Once I got the track put together it was time to set the sawmill in place with my dad’s Case 580C combination front end loader back hoe. The 580 is an indispensable piece of machinery for working around the homestead.
The first boards made with the bandsaw. Cut from a spruce tree we needed to take down by our house. Nothing goes to waste, we use the better slabs for various projects and for sale, the unusable ones are burned in the outdoor wood boiler for heating our house and the saw dust is used for animal bedding. 1″x10″ boards cut from an old buggy pine log good for any rustic looking project.
This year (2023) we rebuilt the ends on the large hoop style green house where we keep all our poultry and I made these rustic barn doors with the bug eaten pine logs. I charred the wood to help preserve the doors. I learned a while back that the Japanese burn wood as a natural preservative. For years I’ve been charring fence posts before putting the in the ground. I first learned about charring fence posts from author Mike Oehler’s “The Fifty Dollar Underground House Book”. https://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Dollar-Underground-House-Book/dp/0442273118
We can attest to charring being good for wood preservation because on our back 40 acres there are still charred stumps from a wild fire that went through in the 1940’s. These were the back doors, next year we will install hardware to make them into sliding doors.
Most recently I got the front doors built and installed with sliding door hardware so that we can go inside the coop daily to tend the birds and collect the eggs.
These doors turned out nice and we are very pleased with our first ever sliding barn doors on the homestead. I really like sliding barn/shed doors and plan to make some for the sawmill building as well.
Each of these doors are 3.5 feet wide making for a total of a 7 foot span with the two doors and they are 8 feet tall. The front and back doors were constructed the same.
Once we get the sawmill building up we plan to build a wood shop in it and hope to eventually start building one of a kind rustic doors for sale, which has been a dream of mine for many years. When when we were still in the garbage business I spent a lot of time day dreaming about the day when I would start making doors. These were good practice doors and I have built a number of them over the years, the 3 exterior doors at the cabin, a pantry door in our house and various barn doors around the place, it’s something I rather enjoy.
As far as running the saw mill so far it is exactly what I imagined it was going to be like, it’s very enjoyable work. Taking a tree and turning it into something useful is a very satisfying thing to me.
For decades we’ve been talking about getting a sawmill. It makes sense with all the trees we have here. I (Russ) always thought that if I ever stopped doing the garbage business that I would like to work with wood and probably build more cabins. A sawmill has always made sense to harvest our own timber with and convert it into usable products.
Some time back I got a Mini-Mill chain saw attachment made by Granberg and have sawn logs into boards with that. Even used some of it in the log cabin last year.
I practiced on some rough bug eaten logs and determined I really like making boards and usable lumber out of trees.
For years I’ve contemplated whether to get a band sawmill or a circular saw mill. I’ve researched in depth all the pro’s and cons of each type. In a perfect world I’d definitely have a circular saw mill, but band sawmills seems to be a little more beginner friendly, they are very simple and easy to operate. I even considered building my own and there are tons of do-it-yourselfers out there who have done that and there are internet groups devoted just for these kind of guys making their own builds. It’s definitely intriguing especially when you consider the cost of these machines which seem to be getting higher in price all the time. Even used mills are fetching a healthy price tag these days. I assume it’s been the high price of lumber driving up the cost of new and used sawmills with more and more people willing to mill their own lumber rather than pay the retail outlets all that money.
Rising lumber costs
Wood-Mizer is one of the most popular brand band sawmills on the market. Looking at the prices of new machines you quickly find out out they don’t give these things away. Fully automatic top of the line Wood-Mizers top out over $80,000! So used ones have been on my radar for some time now. But used mills seem to be running slightly under the cost of new so nothing really has really jumped out at me. In the last year I’ve been seeing used band sawmills running between $20,000 and $30,000 and up. Way out of our budget!
Once you do a little looking there are tons of companies making band sawmills, Wood-Mizer has plenty of competition. Just a casual look you see Norwood, Timberking, Hud-Son, Woodland Mills, Valee, Cooks Saw and even Harbor Freight has one. There are many more than what’s listed here.
More recently I finally found a used Hud-Son band sawmill priced very reasonably down by Manitowoc in Wisconsin, but the weather got too dicey for driving with freezing rain and it was sold before I could get there. Maybe I should have made an offer sight unseen, but who knows. It’s a very competitive market right now and guys are coming out of the “wood work” pun intended to buy used sawmills!
