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Welcome to this blog about the Crooked River Farm project. Along the bar above, or summary to the left, you can get a little bit of history of the farm and what we’ve done up until about the 1st of Dec 2008. After that, I’ve resorted primarily to the blog format for updates,, which end up in the Topics section on the left.
I hope you experience the full schadenfreude of farm restoration and custom home building!
Trish and Chris
Suffolk Punch Draft Horses in Upper Pasture
My buddies finished moving and erecting the first log cabin this week.
The cribs were in pretty bad shape – some logs were completely rotted from water invasion and some had been attacked pretty severely by termites. We were only able to re-use about 2/3rds of the logs, and they weren’t quite enough to build a structure. Below, Jim Callahan and Jack Taylor of Highland Timberframe, and Al Anderson of Timberframes of Interest sort through and inventory the damaged logs looking for the good ones.
Sorting Logs
We sawed new white oak sill logs, and poplar top plates from logs that had been cut last fall in the big woods. That gave us enough to build an equipment shed.
The fellers dug a footer all around and filled it with gravel, then placed some BIG flat, relatively square rocks at each corner to support the structure the old timey way. The sill logs were sawn on only two sides and hand-notched to match the original logs.
New sill/foundation rock
Traditional joinery is used – the cut logs in the doors and windows are even supported using locust pegs.
Pegged Joinery
100% of the additional lumber for the rest of the building was harvested on the property of dead, diseased and dying trees, using horse-logging, and sawn on the property.
The end result is a log structure that will preserve the original work and materials that could be saved, and creates an environment for their preservation, using only a few modern methods. The roofing is the one thing that isn’t at all historically accurate, but hey – it matches the roof of the other equipment shed at the other end of the field. And we weren’t about to split a bunch of oak shakes or something. It’s just an equipment shed 
Log Equipment Shed
In a couple of years, when the new wood is weathered, it might just look like it was always here.
Log Equipment Shed
It’s been a great hay-growing year. We’ve had more rain this spring than any in the past 5 years or so. And then we had one blessed week break about a month ago where a lot of folks were able to get up their hay. We missed that window, but were able to get ours up in small stages in between the rains.
Making Hay
In the end we got about 150 round bales. Not too bad, but too bad everyone got a lot of hay this year, and the price for hay is severely depressed.
Coincidentally, we broke ground on the house today, 3 July, exactly one year to the day of having purchased the farm. That’s the good news.
The bad news is we hit solid shale only 2 feet down. This was a surprise as we hadn’t really encountered much other than boulders to date, and the trees in the area hadn’t been growth stunted.
Breaking Ground
Michael immediately called Caterpillar to see about getting some pointed teeth for the excavator to see if that would break it up. Of course they were closed for the holiday. Ah well. We’ll go back on Monday to try to make little ones out of big ones.
About 10 years ago I bought 15 acres of land in the local big city of Christiansburg that was advertised with a restorable log cabin, and auctioned by a friend of mine. Local elder folks, as they always will, said it was one of the oldest cabins in the area. Could be true, but my best guess is that it is only about 100 years old based on land records. It was initially built as what is called a “dog-trot”, two individual cabins, or “cribs” of about 14′x14′ each, separated by a breezeway of about 6′. Each crib was 1 1/2 stories tall, with the sleeping lofts up above, and the whole thing would have been covered by one continuous roof. Sometime later, my guess is in the 1930’s or 1940’s, the breezeway was enclosed, with a front door added, the second floor was raised to full height, and stairs were added in the old breezeway. At some point, a front addition was built to create a kitchen and bathroom (or likely the porch enclosed), and then another to create an entrance utility room (or likely the new porch enclosed). That’s how it was done in those days. There were limited mortgages – you just built as you had money. The same is true in Nevis where we live in the winter. When the locals have money they buy cinderblock, when they have time, they lay cinderblock. Come to think of it, that’s how I built my current house in Floyd. But I digress. Back to the log cabin.
