Wyoming!!

Since classes ended in late April, I have been looking forward to beginning my internship with Colorado Preservation Inc. during the month of May. After a nice two week vacation in Alaska, I was really anxious to begin working. So on Sunday May 23rd, our 6 person crew headed out to LaPrele, Wyoming to work on an old Forest Service cabin at 8,000 feet. (If you haven't thought much about Wyoming, you really should, it's quite gorgeous and an excellent place to get back to the basics.)
Here is a picture of the cabin we both stayed at, and worked on.

This cabin was the home to forest service personnel, next to this was an administrative office and a barn. It was built in the 1930's, and really is in excellent condition. Today the forest service rents the cabin to the public for a nice get away in the Wyoming high country. Which brings me to my next point- be prepared! When you're dealing with mountain country and high altitudes, you must always be prepared for anything- that goes for animals, weather, cabin conditions etc. You would think that after living for 6 years in Alaska, and working as the Preparedness, Health and Safety Director for the American Red Cross of Alaska that I wouldn't have to even think about this. Ya well, when it's 85 degrees in Denver, it's so hard to think about the cold only 5 hours away. I know I know, I of all people should've known better. I packed for cool conditions, not a blizzard.
I mean seriously, who would have predicted this! You see the picture of the cabin above, that was at about 8am. This next picture, yes, same place, same cabin, only about 2 hours later.
Wow, that was really impressive. It snowed about 4 inches that afternoon. Needless to say, our work was put on hold for the rest of the day. And, I had a very restless, cold and somewhat miserable nights sleep given my lack of preparedness (I hope no one from the Red Cross is reading this!)
Well not to fear, the next day warmed up considerably. It left for some sloppy and muddy conditions, but if you're working, you might as well work hard and get dirty! We had several projects we worked on for the next 3 days, including building a new log gate for the campus entrance, refinishing the cabinetry in the kitchen, fixing a ripped screen door, putting tile up in the bathroom shower, and my favorite, getting fire wood from the surrounding forest! Yay, warm fire!! I got some practice with a chain saw which was much needed. It's not too hard to use, but my scrawny arm needs some serious muscle building.
After gathering some wood for heat, we also got a few small trees that we planned to use for the construction of the new gate. Building this gate was really cool. I learned so much in such a short time about using logs and hand tools. First we peeled the logs using a drawknife (I love this tool!) Then we coped the end of the logs with gauges and chisels. We did the coping so that the logs will sit nicely into the logs they're touching for the gate. You can see Nathan on the right with the drawknife, and Jonas is on the left coping the end of a log.
In the picture below you can see how the logs we're working on are being pieced together to make the gate. The coping of the ends of the logs takes some patience. If you can imagine it's pretty tricky to chisel that log just right to fit over the log next to, below or underneath it. It takes several rounds of chiseling, fitting, re-measuring, and chiseling again. We did pretty good though, as you can see from the pictures below, I think the end result looks pretty amazing!



Log work can be fairly strenuous, and after using that chain saw for the morning I was happy to get a break and do some tiling in the bathroom. I was surprised how easy this was. There's really not much to tiling, just slathering on the adhesive and making sure your tiles fit correctly. Then of course is applying the grout the next day or so after it's dried. I actually really liked working on this. It was a bit monotonous, but I'm a perfectionist at heart, and I really got into my groove fitting these pieces together. It almost felt like a piece of art, and was very therapeutic.

All in all it was a great week. I learned so much about log work and I am really excited to expand on these skills this summer. And, I certainly learned a valuable lesson. My truck is now fully loaded with 2 hot water bottles, two down comforters, long underwear x3, a sleeping bag and a slanket. No way I'm getting cold again! Too bad we're not returning to Wyoming though, it was really beautiful!