Day 8

I thought that I’d put up the last three poles yesterday. Not only had I escaped any dreaded back-tweaking, I’d also managed to not delimb myself while delimbing some of the surrounding trees with the chainsaw.  Idiotic really, the way I climbed up onto some of those rotten branches, forgetting to warm up the saw first, then of course, getting the saw blade pinched as I goofed the undercut.  One branch bounced tip-first off the ground, back up at me and the butt stopped less than a foot from slamming me in the face and sending me backward off the ladder with a running chainsaw.

Rich and Lisa invited me over for a victory dinner; they happened to have been gifted a massive roast.  I ate relentless waves of meat and shamelessly cleared all the side dishes of whatever was left.  I’ve been consuming my bodyweight in simple carbohydrates since I got up here.  Granola, granola bars, chocolate, chocolate chip cookies, and SideKicks (possibly the most processed packaged food known to humankind).   There was also the odd apple, an occasional head of some vegetable, and as a concession to the need for protein, lots and lots of canned fishes.

Rich was horrified to hear this and put me on what is more popularly known as the Atkins diet.  Lisa prescribed fruits and vegetables. They are my mentors, so I will listen to them, and next time I’m in town, I’ll stock up on foods that combine the two schools of thought.

This morning, I’d checked in with them to find out my next steps. They broke it to me gently. They’d initially though that I could get away with 9 poles supporting the whole cabin. On reflection, they felt that the roof span might be too large and given that they have in the past had five feet of snow, I might want to put up another three poles.

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

And sure enough, the remaining poles were among the thickest. I’m sure that it could be established through math + science but my initial assessment was that a slightly girthier pole made for an exponentially heavier, debilitating stick of death.  Not one to whine too much, I got to it and dragged the next pole around like a 500lb albatross around my neck.

The thickest bastard just about got me.  Because all the other poles and their supports took up space, I now had limited options to work with. I had to push this one upright from a downhill angle. Again, I’m sure that physics will bear me out on this one, but it’s really much more difficult, hell, I’ll say just about impossible to do.  The closer you get to the base, the heavier the thing gets and at a certain point the whole thing feels like it could see-saw in the other direction, with you as the unfortunate fulcrum (a technical term for ‘flesh mound in the middle’).

After doing some serious huffing and puffing to clean-and-jerk the pole end over my head I had made my way along it’s length, till I was shaking like those Olympic power lifters. Except, unlike them, my back was thrutching in a spasmodic wave, the oscillations from which threatened to unhinge my spinal column from my pelvis.  Being a pragmatic sort, I totally bailed and let the pole fall to the ground with a deep, satisfying thud.

The only other time I had felt that the solo pole raising was questionable was when I was raising another, thinner pole. It was about the size that I like to think I could have caber tossed, if I had been in just that kind of playful mood. But it had also been from a downhill angle so I thought that was what was presenting the challenge when I started to strain. Unknown to me, a tree branch 12 feet up had caught the pole and I was slowly pushing back against it. The branch turned out to be stronger than me and I was treated to a Looney Toons, sproing-oinnggg, that just about snapped me in half, backwards.  But justice prevailed, and I got my revenge on the branch later with the chainsaw.

But this girthy one just wasn’t going to happen. I tried a couple more times then retreated back to the Queenpin for a cup of coffee and a fist-sized portion of chocolate.  Spirits revived, I returned, broke out the pry bar and pulled some supports from the other poles to make a corridor so that I could attack from an uphill advantage. Much, much easier.  But even upright, the bastard pole would surge against me when it was anything off vertical.

11 and a quarter poles erected (I decided to insert one floor height pole to save on space within the cabin). Now I can say that I’m done with the poles.

ALL the poles up.