Rants from the Hollow

The original Fortune Family cabin was located in the valley at the center of the Hollow, within 75 feet of one of several springs on the property.  Apparently, they had once had a small spring house. When we first bought the property, Dad went at the springwith pick and shovel, in an attempt to ‘capture’ it so that it could used as a source of drinking water (I’m thinking an article in the 1st or 2nd Foxfire book might have provided some inspiration).  My memory is that it took about 2 hours of manual digging to help Dad reach a decision to hire an excavator.

Gene Mullett arrived from Killbuck with a backhoe, a dump truck load of river gravel, a cement box meant to be used as a septic tank, and some 6″ PVC pipe.  He dug a hole for the 3′ square cement box, which would function as a settling tank, he made a 10-15′ long trench behind it, putting in some gravel, and then setting a PVC drainage pipe, with holes drilled in it, into a tee fitting that led into the back of the tank, and then he put a PVC spout on it.  That spring was our sole source of water for a number of years.  After building the pond, and then moving our little trailer up next to it, my folks had a well drilled, and a hand pump installed. That lasted about a week, and we’ve had electricity ever since.   The spring probably lasted 20 years before it escaped.

Along with installing the septic system, back-filling the house and barn, re-contouring the building sites, and upgrading the driveway, Sheldon the Excavator recaptured the spring last week.  For sentimental and aesthetic reasons alone, its nice to have a spring again.  Although its not the least bit convenient to the cabin,  it is a source of drinking water that is not dependent upon electricity or pumps.  Trickle or gusher, it flows year round, with sweet, cool, and clear water.   And there’s always single malt.

[If you want to see all the entries for the cabin building project, they start here. The next Building the Cabin entry is Chimney.]

Although we had a rough idea of the property lines, we were never quite sure. I remember walking the boundaries of the property with the previous owner, in 1971, when my parents were deciding whether or not to buy it.   About 6 years ago, the land behind us was surveyed, so we found out where the south line was, along with the SW corner post. We were pretty sure that the west line followed an old fence, and the side of the township road, and we believed that the creek was the approximate northern border, but we were never really sure.

4 weeks after choosing the cabin site, Elizabeth and I spent another wintry day at the Hollow, following around a couple of surveyors. Unusually for 2011, the day actually started without rain, and it was above freezing. However, the weather report showed a large storm approaching, so we stopped at Tractor Supply to buy some rain gear.

Although early plot maps indicated that the property line was north of the creek, we were a little surprised when the surveyors stuck a new pin into the NW corner, not only to the west of township road, but north of the creek, inside a ditch that drained our neighbor’s soybean field.  Almost half of the property line skated across the northern edge of the creek, neatly missing the field to our north, which in 1930 had been owned by the same Fortune family that had owned our property.

The history of Ohio surveying is actually pretty interesting, representing the first attempt of a new country to deal with millions of acres of future farmland. The Public Land Survey System starts on the eastern border of Ohio, which was somewhat experimentally split up into chunks, each of which took on a surveying life of its own. Our property lies in the northern part of the United States Military District ,which was created by an act of Congress in 1796 to compensate Revolutionary War veterans for their service. In practice, virtually no veterans actually took possession of these lands; former soldiers, or their heirs, sold their bounties to speculators, who quickly flipped them at a hefty profit.

Although Congress had specified that public land be surveyed into 6 square mile townships, composed of 640 acre lots, our part of central Ohio is unique in having 5 square mile townships, making the smallest plot sizes 50 & 100 acres, instead of  160.  This was probably because the amount of military tract land allocated to an individual was based upon their rank, with a schedule based on 100 acre increments.  Noncoms and regular soldiers were entitled to 100 acres.  Located just a few miles south of Mad Anthony Wayne’s Greenville Treaty Line, Heiser Hollow is 55/100 of one of these original soldier-sized plots, and the south, west, and northern borders still follow the lines that were originally laid out in an office sometime in the early 19th century. Our lot was split sometime between 1896 and 1930.

I had met up with the surveyors after they had crossed the creek, heading towards the NE corner, holding a mirrored reflector on a stick while they triangulated their way across the northern and eastern property lines. The actual NE corner was about 150′ farther to the east than what I had thought was our corner,  a pin underneath a huge beach, which for reasons and source unknown carries the bark carving ‘Joker.  That pin marked the corner of the property to the NE of us.  A new pin marking the corner of our lot was placed into a ground hog hole, and the surveyors and I started up a steep hill along the eastern line.

Our eastern boundary, which had been mostly a mystery to me before, actually did follow an old fence line for at least 500′. With several generations of rusty barbed wire sticking out the sides of some beautiful border oaks, I’d been aware of this line, which seems to have the remains of a very old logging path on the far side, but I also knew that it didn’t line up with what I thought was the corner.  The property line skirts along the back of at least 3 springs, follows the face of a steep slope, and then meets another brand new pin at the SE corner. Knowing where the southern and western lines were, at this point, I left the surveying team in the increasingly wetter and colder weather to confirm on their own that the marked southern line, and the old farm fence along the western line were indeed where expected.

