Off Grid Cabin in the Forest: Raising the Roof and the Power of Inertia

Description

Continuing with my off-grid log cabin build in the forests of Ontario, Canada, I raise the roof on my cabin that I am building alone in the wilderness. This is the hardest days yet and the injuries are piling up.

I canoe through the mist with my golden retriever dog, Cali, on our way to the off grid log cabin in the forest near Algqonuin Park, Canada.

I talk about my difficulties in my life, the power of inertia and how I overcame challenges in my personal life, hopefully inspiring and motivating you to find contentment in your own lives.

Tags: bushcraft,canoe,self-reliance,survival,cabin,off grid,small home,tiny house,dick proenneke,alone in the wilderness,the forest,minecraft,log cabin,outdoorsman,lumberjack,homestead,lincoln logs,wilderness,canada

Video Transcription

hey everybody welcome back to the cabin it's the morning of October 2nd today and falls finally arrived had 0 degrees Celsius which is 32 degrees Fahrenheit overnight it's going to be quite a warm day today though up to above 20 degrees Celsius though perfect working conditions

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then do it to be another warm day today looking forward to cooling down supposed to get down to eight degrees so that up being a full day just getting that one roof section done which surprised me how long it took good thing is I'm not too much of a hurry because I think I'm well on schedule to get everything weather tight before winter comes 7:15 I guess what sudden went down on it just before 7 o'clock so I'm just gonna get my steak on the go dishes need to be sterilized so I'm going to boil some water up here pour them over the dishes get the steak on the grill I'm not even sure if I have the energy that make the onions and potatoes I might just leave those for breakfast tomorrow morning go with my eggs and and female bacon you know I started telling my story about the lost business and the financial hardships and all that stuff and you guys have been so amazing sharing your stories and inspiring me and I feel kind of obligated to keep telling the story which I'm more than happy to do like I'm happy to get that off my chest it's a pretty therapeutic to share and I'm thinking you guys are thinking the same thing by the comments that you're giving the stories that you're telling me in the comment section I think that's amazing that everybody's opening up and sharing their stories and that one thing I noticed if you go through the comments I'm surprising and I'm happily surprised that how many people are actually going and liking other people's comments so so many heartfelt stories and people are reading those not just myself and like I said last week I'm literally reading every single comment it's amazing the story's amazing the hardships and what you guys have been going through yourselves and really puts my problems in perspective I think I said in one of the previous videos that I hadn't seen any raccoons up here ever and they found the camp

I left the utensils out here by the fire over the last few days and they've been moved around so the raccoons are around now so I'm sterilizing these dishes right now so I've got the frying pan on the fire just filled it with water I'll get a kettle boil to so that I can do the same thing after then I can put the steak on late night first time ever up here I think I remembered to bring a fork and also found this in my camping kit mistake it's just reminding me of how we made healthy food a priority and how we're able to source food cheaply but also the effort we put into it to learn more about homesteading and more about self-reliance we really took control of our food I have to remember to tell that story next week when I have more time to get into it more detail steak looks like something a little more cook than I usually have it that's medium rare usually have rare yeah it's a little over cook that piece is probably perfect that piece is probably perfect they're so clear with no humidity at this time of year the moon is lighting up the whole forest

temperatures dropping really really fast sexy actually getting cold already good morning

third time sleeping with a full moon shining in here half the night literally because that's facing south the moon was shining right in here this was lit up like daylight

