Chapter 8: Our Cabin

Not to waste any of the fuse wire, I then returned to where I had seen the fir trees, and wrapped the fuse three times around the tree near the base, with the turns close together. I tucked the loose ends into a turn, and I left about a foot loose then cut it off. Before this I had cut a foot of the fuse and inserted it in one of the detonators, this I taped to the loose end of the fuse on the tree. Also earlier I had cut a long thin length of wood and left a fork at the end. I lit a piece of paper, which I had wrapped round the end. Hiding behind another tree, I touched the loose end at the detonator with the flame. There was a loud crack; I had been expecting a loud bang. The tree fell away, and it looked as if it had been cut with a knife.

Now I had to work out a way to fell as many trees as possible in one hit. The reason being, I just don't like working with this material, and the quicker I could finish working with it the better. I would then use the axe to cut the logs to length, and when I got the truck up here, I could use the winch to load the logs on to the trucks tray, unless they were too long.

There were many things I had to do before starting this work. Like digging out the centre, erecting the stone retaining wall, and laying a stone base for the logs to lie on to prevent rot. Now I have a project to get my teeth into, I headed back to the clearing to talk to Jane and Hild.

When I returned the two women were a bit concerned, as they had missed me for quite a while, and had a light meal waiting. I apologized that I had got carried away and forgot all about the time. Since I was there having a bit to eat with my two lovely ladies, I explained to them what I was proposing, and how I will be able to get the timber cut. It took a while to get it across, as I had to explain to Jane, and she in turn had to explain it to Hild, I couldn't go on too fast as I would confuse them both. Both of them had been involved with building the round houses, which seems to be the standard in all the villages we had visited, with just slight variations. I was to built a totally different type, but not too difficult.

Jane told me that she and Hild had been through all the area and Jane had shown Hild what had to be done at various times of the day. So we could have hot water to wash and how to wash the clothes and dishes with the detergent. I had guessed correctly, it was very concentrated, just a small drop in the basin produced a mountain of suds. If you used too much it was difficult to get rid of the suds. Although the detergent was unscented there was no lingering smell left on the clothes. With the amount still in the crate we had enough to last us for years, if we were careful.

The first thing after the meal break was to get the women to give me a hand to remove the frames from the army truck. Fold the tarpaulin up and put it away, as I intended to use it to cover the roof of the log house. We will make use of the frames for other things, so they too were stored safely away.

I had no string to mark out the foundation for our house, but I had made some short pegs, and with the use of my compass, laid out the foundation with the long side running east to west. I put a peg in the first corner, and just paced out the measurements, pegging off every five paces. We had to make a few changes one way or another, but eventually we had the pegs in, showing the way we were going to have our house.

I got Jane to get the shovel, and we made a bit of a ceremony of turning over the first sod for our new home, amid much laughter and joviality. When I looked at the area I proposed to excavate I was astounded. At the edges it would be easy to just shovel it out, but I had to get rid of it away from the house surrounds.

I removed a bonnet from one of the crashed cars; and with some bending, I produced a barrow body. Knocking a couple of holes in the bottom, I was able to secure it to the trolley and I had an efficient earth-moving barrow. There was a slight depression in the middle of the clearing, and I decided that I would spread the soil out of the hole into this area.

Before we started removing the soil, I removed all the turf that was in our building area and stacked it out of the way. This I was going to cover the roof with, once completed.

In the next few days with the help of Hild all we did was dig, spread the soil, eat and sleep. At the end of each day we were so exhausted, that we just collapsed on to the bed and fell into a deep sleep. We left Jane to prepare the meals and keep the family home running.

The best thing that happened was that Hild was teaching me her language a bit better than I was teaching her mine. She was a good teacher and every day my confidence grew as well as my vocabulary.

Eventually we had it all cleared out with nice square edges and the floor area nice and level. At times we struggled, removing large roots, which we piled up to dry to be used for fuel for the fire.

Once the digging was completed, all of us got into the truck and drove to the outcrop of boulders. This was the first time that either of the women had driven in the truck, and they were so excited, even though we were crawling along in second gear Jane was amazed at the speed we were travelling. Once we got to the spot where the boulders were, we pitched in and loaded the back of the truck with boulders as square as possible, and as heavy as we could lift. We also saw there were many flattish stones that looked like slate, which I intended to collect once the wall was built.

On return, we had to unload all the stones; we just threw them into the centre so they would be easier to reach when we started to build.

The next bit was the hardest, as there was no way I could get the truck down to where the clay was, or use the barrow as it would just sink in. So the bonnet of another two cars came off. With a length of rope tied to the hinge brackets of the bonnet, we were able to load the clay and drag it up to the foundation work. We were going to need a lot of clay, as we were to fill the gaps in the wooden walls with it once we got that far.

It was easier than I thought to build the inside walls by using the clay, and it went on like mortar. We tried to get as flat a surface on the inside as possible, and the small gaps between the wall and the earth bank we filled with soil. It took a couple more trips to get enough rocks, and a further trip to get the slate slabs.

I used the slabs to erect the fireplace, as it was easier to build a chimney with the slate. I even managed to get it to angle, so it went outside the wall line, in order the chimney didn't need to go through the roof. Flat slabs were laid for about fifteen inches wide, all along the top of the wall; this was so I could place the logs on them to prevent rot.

Where the door was to be, we built two steps up, and placed a large flat stone, that took the three of us to lift as our doorstep. Either side of the step I had dug two deep holes, which were for the doorposts once I got the wood. I had left off the boulders around this bit and would complete the wall once the posts were in.

I was right, once the clay hardened it was like mortar and no stones moved.

The bit I was dreading came, felling the trees. Both Jane and Hild wanted to see the tree felling, so we packed some food and we went in the truck to the area. I decided that I was going to string as many trees together as possible, and try to blow them all at the same time. As fir trees tend to grow close to one another, I was able to get about twenty trees that I could fell at once. Each was about 10 to 12 inches in diameter. I got them all wired and using the same method as the last time, I lit the fuse. I still cannot get over the fact there was so little noise; just a loud crack and we had trees falling all over the place.