“There are a number of points which need to be carefully understood if full use is to be made of these plans and drawings.”

Andrew read the sentence again and let out a long sigh. He was only two pages into The Timber Frame Planning Book and knew already that he was probably over his head. Maybe he was crazy to think that he could accomplish his goal. But he didn’t want to give up; he had come so far already. 2,400 miles, to be exact. Well, 2,383 miles to be really exact… but what was another seventeen miles?

But that kind of defined the problem Andrew was having; you can’t round up when you’re building a house by hand. You can’t guesstimate, or choose “C” for every question you aren’t sure of. You have to know. You have to measure precisely and measure again just to be sure. Otherwise, your house will have gaps in the walls and crooked stairs and the long, below-zero winter will blow in under the eaves and turn you into a pioneer-sicle. But Andrew had always chosen “C”.

When he decided to move to Alaska Andrew knew that it would be a risk. But he was young, and life was short, and if he didn’t go now he’d get stuck in the same small town where he had spent his first twenty-two years. Twenty-two more years would pass and he would be living the life his father lived, and his father before him; raising chickens for meager dollars, smothering his disdain for commercial farming by reminding himself that he’s “feeding American families”. It’s true, Sitka was a bit of a knee-jerk overkill decision. He probably could have just gone to Colorado. But here he was.

As he studied the diagrams and illustrations in the book, his eyes having tired of reading by lantern-light, Andrew was reminded of the forts he and his brothers built on his parents’ farm in Hindsville, Arkansas. Constructed of found materials like baling twine and rusted tin, 100-year-old oak boards pried off the back side of the old chicken coop so mom wouldn’t notice them missing… those forts were grand and expansive in the mind of a country boy. He would be ecstatic if the 600 square-foot cabin he was planning looked half as fine. And hopefully, the bride he was expecting to arrive next summer would be as well.

A bride. Why not, right? Why not move 2,383 miles from home, build a cabin from the ground up with his bare hands, and court a young woman from Ukraine at the same time? At least she would be familiar with the cold. And from what she implied in her letters (and sometimes just stated outright) she can keep her man warm when the snow covers the window sills. Andrew knew that he would go a little bit crazy trying to live this life alone, and there was no one back in Arkansas he would want to spend eight months of darkness with, that was for damn sure.

As he climbed into bed, he hummed a song that his mother used to hum when she hung the wash out to dry in the yard. They had a washer and dryer, but his mother believed that some things were just more valuable when done by hand – like drying sheets. He used to watch her from the doorway of the fort, her face turned to the sun, making her eyes squint. She always found the silver lining, no matter how dire their finances or how many chickens they lost in a flock die-off… and Andrew knew that he was cut from the same cloth. He just had to keep humming… and finish reading that book tomorrow.

“Always look on the bright side of life…”

******

Many thanks to Stewart Elliott for writing The Timber Frame Planning Book that I keep on my bookshelf in preparation for for the mythical eventuality that will find me carving out a place for myself in the woods somewhere, and to Sarah Peck for sharing the writing prompt that led me to create this little short. To get your own writing prompts from Sarah, go here.