But after many months of searching we finally found a band sawmill not too far from us south of Wausau and made a deal to buy it. The brand is Timbery model M100 an entry level sawmill. Elliott the man who owns it has a thriving furniture business and uses the saw to cut his own lumber for the products he makes. The only reason he is selling it is because he’s moving out of state. He has a couple more jobs to complete with it and he will delivery and set it up for us next month in May sometime.
The one we are getting is similar to the one in these pictures but ours has a 5 hp electric motor instead of a gas powered engine. I decided that I wanted electric so that I can run it in a building and not worry about exhaust fumes.
Currently our Timbery has enough track to cut a 16′ foot log, we ordered another section so that I can cut a 20′ foot log. That’s so when and if we build another cabin I can cut logs that long for the structure.
Ordered another length of track to cut up to 20′ logs.
Our sawmill under a tarp.
Elliott has been using it outdoors for 5 years and covers it with a tarp when not in use. He has it mounted on timbers but we plan to pour a slab for it and use the saw to mill boards for a building for it to be in.
10 years ago we had built a pole structure that was used as a road side vegetable stand. We harvested logs from our property. This is the same type of building that we will put up for the sawmill. But are planning to have a fully enclosed structure not just a lean-to like the picture of the farmstand.
The nearly completed produce stand, 2013.
Monitor barn, the same style we are making the sawmill building.
We are planning to build this in stages. First get the slab poured for the sawmill which is coming soon. Then put up a lean-to style shelter like the old farmstand. Then completely make it into a monitor style barn housing the sawmill, and us while turning trees into lumber.
This year we had the most snow on record in our area and where we wanted to put the sawmill just happened to be where my dad and I piled a winters worth of snow from the driveways. It took a good part of a day just to push back all that snow so the area could start drying out.
I started removing the top soil so we can pour a slab. The building will be 35′ x 40′ and will be built in sections.
The top soil went deep at least a foot in places and there was a lot of clay underneath also, which is unusual because most places around the property it’s pure sand and rocks. There were however no shortage of rocks at this site!
We had about 3 days of wonderful weather for this work but then progress stalled out because we reverted back to winter.
April 30th we got socked with 6-8 inches of heavy wet snow and we were plunged into winter conditions once again which was a shock after experiencing several days in the uppers 70’s.
Once the weather cleared we got back at it hauling sand to replace the top soil that I dug out. We have a hill that we have been taking sand from for many years and my 81 year old dad offered to help by running the machine and loading me while I ran back and forth with the 1 ton dump truck. It took just over 50 loads to get the building site leveled out.
The site is now graded out and ready to start setting up the concrete forms. We had considered hiring a contractor to pour the slab but I think if I break it up into 10′ foot sections I can handle doing this myself. Also friends that live down the road said they would be glad to help with the pour so that is the next step in our sawmill adventure!
In the mean time just today May 2, 2023 the sawmill got delivered.
With the purchase price of this band sawmill it comes with some extra’s, a laser which mounts on the saw which helps for positioning the log, a Woodland Mills automatic blade sharpener, a tooth setter and around 100+ blades, some new, some used but sharpened and some that need to be sharpened.
Elliott the man we got the saw from showed me how to use the blade sharpener and tooth setter before he left.
It was a lot of of fun learning how to set up the blade sharpener and after Elliott left I finished sharpening this blade. But it was pretty cold today and spitting snow on and off so after finishing this blade I went in.
Part of the sale of this sawmill includes Elliot the seller helping me to set up the mill, so he plans to come back when I’m ready to help set it up and show me how to run it. However after getting warmed up in the house I was just itching to do something with the sawmill so I went out and put together the heavy steel tracks that it rides on.
This is a temporary site until we get the slab poured. My intension is to use the sawmill to cut the wood for the building which will house the mill so the sooner we get cutting the better.
By dusk tonight I pretty much got the rails put together. There are a few more parts to put on and I need to get it leveled up and anchored to the concrete slabs. It is sitting on two concrete slabs. Now we have had these slabs since the day we poured the concrete for the log cabin. We purposely ordered more concrete for the cabin than what we needed so we’d be sure to have enough and my dad and I made forms to pour the extra cement in. We have been using these slabs for different things these past couple decades.