morning like this after a restless night and a long hard day of working it's hard to get up in the morning which is not typical for me it kind of ties into what I wanted to talk about this week and that's inertia inertia is the tendency for an object to remain in its current state of motion which means if it still wants to stay still and if it's in motion wants to get stay in motion it applies to a lot of times in somebody's life in one's life you get off flee it's awfully easy to get lazy get complacent you get in the habit of just sitting around the house and not getting out and getting into nature and getting out there and doing things it's hard to it gets harder and harder to get up and actually do them you get up each morning you're thinking I want to do this or that and then you start off the day slow and then before you know you're saying I'm not gonna bother doing that today I just stay home do nothing I'll do that tomorrow that's inertia that's the tendency to stay still it's a real life killer it's real happiness and success killer really when you think about it his health good do you feel at the end of the day if you is the day you planned on starting that diet or starting that exercise program or starting that business or just making a small step to change your life and you put that off and then at the end of day you're looking back and you're just disappointed in yourself you know it would have taken is really that first step that first definitely the door that first step is the hardest but it's so important and a lot of times it doesn't matter if you're taking that step in the right direction as long as you take it doesn't matter what direction you're headed in as long as you're moving you get inertia of working for you instead of against you get moving start pursuing that goal you take a step in the direction and if you find that even after ten steps you're going in the wrong direction you just alter your course but if you didn't take that step at all then there's no course to alter I've been in that position lots of times in my life even this past summer actually I think you well building this cabin there was days that I should have done more work on it and I got doing something else and got caught up in that and ended up not getting enough done here typically I'm up around 4:30 5 o'clock every morning but this summer I was sleeping until about 6:00 and I found over the years that's one of the probably one of the best habits I've gotten into that have helped me and my career helped me and my life in general helped me be successful is that getting up in the morning and getting going early gave me an advantage often got more done by 8:00 o'clock in the morning and a lot of people get done in today mind is clear no interruptions and it's just such a peaceful time of day to seven o'clock in the morning here it's quiet here the birds starting to get up and the animals starting to move around I'm going to make a bigger breakfast that normally because I need the energy today but often when I'm on an outdoor trip where I'm doing a lot of traveling or if I'm working on the cabin I like to just have oatmeal or something quick so I can just get fueled up and get going but so peaceful up here longer breakfast by the fire and do me get some good so I'm gonna get up and do that now I think about building a cabins far as fires or concerns lots of wood shavings around nice little thin shavings for tinder makes a getting a fire started easy

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you can see what I was talking about before about the four inch thick roof two layers of two-inch boards so these are two by sixes I've got three nails into the top course that logs three at the peak and then this gets nailed through that

so basically laminate it to the bottom course and then they overlap they switch back and forth at the top at the peak so basically the two by sixes are kind of self-supporting even if that ridge beam wasn't there they'd still stand so the ridge beam is it's a holding weight or can hold weight cuz it's spanning from solid to solid as supports but I think this is adds that extra support extra strength and with this steep pitch I don't anticipate there being a lot of snow load on the roof at all but if you look at just one board there is some give to it as soon as I laminate that second one to it there's zero give like it is extremely solid and it's actually watertight right now I've got a three-inch lap basically the joint here is in the center of this two by six so I have a three-inch lap on either side of that joint so any rain that falls as most of its gonna run right out some could get in and if snow was sitting on there would get in but that brings me the next point and my next question for you guys I mentioned last week about this project getting a little out of hand and the cabin getting much bigger than I originally had planned on building and especially the roof section of I'm finding and I knew this was gonna be the case because I wanted this loft I've raised the walls another foot and then I put a steeper pitch so you can see I've got a 45 degree pitch here problem with that is now I'm not comfortable climbing on it to roof they're gonna have to build like a full scaffold system which I'm really not that fond of doing or I need to switch my roof type to metals the only thing I can think of either metal or a plank sort of a plank roof I don't know if I've ever seen that done I might have seen it in an old log cabin book that I have off to check that out to see if it's sort of a legitimate way but I'd be doing sort of like boarding bat and I'd have to put a layer of waterproof paper like tar paper roofing paper lapped all the way up which provides the under waterproofing and then over top of that I'd nail one inch boards maybe ten inches wide with a bat and on top I think it would look awesome it's a lot more wood but it's actually cheaper than metal which is the other option no what I had planned and still what still possible I could still do this and that's to shingle it with cedar shingles my friend Terry who let me cut all those trees down for the next cabin on his property all the logs you see you around