Our forester arrived in the afternoon, and spent over an hour with Elizabeth and I, explaining which trees were ready for timber, which trees had undesirable traits that we wouldn’t want to continue encouraging, and which trees had positive traits and should be left as breeders for future trees.  By then, it was getting cold and dark.  The last job of the day was to spend 15 cramped moments in the unlit but dry tractor shed, confirming that our Mifi device actually could connect to a local cell site and that my laptop could use it to connect into my company VPN, which would be vital for next summer’s telecommuting.  We returned to another early winter evening in the Millersburg Comfort Inn, where we watched the traffic gingerly crawl past on an icy SR 83.

Purchasing a case of yellow tree paint, we’d expected to return within a few months to beat the bounds and blaze trees in compliance with state regulations on forest land.  As it turned out, incessant spring rains meant we delayed the start of the cabin until an unusually hot July.  Recognizing that this was probably the worst possible time in the year for it, both because of the weather and the underbrush, Elizabeth and I set out with machete and spray paint to find the property markers, and mark out our territory.  It was touch and go across the southern border, which has 2 steep gullies that drain into our pond, and is especially brushy since the property behind us was timbered, but we persevered and managed to finish, with almost enough time to return to the motorhome before the thunderstorm hit.

The new cabin is almost exactly in the center of the property, set about 2/3 of the way back from the front. It turns out that the property is not a perfect rectangle, but was subdivided on a slight diagonal, perhaps to follow what was a natural line for running a fence.

[If you want to see all the entries for the cabin building project, they start here. The next Building the Cabin entry, It's Spring Again, returns to November 2011.]

We climbed up a hill  overlooking the pond, pushed some brambles out of the way, and Sam the Builder pounded a pair of stakes into the ground, indicating the future front two corners of the  cabin.   A further stake or two suggested where the front of the porch would end up.

Then we chose approximate locations for the new driveway, up from the meadow to the new cabin, and the accompanying barn. At that point, we were still envisioning a 24×36 polebarn.

After that, we stood around stamping our feet waiting for Sheldon the Excavator and Glen the Septic Engineer, wondering if that truly was the optimal building spot, if it was too far from the pond, too far from the well, or too steep a hillside. We didn’t expect that it would be another 6 months before we saw Sheldon again and finally removed the stakes.

Once we were done with Sam and the Subs, we gratefully hopped back into the car and drove back to the Comfort Inn in Millersburg, stopping along the way to capture a couple of snow shots.

It turned out that this would be the first of two snowy visits stays in Millersburg.

[If you want to see all the entries for the cabin building project, they start here. The next Building the Cabin entry continues last winter's preparation activities with Beating the Bounds.]

My parents bought the Hollow in 1972, and it came with a cabin that had been occupied by the Fortune family until about 25 years earlier.  It was a small building for a house, with a single large room on the first floor and a steep stairway leading up to a low-ceilinged second floor.  Apparently having been heated by a stove, it was not blessed with a large number of windows, but the door on the face was matched by a second door on the rear.

The walls were constructed of hand hewn rectangular hardwood (chestnut?), dovetailed at the corners, and chinked with a yellowish substance that seemed to be cement.  The roof was sheet metal, with a masonry chimney poking out.  When we took possession, the ridgepole had lost integrity, and part of the roof was open, but it was possible to climb the stair up to the partially collapsed second level. Local celeb Mad Marshall Jacobs, whose flagpole-sitting marriage had been covered by Life Magazine, visited once to look into a restoration, but determined that dry rot made this impractical.

Over the years, the old cabin just sort of mouldered away at the far end of the meadow where our little travel trailer was parked.  After the pond was built in 1976, our center of gravity moved towards a different part of the property, and the cabin was mostly left to collapse on its own.

In Fall of 2010, the remains of the old Fortune place are still visible.  I’ve scavenged some of the cut sandstone foundation stones, but there are still at least 6 more to collect. There are various bits of rusty and broken trash, some apparently from the time it was inhabited, and some later, and looking at the picture from 40 years ago, I find myself wondering just where the chimney ended up.

Surprisingly, 4 logs remain connected in the original position, dovetailed over a foundation stone in the SW corner.  A bit of chink is still visible, along with some of the rusty old nails that once peppered the exterior.  The dovetailing is surprisingly sophisticated–many Appalachian style log cabins only use half dovetails.

Shielded by the collapsed metal roof, at least one of the old hand hewn logs still seems to be solid enough to be useful, although both ends are dissolving.  I’ve thought for years that it would be nice to salvage a log or two and do something with them, but I’ve never taken the initiative to do something about it.  I guess its now or never.