Well that’s about all we have so far about our sawmill journey. When we actually get it up and running we will probably make another post about that and will be making updates about the progress of the new building. I personally feel like a little kid with a new toy! This is going to be way better than running a chain saw mill, though I expect to still use my chain saw mini mill for different things in the future.
The method of log construction we chose was called “Flat-On-Flat, Butt and Pass” a very simple way to build with logs.
First we laid down fiberglass insulation and secured the first course of logs to the concrete with concrete anchor bolts that we inserted into the concrete after it was poured and still soft. The insulation was also laid between each course of logs.
We used timber screws to secure each subsequent course of logs to the ones below. These screws worked great for drawing down each log to the one below with their course thread and smooth shank. No predrilling necessary. We found out about the cost of building things as these timber screws cost .50 cents each at the time. It took quite a few of these screws not wanting to skimp on tying the logs down to each course. At this stage we did not have electricity at the site and we primarily used a cordless drill and a chainsaw for most of this work. Sinking in these timber screws definitely gave my 12v cordless drill a work out. As soon as we got the electric hooked up I switched to a heavy duty electric drill.
It was a learning experience right from the beginning, relying heavily on books and articles about log construction. No plans, just figuring it out as we went. In pioneer days many of the early American cabins were roughly 16′ x 20′ because the logs were short enough to move around by hand or with rudimentary block and tackle devices. So that 16′ x 20′ dimension was what we aimed for. The slab is actually 18′ x 22′. And the “addition” where the bathroom and furnace room are located is another 10′ x 10′.
Our whole family got in on the learning experience. Our kids were home- schooled and spent time at the cabin helping out and even doing school work as mom and dad were building.
Paul and Russ enjoying a coffee break while Charise trims a log with the broad axe. 🙂
Friends from IL were some of our biggest supporters and came up frequently to lend a hand. We have a long list of family and friends who pitched in when they could, and we always appreciated the help.
The cross ties added a lot of strength to the structure. It was a satisfying thing to notch these components in and have them fit “like a glove”. Friend Paul helped me with the first one and we were rather proud of ourselves for how well it slipped into place. Then we found out after Kelli came up to inspect that we put it in the wrong place. It was in the way of the where we were originally going to put the staircase, but God knew ahead of time that we were going to receive a gift of a beautiful spiral staircase that fit perfectly in the corner. My cousin Kathie in IL was instrumental in getting us that staircase and we often think of her when we talk about how it all came about.
The spiral staircase was just the right diameter and height to fit in the corner.
The spiral staircase was so right for that spot that it seemed like we planned it that way. God had His hand in this build the whole way through.
Log cabin under construction, pardon the mess!
The cat walk wasn’t planned by us either but it certainly adds a unique feature to the cabin. This is a one of a kind place for sure!
We were planning to go one course higher with logs which would have made the main floor ceiling 6 inches higher but we had an incident that made us decide to stop going up. I was sitting on the top course of the wall while Kelli was pushing a log up to me while I pulled, once I got ahold of the log it slipped out of my grip and almost fell on her. I decided right then and there that was high enough! Kelli could have been seriously injured and we figured going higher just wasn’t worth the risk.
Larry and Nita up on the loft.
We were finally ready to set up the trusses that we had set aside at the start. My dad had brought up his 580 Case combination front-end loader/back hoe which made lifting the trusses a cinch.
Larry, Nita and Russ taking lunch break. Looks like chilly was on the menu this cold winter day.
Kelli often brought our meals to the job site so that we didn’t have to take the time to go back to the house.
Kelli working on a notch.
Carving and notching wood is a satisfying thing especially when it turns out well with a proper fit. I personally get enjoyment out of working with wood.
Larry carving a notch.
My dad Larry is a very skilled woodworker, he always does an expert job at whatever he works at.
Russ measuring an angle for a cut.
I was the type of kid who hated school. Pretty much the entire time I was in school I was daydreaming about when I’d finally be able to go home. But one thing I found out after growing up was that math was going to play such an important role in every profession I would ever have. I once heard a saying “measure twice, cut once”, those are wise words! Kelli was a better student than I was and she was a great help in figuring angles, spacing and dimensions. This is how a good marriage works where each spouse makes up for the other’s weaknesses.
Larry on the left and Russell on the right, father and son.