On first inspection, the logs seem to be mostly oak, with a little poplar. The outside corners of the logs are flush, which would seem to be so to accommodate siding, as was often the case at the time of construction of higher end log homes. But the present hardboard siding and the original construction of the cabin seem to indicate that the siding was a later addition or probable replacement.
About 10 years ago, my current general contractor, Sticks and Stones Construction, gutted it so I could better see. Due to the poorly done front addition, water had been leaking down the front logs for who knows how many years, and the logs were soaked through and through. It obviously wasn’t restorable in its current state. I let it sit while I decided what to do with it. In the meantime, vandals have been entering, and almost burned it down over the past winter. Time to do something.
Enter a good old buddy, Al Anderson. Al and I built swimming pools together for the same company in our youth, although we don’t remember each other. We hooked up again about 30 years ago, and although we only see each other a few times a year, we’ve remained good friends. Al restarted the timber-frame industry here about 25 years ago, founding BlueRidge Timberworks (with Steve Arthur now a partner in StreamLine, our architects and timberframe company), from which all timberframe companies around here must claim heritage. Al has been on the Board of the the Timberframers Guild for the past five years. But his company, TimberWorks of Interest, has turned its attention to log cabins and barn restorations lately, and he wanted to see what he could do to save this one.
He and I agreed it won’t be able to be restored as is – it’s been too cut up, rotted, and adulterated. But my idea, and Al agreed, was to “repurpose” it to be another equipment shed at CRF. Adaptive reuse is what I think it’s called in the urban planning biz. Take it apart, and put it back together with the good logs and see what we end up with is about the ugly truth. But we’ll do it with as much sensitivity to what remains as we can to preserve what’s there. And all the rafters, purlins, and other side lumber will be cut on the farm using techniques not that far different than what was originally used. It’s the best we could do to preserve it given the circumstances.
With the help of another good old buddy Jim Callahan and his company, Highland TimberFrame (more on them later), they tore into it this week to disassemble it.
Christiansburg Cabin
The good news is everything has come apart very easily. The bad news is it’s in worse shape than we thought.
Whenever I get depressed about all the work to do to clear the land at CRF, I call the Sutherlands to come out with the BullHog for a few days. It instantly cheers me up. It’s just so amazing what they can do in such a short time.
Had them come out last week to do a few things. First up was to clear the old home site of Noah Moore (see the History section). I plan to rebuild a log cabin on that site very soon and needed it cleared out of the multiflora rose and other brush. The result was just amazing to me.
Old Home Site Before
Old Home Site After
We also had about 2 dozen big (12″-24″ diameter) white pines in pastures that we needed to get rid of. Some fellers were clearing a lot just up the road who had humongous equipment, including a tub grinder that would turn everything wood into landscape mulch. They said they could get rid of the pines for about $2,500 – not really a bad deal at about $100 per tree. The Sutherlands had a better idea, though, which was to cut each of them down, drag them all off to one spot, use the BullHog to grind down the tops and side branches, and save the logs for the sawmill. Total cost – less than $1,000. And on top of it, they ground down the stumps in the pasture to dirt level. What a blessing. Initially they didn’t think they could do it efficiently, but we timed it and it proved to be very efficient – only about 2 minutes per stump! Can’t beat that at all with a stump grinder which can take up to a half hour for each.
24" White Pine Stump Before
Stump 2 minutes later
John and his son JR also cleared some other hillsides of rose and bullpine where we plan to plant trees next spring, and rose and buckthorn patches in the woods along the driveway on this job. It just lifts my spirit so much every time they come out that I have to do it in stages to keep from being overwhelmed. They’ll be back in the fall to clear some woods of rose after I’ve killed this all the Ailanthus growing all through it, and probably clear a fenceline and more of the steep pasture for tree planting as well…..something to look forward to….
We purchased about 500 pounds of red and white clover seed, and 100 pounds of Sweet Yellow clover to sow on the pastures to supply the nitrogen in the soil. The red clover adds nitrogen and nutritional forage to the hay, but tends to disappear within a couple of years. The white clover, being low growing, adds little to the hay, except the nitrogen that it adds to the soil, but is far more persistent. The Sweet Yellow clover grows very tall, and nothing beats it for fixing nitrogen in the soil, but animals don’t find it palatable in hay. So we are planting that only in pasture, and land that we are in the process of reclaiming and will later till under. We were delayed by weather but finally got to it all last week.