know that I'm gonna start healing soon for the next cabin he let me cut those down while he has a bunch of Cedars on his property as well and he actually cuts them down and he's gonna give me the 16 inch or 18 inch blocks that I can cut shingles out of I started splitting a bunch maybe three four months ago from some Cedars from the property so I'm going to build a cabin for sure with those cedar shingles gonna roof one of the cabins but the question is do I do it on this one or do I shingle the next cabin with the cedar and creep and build a little bit lower slope and lower end walls but I could actually do it safely I don't know got a mix mixed opinions about I really would prefer to do cedar and do all natural material on the other hand I want to get this done and I want to get it done safely anyway I'm rambling on again you need to get to work so I think that's it for this video for the building portion anyway if you want to stay tuned to myself for collections at the end of the video you might enjoy that as well or if you're interested in what I'm doing everyday go to Facebook or Instagram and actually post daily updates there as well as well as some inspirational motivational quotes and pictures and stuff that my wife and I take so appreciate you guys watching and tuning in and I look forward to seeing up here at the cabin next week take care and have a great week so when I lost the business at the end of 2010 I felt like I also lost part of my identity you know I started to reflect on what happened and why I got into that position and yes there was some corrupt employees and I do want to get into that in more detail and talk about just human nature and why don't didn't really hold a grudge against those people so the tendency just to withdraw and get depressed and you know kind of quit give up with strong's and inertia was starting to take over I get up in the mornings after I had no employees to go into to see off to work and and no customers to talk to and just a real real change I guess I was just a low point but more of a change than even a low point it was just not what I was used to I there's no reason to get up early in the morning I mean if things I had to deal with most were creditors and lawyers and and judges and collection companies and that kind of fun stuff of course there was my family to consider so I hung my head down and called up one of my competitors to see if he had any positions open but sure enough when I called him he was actually excited at the opportunity and hired me now this guy was known as is not a nice guy he's just just a mean selfish guy and I last guy I want to work for but I knew it was the best opportunity to get a job in the same field and making a decent enough wage that I could support my family and possibly start paying off the debt so I did that I took that job in March - three months after the businesses have failed so there I was giving up rather than working on the businesses that I still had in my pocket that I could have expanded it could have got puts more time and effort into I just gave up and inertia took over and I settled back and just went to a job every day which is fine there's nothing wrong with going to a job but to me unfortunately I had this huge debt so that was not gonna suffice that was not gonna be enough to pay off that debt and provide a future for my family because the problem with that debt is there's no way I was paying it with regular wages which meant that was always gonna be looming over my head so I can never build up assets for my children I can never have a poem to pass down to them I would leave my wife in the same position so really wasn't a solution really wasn't a good solute wasn't a good long-term solution let's put it that way I couldn't just have that job my personality my tendency is not greed its simplicity it's giving I'm typically give up too much in some people's minds of myself and of my resources my money my time and that period where I was building that business I just got greedy so I paid for it and that beat myself up a little bit I guess after losing the business forget ever getting into that position and swore I'd never do that again I'd never let greed take over and and I'd be satisfied with what I had and satisfied with a simpler life so that's you know of course this is the result of that many years later as I got back on my feet

anyway rambling getting all over the place here it's such a long story and it's so much to and if you're new to this you don't know what the heck I'm talking about this week in particular inertia it seemed to be stuck in my mind and

the tendency just to stay doing whatever you're currently doing the importance of taking that first step in the right direction or taking the first step in any direction and then adjust him to make sure it's the right direction down the road it that's what I had to do I took that job that was a step in a direction and I don't regret doing that for a minute I lasted from March till I think

August of that year so five months I worked for this fellow and yeah you know I appreciated the opportunity with him and I appreciated the income but I knew if I got complacent if I just stayed there I was never gonna pay that debt off and I was gonna leave a legacy of debt to my family so I'd taken that first step but then I decided to take some second athirst ups and changed my direction and revisit the businesses that I'd started before we started doing some analysis and you know there's a tendency there's a term called paralysis of analysis and what it is if you analyze something that so long that you don't take those first steps you don't take action on them because it never seems like the perfect time the perfect moment to take that step and there's awful lot of lost opportunities in life and maybe it's happiness that you've lost paralysis of analysis is something that could have paralyzed me right then and there because when I looked at the business again I looked at the potential and looked at the immediate payback there was some risks there again but it also looked potentially big enough to pay off my debts and pay them off fairly quickly if I had let that tendency to stay still take hold of me I'd still be $750,000 in debt maybe more with interest but I'm not and here it is Tuesday morning and I'm making breakfast I don't open fire by the cabin and for that I'm extremely grateful I'll never make that mistake again I'll never let greed take over never let ego take control of my life and I'll remember the priorities I remember that family is priority and and that does not mean the ability to buy them whatever they want that means the time that means having the time to spend with them means being able to pass down something like this sort of a legacy of hard work and an appreciation for simpler things in life that's what that's legacy I wanted to leave I don't want to leave hordes of money and that was a lesson I learned and I'm very very grateful to learn that well that's how I feel this morning finish this breakfast up and get back to the back working on the cab and feeling a little bit rundown my you've noticed I'm wearing a brace on my arm you know everything I do I just put everything into it and I don't start up slowly and of course I jumped into this cabin build in the spring and just went physically at it without taking my time warming up to it I guess and it did a little bit of damage to my arm so tennis elbow wearing that brace that's helping out but that was a lot of hammering yesterday nailing boards on to the group so I'm not sure how much of that I can do today might have to adjust what I'm doing a little bit any time I'm feeling a little bit of pain in my arm or feeling overwhelmed by the project I read your stories and that you know I can't imagine slowing down or giving up at any point after hearing what you guys have been going through and what and what to you have overcome in your lives so thanks for again for watching I really appreciate it I look forward to seeing you in the next video up here at the cabin you