We were thankful that my parents were able to be here during the time of setting up the trusses as that was a major part of the build, the first part of the construction of the roof.
The roof was one thing that I couldn’t find detailed illustrations and write ups about. The method of building on top of these trusses to wind up with a well insulated roof was a bit of a mystery to me, so I just improvised on the whole project and just did it my way, the best I could figure out.
The beginnings of the roof, daughter Brianna playing.
It was a great experience for all of us including the kids. Our kids got to see all the little details from the ground up and to help out in areas where they could.
Our oldest Shalea doing her school work at the cabin.
We credit our faith in God and the Bible, living here as we did and homeschooling our kids making us a close family. I think we might be closer than the average family even when our now adult kids and their families live a distance away.
Taking shape.
After working with logs I found that dimension lumber was a breeze, very easy to build with in that everything it is all fairly straight and simple to calculate. More learning experience here however, how does one attach dimension lumber walls and roofs to the irregular shape of a log wall? I did make a mistake in how I did the addition roof and eventually we got some water damage in some of the logs. We fixed this mistake just within the last couple years with the help of our good friend Ken.
There weren’t a lot of regrets with building this cabin but one is that we kept too many trees right next to it. Some of these trees have made me nervous over the years and we have been thinning them out in recent years. Our son in-law Jesse helped with some of the most risky ones leaning toward the cabin which was a tremendous help. This year we hope to get the remaining not-so-great- ones taken down. We love trees and we think most of our guests do too, but not with the risk of damaging the roof, which would be very costly to fix.
Now that this log cabin rental is our main business we are focusing a lot more attention to making improvements and keeping up with needed maintenance. There really is quite a bit to be done to successfully keep it in tiptop shape for our paying guests.
Cleaning is probably our biggest job, I often say “we don’t have a cabin rental business, we have a cabin cleaning business”! We get many compliments about how clean the cabin is which is good to hear because our family puts much effort into keeping it ship-shape. Over the years our kids have done a lot of the cleaning earning extra money, currently our daughter Ryann is the primary cleaning lady.
Since 1999 when we poured the concrete for this building we have made countless memories from all the friends and family who contributed to it’s construction to the many good folks who have stayed here since the early 2000’s. I don’t know the exact number but literally hundreds of people have come together over these past couple decades at this little log cabin in the Northwoods.
Before we started on the log cabin we would walk around the property considering different spots and imagine it being there. This spot was always a consideration because of the maple and basswood canopy in the summertime. We always loved the filtered light that came through when the trees were fully leafed out. After some time of scouting around we decided this was the place for the cabin.
We didn’t have any plans, but we looked at stacks of books from the library and had some purchased books as well. Also we built a model out of cardboard of what we wanted it to look like.
There was a local guy selling logs that had been milled on two sides so we bought the logs from him. In retrospect we paid too much for them but that’s what we decided to do because we didn’t want to take the time to harvest our own trees and all that that entails.
So the first step of any building project is to clear off any trees and brush and then level up the site. It was a huge blessing that my dad had a 580 Case tractor with a front-end loader and backhoe combination, a very versatile machine. My dad scraped off the topsoil and leveled the site for us.
My dad is very knowledgeable about pouring concrete from having worked in construction his whole life so he came up and helped me frame up the forms for the concrete slab. And when my dad builds things you can be sure it’s going to be heavy duty and this was perfect to hold the weight of all those logs.
We went with about a ten inch thickened edge with a 5 inch center approximately. One thing I wish we would have done was to install tubing for in-floor-heat because this would have been a perfect application for that. But at the time I didn’t know much of anything about that so opted to install a regular forced air furnace. Later when my parents built their house they had in-floor-heat put in and when I saw how easy it was to install, I’ve been kicking myself ever since that we didn’t build the cabin with that kind of heat. Oh well, live and learn!
Plenty of rebar in that slab! I am glad that my dad knew what he was doing since I had never built anything bigger than a dog house before moving to the farm.
October 5, 1999
When it came time to pour the slab two local handy men, the Mangles brothers, helped me with the pour, or rather I helped them. They teased me that the slab was going to be so strong that later on if we ever wanted to relocate the cabin we could pick it up and move it no problem! Besides our immediate neighbors, the Mangles family were some of the first people we got to know in the area and they kind of took us under their wing, great people! Our kids were in the 4-H together that’s how we met.