Planting Clover
Our fine biological woodsmen sourced this no-till seed drill, and that’s Healing Harvest adjunct, Kate, driving the tractor.
Unfortunately, several things interfered with the success of this project.
First, the owner of the seed drill had modified it so that instead of delivering the seed just behind the discs and just before the chains that cover the seed, it just dropped them on the ground well ahead of both. Basically no different than just spreading it on the ground. This would not be too bad with clover, which requires little if no cover, except that the tractor and drill is a very slow-moving way of broadcasting seed.
Next, we discovered that the drill wouldn’t work with my John Deere tractor, as it required rear hydraulics, which I do not have (yet). So that necessitated getting the Healing Harvest Ford tractor, and relying on their time to spread the seed.
Next, as often happens in farming, the weather and other work interfered with the timely planting. The clover needs to germinate well before the grass starts growing, or the grass will shade it out. Just as we got half-way through, the grass started its spring growth spurt. The grass grew six inches just in the week of work. The discs on the drill mostly just ran over top of the grass, and the chains did likewise. The seed fell down, and will probably germinate with all the rain we’ve had in the past week, but we’ll have to see if any of it survives.
We stopped with only about 70 acres overseeded, and another 70 or so to go. I bought a broadcast seeder for the ATV that will be far more efficient in spreading clover seed. I’ll plant this week the sweet yellow clover onto the bare fields being reclaimed and the leftover seed will be spread in late winter/early spring next year.
I’m kicking myself – I knew better. Next year I’ll be better prepared and get that clover over-seeded much earlier.
We’ve spent countless hours over the past few months working out all the details of the conservation easement. We’ll be restricting forever anyone building above a certain elevation to protect the scenic knobs that can be seen for miles around, restricting cutting of the big old trees to the environmental practices we’ve already established, rolling in the 3 acre parcel with the homeplace that we later bought, and limiting further division of the property to one division in perpetuity.
That is, if Floyd County lets us. These kinds of easements, while not extensive in Floyd, have been routine. Until now. After viewing our easment and a couple others in what had previously been a routine review, the Planning Commission had the County attorney notify the Virginia Outdoors Foundation that henceforth they will be reviewing all proposed easements to ensure that they adhere to their comprehensive plan.
Seems they now view our County comprehensive plan as only allowing for easements to preserve agricultural land, and they didn’t view our easement as doing so! Sounds to me like they’ve just decided they don’t like conservation easements any more. I’ve seen doctors, lawyers, and the like who depend on a *population* for their business to be against easements, but the first time I’ve seen a public body. Studies have shown that a farm uses far less than it pays in taxes in public services, and a subdivision much more. And Floyd is the fastest growing county in SW VA because of it’s unique beauty and “sense of place”. We’re “defecating in our own nest” if we allow unbridled subdivision to continue.
All is not lost – it appears the Planning Commission will reconsider our easement at their next meeting, and I feel confident that the commission will understand that our easement is very much agriculturally oriented. But I fear that they are too narrowly interpreting the comprehensive plan and will impede other, less agriculturally-oriented easements. And to be fair, serving on the Planning Commission is a totally thankless job, and the issues *are* complex. Seeing the problems, good at thankless jobs, and a sucker for “potential” I might just ask if there is an open position on the Commission.
Hah! As if they would want somebody like me stirring up trouble…
On the garages, all of the timber frame has been completed, and the roof sheathing done. So the next step has been to cover it all with what we used to call stress-skins, and are now called Structural Insulated Panels or SIPs.
SIPs are a pretty wild and innovative concept in building. They consist of a wall “frame” built in a factory of OSB (similar to plywood) integral 2×4’s, and insulation all in one made to assemble on site. You can build a whole building from them without any other structural components. In a lot of ways it’s overkill on a timberframe where you already have an incredibly resilient structure in place. But SIPs are also wonderfully convenient for this kind of building. They come pre-made with door and window cut-outs, as well as electric and plumbing chases to order. The walls for the timberframe are “simply” assembled on site and attached to the timberframe.
