neither did anyone he asked. So I rented one near home, cut the pieces in about 10 minutes and returned the saw. $46.00 total. I can live with that. I cut 33 balusters and sanded them smooth. I made a large mess.

I couldn't stand being inside anymore so I went out, filled up the Big Yellow One, checked the oil and fired it up. I did some backfilling in areas around the cabin that had settled over the winter. I also filled in the holes where the electrical wires come out of the ground. I brought more fill around to the back gable wall and brought up the grade level in anticipation of putting up the log siding and soffit materials soon. By now it was actually hot outside. I had all the windows in the cabin open and bugs were coming in, so I installed all the screens. Now there is one less pile outside. The screens were the last pile in the circular driveway, so now I can drive around in circles if I want. More progress.

12 hours, and hot hot hot!