The first thing we did after pouring the concrete slab was to build the log roof trusses on the slab using the level surface and then sat them aside for later. The man we bought the logs from suggested doing that, it was good advice.
This was all a learning experience right from the start. I had never even owned a chainsaw before and here I was doing some pretty detailed work. I found out however that sharpening a chain saw is a bit of an art. If I didn’t sharpen it correctly I found out making straight cuts were almost impossible with the saw wanting to make a perfect radius. I bought a lot of chains back then! It’s only been in the last couple years that I can say I can just about sharpen a chain halfway decent!
Jerry’s Septic, which were neighbors just down the road, put in the septic system. To our surprise the septic system was the only thing we needed to get a permit for. Where we came from you had to have a permit for everything little thing, even a yard sale. Before we started on the cabin I called the town hall and found out we did NOT need a permit to build! I could hardly believe it and that is one of the things that really endeared us to this community is they value their freedom and certain people in the local government work hard to keep it that way.
This year, 2023, is going to mark 25 years since we’ve lived at our family property in Wisconsin. I was looking at some old pictures from 1998 when we moved here; they sure created some strong feelings of nostalgia. We’ve dug some very deep roots here for sure!
We didn’t know much about homesteading, gardening, raising animals or construction, there was a big learning curve for us. Long before the internet we relied on the library, books, and magazines to learn about all these topics. Years before we started building the log cabin, we poured through tons of books educating ourselves and getting ideas.
Back in IL my cousin Bob had sent us a couple Countryside magazines which gave us the inspiration to “homestead”. We started gardening down there and got into rabbits also, hiding a small rabbitry in a backyard shed. I butchered my first rabbit when we still lived in IL. Again, books and magazines were our go-to source for knowledge. We brought the rabbits north with us when moved to the farm.
We primarily had Mini Rex, a small breed of rabbit with an amazingly plush fur. We bought our first trio from a young girl who was raising and selling rabbits to put herself through college at the time. They were the nicest Mini Rex rabbits we’ve ever seen to this day, we kind of regret getting out of rabbits, because that line was just amazing. In the early years our kids entered a couple of them in the county fair and won lots of ribbons.
Moving here was like turning kids loose on a new playground, it was the adventure of our lives! We immediately got into everything related to homesteading and we acquired a menagerie of animals and planted gardens. We had gotten a large 24-foot tepee a year or two before which was a terrific novelty and we had lots of great times in that tepee with family and friends. In those days people knew us as the “tipi people” not necessarily a title we wanted but it was such a novelty around here and it was highly visible from the road.
People we met kept saying “with all those animals you should have a petting zoo”. We were just about flat broke and I was thinking and praying about what to do, and those words inspired me to suggest to the family that we give a petting zoo a try. Since we lived on Highway 17, the main drag between Rhinelander and Eagle River, it was a prime location. Kelli and the kids were up for the idea and we quickly whipped the place into shape for public viewing. It was already the middle of summer so we didn’t have many weeks to be open but during that brief time we had over 500 admissions, many of them repeats of the same families returning over and over! But then as things went we fell into the garbage business in October and never did get back to opening up the “petting farm” as we called it. We probably could have had a good thing going, but it did make us nervous having our whole lives on public display!
However, it was during those early years that we had started selling farm produce self-serve at the end of our driveway. It began when we had a surplus of chicken eggs and tried an experiment of putting them out at the road on a table in a cooler selling them under the honor system. We were amazed that we never got ripped off and in fact many times had more money in the can than we should have with people giving us more than we asked. Back where we came from the eggs, table, and cooler would have all disappeared without a trace, so we were quite pleased that the idea worked! In subsequent years we started selling more and more produce out front and eventually had a roadside produce stand every summer. We welcomed other area gardeners to help contribute to the farm stand and for a couple seasons we even tried doing a CSA, which stands for Community Supported Agriculture, selling produce by subscriptions or membership.
We had broken ground on building the cabin in 1999 and it took us a few years to complete before we started renting it out. Once the log cabin rentals got going we basically had 3 businesses at once, the garbage business, the cabin rental and the summertime farm stand. We did just about anything and everything to make a living. People had told us you need to be able to do 12 different things to survive here and we found that to be almost accurate, at least for us anyway. I suppose we could have went all-out at one thing and been further ahead but we were trying to get out of the rat race which is one of the things made us want to live in the country.
