Reflections on a notch in a rafter

Is it really back to the hand saw?

Not only did Josef Stalin die the year I was born but my father and uncle built a small cabin on a lakeshore.  All in all, a pretty good year.  Not that I think that my birth was in related to the construction of the cabin.  It has crossed my mind that maybe my father wanted a diversion from my insistent squalling, but I don’t know that.

The original cabin was built to accommodate kerosene lanterns and had big screen windows covered by storm shutters.  The original foundation was made from the trunks of ponderosa pines that had been cut for that purpose.  Private ablutions were performed in a made-for-purpose small hut with a crescent moon cut into the door and a hole into the earth accessible through a hole cut in the “ablution bench”.  Water was available from a hand pump situated in the “kitchen”.  The cabin was about four hundred square feet and accommodated two families with six kids between them.  You could say that it was “cozy”.

I don’t remember the early years, of course, but I do remember the pine needles everywhere which toughened bare feet very quickly and the old rowboat which had such a large hole in the bottom that fish took shelter in the boat.  It was a source of considerable fun.  I also remember the baptism of the storm shutters.  They were hinged at the top and held out from the side of the cabin by wooden sticks that fit into notches on the shutter and the side of the cabin.  We were warned repeatedly not to “play around the shutters” and eventually the probabilities lined up for everyone.  Someone would absent mindedly walk into one of the bracing sticks knocking it free.  There was another one as a fail safe but, of course, probability being what it is, once in awhile the sudden change in pressure on the second bracing stick would cause it to come out of the bracket and the hapless victim would get hit with the weight of a half inch sheet of plywood on the side of the head as it fell about four feet from its opened position.  One didn’t do this more than once before joining the choir in saying, “Don’t play around the shutters.”  If you survived, life was much simpler then.

The cabin had several improvements made over the years.  For starters, another one was built to reduce the feeling of living on top of each other, a two hundred square foot addition was added to the original cabin, private ablutions were brought indoors, a pump was installed to put an end to the very bad language which accompanied priming the hand pump, power was extended to the cabin, the beach was overlaid with sand and most of the property is now covered in lawn.

Most of my fondest memories are of the time spent at the lake.  It is my believe tha God has created a lake-shaped hole in my soul.  Water sports were all learned at the lake as were frog and turtle catching.  A mudbank provided a place for our own version of the chevauchee as we lathered up with mud to create war on our faces and bodies and then engaged in all-out war until too tired to throw yet another ball of mud at a hapless opposing warrior.  To some, the annual mud fight was something to be endured.  These were the ones who had taken a mouthful of mud the previous year.  To me?  The mud fight was a big step toward Heaven.

Before my father died, he made several improvements to the cabin and as I near the time when I too will “go to the house of my fathers”, I feel a need to renovate the cabin for my kids to give it another several decades of existence.  I started this process of “climbing on to an ice flow” this past week.  Deconstructing the cabin has brought ancient memories flooding back.  I have seen every colour with which the cabin was painted and behind ancient gyproc, I have found the Downton Abbey of the insect world.  Generations of a hundred different insect species entombed in the old cabin.  Next week I will be going into the crawl space to improve the plumbing and finally insulate the floor.  I am a bit concerned about the species that I will find entombed there.

This past week I replaced all the single pane windows with double glazed windows that I had been collecting from the many renovations undertaken by my neighbours.  I have become the neighbourhood wierdo. 

“If you are renovating then don’t be too surprised if Murray comes around to ask for your old windows.”

I had a pretty good collection of all different types of windows and doors.  Having finished my replacements, the excess windows were taken to the local Home Depot also known as the sanitary landfill.  It is a guarantee that, by putting the “good stuff” to one side, one of the regular hoarders will pick it up to add to their stash.  The windows lasted less than a day.

There are two thoughts that keep coming to mind as I tear more deeply into the bowels of the cabin.  The workmanship of so many years ago when there were only hand saws, hammers and auger bits was astonishingly good.  The cabin was built in a post and beam style using wood that could not be afforded today and put together with such precision that a piece of paper won’t fit in the joints.  All the hundred-weight of nails, spikes and staples were hammered into place by hand.  Every length of wood and notch in the rafters was cut with a hand saw.

Where has all that talent gone?  I suppose it is still there looking for a place to be useful but, in a world in which one buys a house to tear it down to replace the fir floor joists with an OSB beam and make the entire first floor into a single kitchendiningroomlivingroomfamilyroomentrance, who needs craftsmanship?

And think of this.  Only flathead screws were available and each one was twisted into place by hand.  There were no electric skill saws, reciprocating saws, hand drills, pneumatic nailers or chop saws.  There were no battery drills or power screwdrivers.  I realized that this project would not have happened if I didn’t have access to power tools.  I am stupid but I am not a masochist.

So, what happens when the power is no longer there?  What happens when you pull the trigger on the saw and all you get is a click from the trigger? 

“This can’t happen?” you say? 

I beg to differ.  If we keep up this net zero madness it will most certainly happen one day.  All the wind farms and solar panels in the world cannot make up for the power lost when night comes and the wind stops blowing.  What then?”  Oh, we’ll have batteries, will we?  And where do the materials for the batteries come from?  There will be new types of batteries.  How much of your paycheque are you willing to put on that bet?

I chuckle at the anxiety being expressed about the oft-stated “clear and present danger” represented by artificial intelligence and robotics.  Have you not noticed that the computers which power such things need enormous amounts of energy?  Where does that energy come from?  If ChatGPT were to be queried about our rush into a world in which we meet our increasing demand for energy with a self-Imposed forty percent reduction, would it intelligently tell us to have our collective heads examined?  I have been willing to shake my head and grumble at the net zero stupidity, but this past week has taught me that the consequences are going to be enormous and that we had better start pushing back or be prepared to hand wash our clothes, walk to the grocery store, and go back to having two electrical outlets in the living room.  All those tablets, phones and computers that define our addictions will become useless artefacts in the junk drawer if the net zero folks have their way.

Do yourself a favour.  Sit down and think of all the ways you use electrical power and then think of a world in which you suddenly have forty percent less of it.  That is, think of having zero power for forty percent of the time.  Like when you need it.  Now think of my uncle and father hand sawing notches into rafters to build a four hundred square foot cabin.  Who is going to build your twenty-five hundred square foot, four bathroom house with a bonus room over the garage with a hand saw?  And how much are they going to charge you to do so?  Think about losing the power to your furnace in the middle of the night when the outside temperature is minus 35 degrees.  Think about losing power when making last-minute preparations for the big dinner.  Candles can cover the ambience, but nothing will cook the roast when the power goes out. Sure stick it in the barbeque.

It is time to call a halt to this net-zero nonsense or at least demand that a reasonable case be made to support it.  A case that is ideologically bound up in some Marxist nonsense.  Bill Maher complained that North Americans are “the silly people” and that our culture is no longer serious.  It is time to get serious.