Timber

Preparation for cabin building actually began this summer. Jimmy took a week off from the oilfield and with a couple very kind friends, cut down some large dead cedar trees out at our friends’ ranch, affectionately known as “Barneyville” (which is actually where Jimmy proposed to me and where we got married). Cutting down trees sounds really simple to me, but there is actually a lot involved. The job was made even more difficult by the fact that Jimmy’s nice big chainsaws got stolen right before we got back from Haiti, so he only had a small one to work with. So, if you want to cut down trees, you have to clear out the land around the trees, figure out angles and directions very carefully, actually cut the tree down, and cut off and haul away all the limbs. Then of course in order to get what you have worked so hard for, the bulk of the tree that is left where it fell on the ground, you have to move something VERY heavy. So, being that Jimmy does not have much lumberjacking experience and only had a little help, it took a full week to cut down 8 cedar trees to later be used for siding on the cabin.

Timber!

In mid-September Jimmy finished up oilfield work for the time, and we moved to Lakeside RV Park in Coolidge, Texas. Our move was made a little more exciting when we found out 3 days before moving that the trailer we had made plans to stay in had been given to someone else. As always, the Lord is perfect provider and he supplied another trailer through a friend of Jimmy’s parents.

Home Sweet Home

The end of September was spent getting moved into our new home, getting Jimmy’s sawmill running, seeing family, and doing a couple sawmilling jobs for friends. The only progress on the cabin was putting some more plans down onto paper, getting the spot to build it chosen, and getting the area marked off with stakes and string. Being the kind and encouraging wife that I am, when Jimmy excitedly showed me the spot of our future cabin he had marked off my first response was "Umm... isn't that kind of small? I mean will a bed even fit in there?". Poor husband. It turns out that a building looks much bigger from the inside once built, then when looking at a rectangular string lying on the ground. :o) It also turns out that RV life is a whole different kind of life that Jimmy and I knew nothing about. We had some things to learn those first few weeks....too bad I don't have space to write out the stories that were not so funny at the time but are pretty humorous looking back....Think sewage, ants, AC, mice, rain leaks... we've been learning it all by trial and error.