FRAMING A WINDOW WITH BIRCH LOGS at THE FORT IN THE WOODS; SPRING CLEANING, OPENING THE FORT w DOG.

Hey folks, how you doing? Joe here. I got Tripper around here somewhere. We're out at the fort today. We've got a few things on the agenda. I want to do some spring cleaning and revamp the fort. I want to open everything up, take the doors off, pull back the tarp, get some light in there. We're going to get a huge fire going today and just leave it going all day, try and dry everything out in there, try and get Tripper used to the fire again, and we're just going to spend the day out here together. So I'm really looking forward to it. Ready, Tripp? Yeah, thanks, bud. Yeah, good boy. Dig. Thanks for the help, big guy. No, out, out. no man stop it oh hey okay well that did its job man that's awesome I let some light in opens things up I'm probably not gonna need it anymore for the most part I think the snow is done today is the actual first day of spring and I know it's quite the joke where soon as you get ready for spring it shows a bunch more and that may happen but the winter is over for the most part spring plenty of ventilation for today that was a perfectly good log bro well so much for my window law for the vlog I use for my window plenty of space air and sunlight oh let's open the front let's open the front that hasn't been opened at all since I put it up there this should be relatively straightforward just kind of picked it up everywhere and there's no ain't so bad folks I do not hate the looks of this got a few ideas the snow wall did not happen this year this is not a normal winter that's beyond my control but I do like the idea of having something other than this tarp here whether it be a lean-to on this side with another big bench and I could sleep here or have this for company but I do like having a view of the outside too we'll have to figure out what we want to do it's open let's go get some firewood new axe sent from bushcraft Spain I have the name on it I'll have to put the name in text here Uneta Uneta completely different than anything I'm used to pretty lightweight we'll go check it out see how she works I don't know if you saw that video me bringing Beauty here for the first time the new dog me and Emmy showed off that this is the only snow we were able to get so not much all collected off the top of the the fort so again the snow wall is incomplete for this year, it's always 2022, things are looking up so Tripper and I are down in the swamp, in the marshy part looking for hardwood and there's a plethora down here So we're gonna get some and bring it back to camp. Found This piece is decently big You can see it's wider than I would normally want to get for firewood I just want to make sure it's good all the way up because there's some funky spots I can see I want to make sure the woods get inside of it This axe is completely different than any I've ever had before again. It's an Urnieta U-R-N-I-E-T-A and the good folks at Bushcraft Spain sent it over if you look at it, the handle is pretty rectangular, got a cool little sheep's foot at the end different different head and everything, we're gonna whack into this a couple times to see how the quality is of the wood oh yeah and the axe Wow so I'm putting my lips on the wood to see if I can feel moisture or coldness coming through, you can feel a lot of cold that means there's moisture in there and I don't feel anything so as I'm sinking into the ground here we are gonna take this one but safety first can't be too careful get that mask back on there I had somebody in the comments a while ago ripping me apart for calling it an axe mask well that is the name of it boy your research okay we're gonna get this down I'm gonna have to cut it low and pull it cuz it's hung up the good folks at Angler Gear hooked it up with another saw considering I bent the crap out of of mine those guys have been cool with me since day one and vice versa so happy to support them as much as they are happy to send me saws I'm sure I got the dry Sydney ranch blade on oh she's a hardwood I always try to use the full length of the saw and two hands when it's useful to do so before it starts to bind and pinch too bad we'll turn it around we'll turn around and actually might be able to use the axe and whack the back end of this I'm a loose turn and I'm a loose turn that's something okay it's gonna take some work okay it's like a foot from being loose up there we got it stuck under some logs in the Look at the snow, my little heart's pounding. Check, check, check. All right, so I don't know if you can tell, but underneath the snow, it's a mass of logs and stuff, and my tree's caught on it, so I'm gonna chop that log, see if I can and free it up. Man, this axe is like laser. Let's see now, got him, spot him, got him. I think I'm gonna cut it in half to try to bring it back to camp. Have nothing, so we don't have any problems while we're carrying it back. I'll shut this saw, carry it that way, nice and easy. I'm gonna to come back for the second piece so much snow in my shoes I have to go fix that right now he brought he brought his wood there too I know good job I see what you did there are two big logs there trippers work right in the middle don't worry you're getting credit I'm telling people you did it good boy oh man this cannot wait this cannot wait at all my uh my ankles are uh throbbing like numbingly cold oh that was painful painful amount of ice and snow under my ankle so remember before in the winter i said i always like to wear gaiters when i wear short boots in the wintertime and that's the reason why i misunderstood or i misinterpreted how much snow was going to be back in there all back in the whole forest actually but i've tracked down enough paths to the fort where it's not so bad down in that marshy part no man's land get this fire on this fire going get a cup of tea on and maybe sit down for a minute there's a lot of blowdown and trees broken off halfway up like before had a couple more storms in between so I'm on my way in I saw quite a few options of building materials that I can still gather so that's always handy gonna spend some time cutting this wood all up you're not gonna have to be uh subjected to it all i promise but before i do that i'm gonna split this first piece up and start the fire because i do want to have the fire going all day this one's got a big knot in it but i think we can still split it i've not used this axe for splitting yet it's something you split a little bit of a quarter off of it but let's see if we can split it right down and that wood that might even be ash that's some legit wood some really legit wood happy with that split it down get a good decent fire going no out and then we'll come back and work on this and I do want to see about the front of that fork to get it solid he weighs like 75 pounds this is all he wants you're a good boy you're a good boy oh he's a strong boy oh he's such a strong boy i know so close to the old hand though but oh he's a strong boy oh he's a strong boy oh going to but not trapped in here he can run around i'm not going to be in here i'm going to be out there working so hopefully just the ambiance of fire with his love for barking and jumping at the fire he was raised here you know i mean he had