Kelli and I are now moving into a new season of life. Our adult kids and 6 grandchildren so far are becoming more of a focal point. Going at a slower pace is a new personal goal of mine, I am beginning to really embrace the “work smarter not harder” philosophy as I am getting closer to 60 years old every day!
Below are some pictures from the early years of us living here.
A horse shelter, one of our first larger building projects. Poles cut from our land.We sided the horse shelter with slab wood that we got for free from an area sawmill. King and Queen, Belgian Draft Horses we bought with the sleigh from Dan, a local horse man. King was an impressive animal!They say Belgians are docile but King had attitude, a previous owner named Jules told me King once killed another horse. A nice beginner horse…not really! We often jumped into the deep end during our early years! Kelli grooming Queen. Queen was a perfect horse and made up for King’s lack of manners.
A man named Dave, who delivered King and Queen to us when we bought them, owned a riding stable and would let us keep horses for him when he wasn’t using them. He even brought saddles and bridles, the deal was, you feed them and take care of them in exchange for the use of the horses. He did this with other people as well to save on feed costs when they weren’t in use. These two old timers were perfect beginner horses for our kids but they were pretty much on their last legs.
The first summer in 1998 we didn’t have running water and hauled our water from a wayside 6 miles away. We did the laundry in tubs and hung it on clotheslines to dry. Notice the solar shower at the lower left in the photo, we heated water with that and also showered with it in our green house. Laundry day was a family affair! Everyone loved the tipi! Kelli and I learning together how to butcher chickens inside during our first winter. With the first- ever chicken we butchered, Kelli read a step by step article in a Countryside magazine while I did the cutting. Everything was a learning experience and we did it all as a family. Tapping maple trees was always exciting to see that pure maple sap pouring out for free! We took every opportunity to explore the land and snowshoeing was a great way to get around. The bonus to snowshoeing is there are no bugs in the winter!
Nanie and Papa heading back to IL after a visit in 1998. They moved up a few years later after my dad retired.
These are just some of the highlights of when we first moved here. We packed a lot of living in and had absolutely no regrets coming here. Of course we missed family and friends that we left behind but this place has become a popular destination for many of those loved ones.
More than a few people have told us there is something special about this place and we feel that God definitely has His hand in that. On at least two occasions we have had rainbows contained within the boundaries of our land and it seems like God is reminding us that He has a plan for us here and we can trust Him.
Getting where we are at today was the result of a years long search for country property. There were many influences that led us here but really it all started back when I (Russell) was a boy listening to my grandmothers’ stories of what life was like back when they were children in the early 1900’s. Then, after I was in the 4th grade we visited cousins who were living in rural Arkansas and I fell in love with country living from that moment on. That was a strong influence back in the early 1970’s.
Grandma Joanna and brothers Joel and James
I had a rather unique childhood. My great grandparents originally owned the land I grew up on in northern IL. They had a little 5 acre homestead and after they passed away the property was divided up between their 4 children, my grandmother on my dad’s side being one of them. The oldest son James got 2 acres and the original house. My Grandma Nellis and her two other brothers each got an acre.
I was an only child and we lived in the same house as my grandma. My dad’s father had died when he was just a boy and my father being the only son in the family felt a sense of responsibility to help care for his mother. And to make things even more interesting Grandma Nellis’ brother Uncle John Myers lived with her in her basement apartment. We lived upstairs.
Being the only kid around I had free run of the whole 5 acres since Grandma Nellis’ 3 brothers owned the rest of the property. It was all family. The whole place was my personal playground! I was used to a certain amount of freedom from an early age.
Grandma Jessie Hayes
After my mom’s father passed away when I was 6 years old her mother Jessie moved in with us as well. So I grew up with both my grandmothers and Uncle John all in the same house. Since I never knew my dad’s father and my mom’s dad died when I was little Uncle John was like a grandpa to me.
Uncle John with the intrusive apartments in the back ground.
Finally the neighbors sold their horse pasture which butted up against the family land and a fairly large apartment complex went in directly next to us. They were only two stories high, but seemed to tower right over our back yard. Being outside was like living in a fish bowel with all those apartment dwellers able to see everything we ever did outside. It was horrible and from that moment on I wanted to go someplace else less crowded. We had once been out away from town, but town quickly grew up around.