[If you want to see all the entries for the cabin building project, they start here. The next Building the Cabin entry jumps back to the start of this project with Cold Start Last January.]

Mere words cannot express my disappointment at not sharing in the digging of the septic system, which was delayed at least a week because of mud. Besides the excitement of watching Sheldon and his excavator, I really want to know how all the systems function. Given that I’ll be maintaining this place for the rest of my life, and assuming that will be long enough for things to break, I’m very curious about where everything is, and how it is constructed. I’m afraid that the underground utilities will be a mystery to me–at least until one of them fails some day.

After a week’s vacation on the building site, we returned to Virginia on the heels of last weekend’s unusually harsh and early winter snow. At least we had a chance to meet with Sheldon last week, and discuss where we wanted to put culverts under the drive, and how we wanted to leave the earth contoured around the cabin and barn.  We had a visit from the phone company. We had a long visit from the electrical coop, and agreed with Sam where we’d put the meter and how where we’d run the power. We had a very long visit with Conrad the tile guy. Elizabeth had a longer visit at Artfind Tile, a surprisingly sophisticated store located just off the town square in Wooster (no web site–how funny is that?). We also had a long and entertaining visit with Ed Erb at Erb’s Stove Center near Berlin (he’s Amish–they usually don’t have web sites).  He sold us a small Dutchwest Cast Iron Non-Catalytic Wood Stove for the office.  Sam will pick up the stove and ensure that it is installed.

We had frost several mornings, along with heavy fog.  The leaves aren’t completely down, but they are getting there.  There were still a few brave, or late, crickets chirping at the beginning of the week, but within a couple days, nights were silent, save for the occasional hoot of an owl. The last week of October was probably the last one that Elizabeth and I will spend in my folks’ motor home.  For weather and utility reasons, my parents drove it out of the Hollow on Sunday. Not only was the well head not configured to provide water in freezing temperature.  Even if it was above freezing, the motorhome wouldn’t have water, because the well head needs to come off.  A ditch will be dug between the cabin and well, and the Yoder brothers will install a pitless well adaptorto the well casing below the frost line.

The report from Sheldon and Sam today is that ditches have been dug, conduit with power lines have been run to the cabin, and a water line now connects the new cabin to our 30-year old well. Weather permitting, Sheldon should be able to finish the septic system, some driveway work, and hopefully, recapture the spring, by Friday. Sam expects that the electricians, plumbers, and HVAC subs will be working in the cabin this week, and as soon as Sheldon finishes, Yoder Geothermal (a Yoder with a website) will be able to drill in support of the geothermal heatpump. Hopefully, the cabin exterior will be stained within the next two weeks, but that may be delayed until spring. As soon as Sam can get him pinned down, the mason should arrive to do fireplace and chimney.

[If you want to see all the entries for the cabin building project, they start here. The next Building the Cabin entry is The Original Log Cabin.]

Today dawned wet and cold. Although sunrise was at 7:51, the builders arrived at 7, while it was still dark. They immediately started in on the small porch that will be at the main entrance in the back corner of the cabin, putting a pair of pressure treated 6×6 posts on top of the concrete pads poured yesterday. Then they built a platform attached beneath the back door, and attached a pair of 6×6 posts at the front corners.

Then they used the chainsaw to cut mortise slots, and cleaned out the mortise with a chisel. After cutting another mortise slot on the other side, they cut a pair of 6x6s and installed them between the mortice’s and the tops of the posts.

The porch still needs a roof, railings, and steps. Meanwhile, Daniel was bringing a pallet full of spindles for the front porch.

After cutting the cedar rails to length, Aaron fits together a set of spindles and rails, which were then pounded tight, and screwed into place, top and bottom.

The porch is really starting to take on some personality with the rustic railings in place.

The porch will be screened, with a door on right (above), with stairs down to ground level, that will also use the cedar rails and spindles. The carpentry crew built a door frame for the screen door, and put a series of cedar boards between the 6x6s holding up the roof, and the tongue and groove above it, and also built triangular walls at each end of the porch. After the cabin has been stained, they’ll install rectangular panels with insect screens on the sides and behind the railings.

They also installed cedar trim on several windows, sealing the interface between log wall and window frame with a metallic gummed tape.

Elizabeth spent the afternoon making detailed graph paper drawings of the details in the bathrooms, and we drove up to Millersburg to copy them, and then we continued to Winesburg to meet with Conrad the tiler. It seemed like we were there for hours, but he had a lot of practical ideas on shower configuration, and at this point, Elizabeth is happy. We came back through Berlin, and decided to stop at the Farmstead for dinner, where we’d eaten earlier in the summer with John and Buffy.

[If you want to see all the entries for the cabin building project, they start here. The next Building the Cabin entry is Winter arrives, the motorhome leaves.]