those surgeries and was laid up for a while he's crazy about fire but we shall try to break him of that fire went off nice and easy super happy about that some awesome firewood yep do some spring cleaning while we're out here some garbage that was left over take some stuff home but clean a bunch of stuff out and that wind is whipping through here Wow the doors make a huge difference a on this thing no doing that flak for that that's how she goes boys and girls no out what happens all around the world back up back up back up back up back up back up back up i threw that i threw that log way over there we're gonna javelin it you hear him wild mutt he's doing better as soon as tripper stops we are going to frame our windows with his birch tree i got this idea off of instagram excuse me from clifford wright clifford's a super cool dude old buddy who man years ago gave me gifted me my first snow trucker tent awesome dude older gentleman and he drove hours and hours to give it to me we still talk every now and then follow each other on Instagram anyways he has a really cool shelter for cabin thing on his Instagram channel a page and he framed his windows with birch and it looks amazing and I am going to copy that but credit where credit is due thank you Clifford alright so let's do it so as you can see that window is as spectacular as it already looks it will look even better if that random cedar wasn't there and it was looking a little bit more natural you know natural like that plastic we're gonna take off the cedar and we're going to first we're gonna split the birchbark logs hopefully we can get them straight split and then we're gonna replace those logs with that warming up so the first thing we need to do is measure no no and i want to go from there i'm going to do it properly this time and not go short we'll go all the way to there i'll notch this trip it back up man and we will cut our birch log to that length look at this a lot of people said i looked like Justin Bieber or that i had Justin Bieber's hairstylist we all have the same hairstylist in Canada i didn't want it to tear out at the end that's why I kind of set it down but this is gonna be a hefty piece to split cut that piece in two because I think trying to split this one as a whole would have been impossible and I'm looking at it and it still seems like it's gonna be kind of difficult so what I think I'm gonna do is make wedges out of some of the hardwood to help me all right we cut a small log we're gonna make wedges out of this one. Make four wedges. Tripper, stop. There's one done. Okay, we're gonna try and do this. I have more wedges than I could have hoped for. I've got the normal style they saw me make where I'm pounding down inside, and then also these ones where I thought they could go long ways. Pound them in that way, because they're wedge shaped that way. So we've got like a handful here. I have high hopes on this one. So let's do it. Spot to work at. money yes that's nice that is nice okay we are off to a phenomenal start couldn't be happier with that one but i do want to be careful because i don't want it to split off the one side way worse than the other yeah okay that's the way to do it no more swinging the axe that's okay that was my first time okay let's get some wedges in this not sure how this ah works fine i wasn't sure how this pole would work for this because it's rounded it's fine though get that in there get one in here it's following it it's following it it's almost done we almost got it split through it's not too bad either i messed up a couple times but i think it's totally salvageable i don't know how good those other wedges are gonna work the normal wedges seems to be the ones to use on this looking good one more split and i think we've got it we just got to get the rest of the way if it would have stayed on this line it would have been better but it kind of split off to that line but maybe i can fix it again. There we go. No harm, no foul. Happy with that. Okay, okay. It's Joe versus the piece of wood. No, no, no, no. No tag teaming the woods. Man, this thing really is a laser. They did sharpen it for me. Thanks again, guys. Bushcraft Spain. Okay, look at that, folks. We did it. Took some doing, but let's get it up and see how she looks. Set these nails in beforehand. And the more weight behind it is. I'm not using that other axe for this. Okay, let's get this up there. Okay, okay. That's not too bad. I like the looks of that. That's cool. Oh, it's cool. Can't even see the nail because of the birch bark. Can't see the nail for the birch bark. The birch bark. Hey, the birch bark. Hey, the birch bark. I love it. I love the way it looks. I love it way more than this nonsense here. Good from here. The other one's pulled out so easy. This one's going to be a difficult. Oh, you know why? They dick around in the middle there. Okay, that's gonna take a hot minute to get off I guess we'll put the other side on first anyway. All right, this is gonna take me a little bit So I'll get back with you. I'm not gonna put you through me splitting all these things down. It's gonna take a while Actually, I gotta get some more firewood on that on that fire. I think look at that bed of coals man, just rocking just a rocking Just a little snack while I'm working and try to cut a new piece. I don't know. It's all pretty wampus actually I want to try and get a straight piece of this, but I have to measure the window and see just how much I need still probably the best one I've done yet how to it turn on the camera I think we're all done splitting now go try and fit it all up She bends quite a bit not too bad pieces away from now. That's gonna take some doing might as well do it now I think while everything's off there I can deal with that most of the nails came out There's two in there, and doesn't that birch bark look so much better. Okay, okay? It's looking good one last piece fit it up, okay I can even cut off some, so do I want to cut off the bent part I can't tell, I'm too close a way to put it maybe that way put it that way put it that way Tighten the whole thing up to the whole window up side, but we'll say we'll do you nice I don't hate that at all. I couldn't be happier with how that turned out looks good to me And it was a fun little project so better than this right, better than stuff like this So, I do have to deal with this firewood before I get out of here. I'm starving. I've been out of here for quite a few hours now. But I don't want that firewood to go to waste, definitely. So, I'm going to buck it up. And it might take me a hot minute here. We're going to store it, too, so it stays nice and dry. You see my birch frame? My birch window frames? Building a fort in the woods, making birch bark. No, making birch window frames. You know what? And I can actually even cut this plastic a little bit, you know? make it look a little bit nicer there bud have a sweat again give you one last shot of this glorious hair and we're gonna end the video, more pieces of this wood and wrap the ceiling up maybe maybe put the tarp back up on the roof and that's it leave everything else open to go I'm ready to go let me speak please can you just stop for two seconds so I can say goodbye to the folks anyways thanks for watching we'll be back very soon