Once in my teen years I started racing motocross and most of the tracks were out away from the cities in rural areas, some of them right next to door to cow pastures. I always loved that part of motorcycle racing, of being out away from all the congestion of city life.
Kelli and I were married in 1984 and I was blessed with a wife who shared in my dreams of one day leaving the Chicago land area where we both grew up and finding just the right country property. We spent our early years going on near and far land searches often taking whole weekends to go out looking for just the right property.
In 1989 we went to Eagle River, WI on a 2 week vacation with the sole purpose of land hunting. We had a sense that we’d “know when we saw it”. It wasn’t until the last day on our way home back to IL that we found the original 120 acres, we knew as soon as we saw it that this was where we wanted to be. After years of searching we finally found it!
We went halves with my parents Larry and Nita, we moved up in 1998 and my parents followed a few years later after my dad retired. Then in 2016 Kelli and I bought an additional adjoining 80 acres. A great addition in that the new 80 acres has more high ground and extensive trails that our cabin guests enjoy hiking on and exploring.
Currently we have 4 generations living on this northern homestead, my parents, Kelli and I, two of our grown children and grandchildren. As we were growing up multigenerational homesteads where becoming a rarity, but now in today’s economy it is becoming more and more necessary for this type of arrangement. If you can get over the personality conflicts usually found in families it is a way young people can have a chance in today’s world. Not everyone can do it. It requires grace, love and lots of forgiveness.
Memorizing the verses about love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 is helpful. “4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.8 Love never fails….”
This blog is “About our log cabin rental, who we are, how we got here, what we’re up to, and what we are planning.”
My name is Russell and my wife’s name is Kelli. We own and built (along with the help of some friends and family) the log cabin which is the main topic of discussion in this blog. We’ve been renting this cabin as a nightly getaway since the early 2000’s. We retired in 2021 from being in the garbage business of 21 years and are now focusing our attention on continuing to rent out the cabin since it is now our primary source of income.
This blog isn’t going to be only about the cabin, as we intend to do other “wood working” related endeavors to help shore up our financial condition during our “retirement” years. We hope to keep you informed of these endeavors through this blog as well as helping you to get to know us and what we are about because we put a lot of “ourselves” into everything we do.
I (Russell) started a homesteading blog back in 2005 which is linked here https://logcabinhomestead.blogspot.com/ but I didn’t really have a good sense of direction of what to do with it and how it could benefit us. I like to write and did quarterly newsletters all the years we were in the garbage business. We got tons of positive feedback with the newsletter so hope to continue to hone my writing skills here with this blog and hopefully create a connection with all our past, present and future cabin guests.
We have a lot of timber on our 200 acres and have dreamed for years of harvesting some of it and making cool and unusual things out of it. We have a little chainsaw milling attachment for my chainsaw and have just recently since retiring been using it to make boards out of our trees for useful projects. I get a pretty big thrill out of saw milling and intend to get into that in a much bigger way in the future. I am currently shopping for a band saw mill or trying to decide if I want to make my own as most of the manufactured ones are a tad out of our price range. We will see what we actually end up doing.
Building more cabins from our own trees is also something we are aiming for but that is going to be a substantial financial investment so until then we hope to get established making smaller wood projects in the immediate future to help fund some of these bigger goals.
We’ve considered crowd funding for the future cabins but I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’ve often thought that if we make some definite plans with good drawings and design of a new cabin we could do a crowd funding promotion of “prepaying a stay” to anyone who might want to help us fund the project and eventually be the first to stay in a cool new place. It took us almost 3 years to build our current cabin, but hopefully now that we don’t have our time taken up collecting trash it would be a shorter turn around. But like I said I don’t know how I feel about “crowd funding”.
Kelli and I are not really “business” people as I liked to remind all our previous garbage customers. Though we have been self-employed for decades we just considered ourselves as “neighbors helping neighbors” and we have the same kind of mind set regarding the cabin rental. We have the gift of hospitality and really enjoy sharing what we created with other people. It’s a great feeling when we hear all the reports of what a nice time people had staying here. For many it’s more than a “great time” from what they say it seems to go “soul deep” and people get a much needed break from their regular hectic lives. When people find the time to reflect and perhaps grow closer to God through their stay here we know we are on the right path following Gods plan for our lives.
Log Cabin Homestead 