In what may be my most relaxing, calm video in the forest yet, Cali the golden retriever and I watch a dramatic spring breakup as the ice melts and the rivers rage and then we spend a couple of days making tools for traditional woodworking around the log cabin.
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My golden retriever, Cali, follows my every move, always at my side and helping out when she can - pulling bark off the logs, carrying branches to the fire pit area, fetching whatever she can find that she thinks I will like - her retriever toy, bones, feathers, and she chases the squirrels and blue jays that live around the cabin. She's a great dog.
The drone captures amazing video of the ice on the lake breaking into smaller pieces while snow melt fills the river to capacity, raging through narrow rock canyons. Waterfowl - ducks, geese and swans - return to the local creeks and marshes and the forest is filled with the sounds of spring peepers, toads, songbirds, ravens and barred owls. Owls call out all night and at random times throughout the day as they search for mates in the surrounding forest.
In preparation for building the covered outdoor kitchen using traditional woodworking methods, I remove the logs and rocks from the firepit area and set up a new pit and cooking area further away from the log cabin. Just a few patches of snow remain and the puddles that my dog plays and bathes in is just about dry so the new fire pit is high and dry. I move the log bench, the log table and the chopping blocks for splitting firewood into place and begin cleaning up the surrounding forest as I collect branches and logs for the fire.
Once again, the lighting from the setting sun is spectacular, illuminating the temporary outdoor cooking area. I cook baked potato and sweet potato on the outdoor grill, smothering them with cheese and onions, pancetta and jalapeno peppers in the cast iron skillet. We retire to the log cabin at 10 pm as the sun sets and the owls and frogs get louder, and at 2:00 am, I am awakened by wolves howling in the valley behind the cabin. Hoping that I captured the wolves on my trail camera, I check the following morning but find not wolves on camera but a huge fisher that checks out the camera.
Using a chainsaw, I cut down a 10" diameter sugar maple tree to clear a building site for the next log cabin. I cut that tree into a five foot log and then use a chainsaw mill to cut the log in half to be used as a bench for a traditional shave horse, a tool I really need for shaping dowels and cedar shingles for the outdoor pavilion over the kitchen and for the new workshop. With hand tools - axes, draw knife, knives, saws, chisels, augers, brace and drill bits and wooden mallets - I build the shavehorse using green woodworking methods out of hard maple and ironwood. The end result is a shave horse that is 60" long, 19" high and 6" wide. Stay tuned for the end of the video when I explain how the woodworking bench is made and what I would do differently when building the next one.

Thanks for watching everyone, I really appreciate it. If you enjoyed this video and want to see more videos of me building the log cabin and all of the accessory buildings, please subscribe and watch the playlists so you don't miss a video.

Log Cabin Build - Step by Step:    • Playlist  

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