Well, maybe not quite so simply. Some of them can weigh a couple of thousand pounds, and you need expensive equipment to move them in place. Rather than continually renting equipment for this kind of job, I bit the bullet and bought a skid- steer and fork-truck (shown below), which have already paid themselves off in spades helping with this and other kind of work.
Installing Structural Insulated Panels
Floyd is very blessed in one respect with water – all that flows into the county flows in from the sky. If we collectively work within the county to preserve our water, we are masters of our own destiny. We have a big problem, though, and that is that all the water in the county comes in from the sky. And there hasn’t been much of it over the past couple of years.
Water can be very iffy right now. Our spring all but dried up for the first time ever last June, producing only 75 gallons gallons per day up through late fall at least. I was hauling water in a 250 gallon tank in the back of my pickup truck a couple of times a week. Neighbors all around have been similarly reporting drying up wells, springs, and ponds. Despite being right on the river, Crooked River Farm has only a couple of springs on the whole 200 acres, so I’ve been worried about the availability of water. Reports abound of people drilling 600 ft, 800 ft, even 1100 ft deep dry wells in Floyd of late.
We picked a general spot that would be convenient to the house, but also 100′ or so from the area the septic field is expected to go in.
We hired the Eversole Brothers, Terry and Mike, out of Max Meadows, VA to drill the well. First off was the dowsing. This may seem anachronistic, or even superstitious, but just about everyone around here does it before drilling. Scientific research says dowsing is much like Ouiji boards, but it couldn’t hurt, right? Mike cut a fork of a cherry tree, and held it in his outstretched palms while walking around the site near where we picked. The fork pointed down along a line that Mike said indicated a seam of water that was quite narrow. So he stuck it in the ground where he found the seam and he and his brother Terry spent several minutes positioning the well-drilling machine directly over the stick and then commenced to drilling.
Well Rig
The first 60 feet or so of drilling just came up with first clay and then sand. Then we hit granite. Surprising to me, Terry said that he loved hitting granite. It’s slow boring, but it’s consistent. A well driller’s nightmare is hitting limestone, as there are often caves that will then take all a water seam will later give. Or sand that just keeps collapsing into the well.
At about 140′, we finally hit our first water – about 2 gallons per minute. Hurrah! That’s almost 3,000 gallons per day! Here’s a pic of the water coming out of the well at this point, along with a big pile of pulverized granite:
Water and Granite
We drilled down until we got to 300′ – the maximum amount of pipe Terry had. This builds a reservoir to draw upon – about 150 gallons for every 100′ of pipe. We ran into two more streams of water in the process, so the total yield of the well is about 5 gallons per minute or 7,000 gallons per day. The well reservoir is about 200 ft, or 300 gallons. If we ran the well dry, it would take only about an hour to refill the entire reservoir. Whew. I can’t even say how important this is. Like the old song says – you don’t miss your water ’till your well runs dry. Looks like we should be good for water volume.
But on top of it all the water tested out just about perfect – no iron, pH just about neutral, and less than 10 parts per million hardness, which is considered *very* soft. Couldn’t be happier. Terry asked for a thousand dollar bonus, but sadly he didn’t get it. Great guys to work with, though!
Terry testing the water
Last fall, we put down 260 tons of lime on the farm to get the pH up from about 5.5 closer to 7. This is the first step towards growing grass – soil nutrients just aren’t available to the plants below 6 or so. Luckily, lime is a good organic solution, with no negative environmental negatives to it’s application to the land other than the energy costs of its extraction and application (which are still significant).
The next key aspect to growing good grass is keeping a good balance of N-P-K, that is nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. They are each limiting – if one is low, it keeps the availability of the others low as well. Measuring Nitrogen is a fleeting and imprecise thing – the standard soil tests don’t even measure it anymore, but it’s easy to assume that it’s very low at CRF. Generally speaking, Floyd soils are rich in potassium, low in phosphorous, and my soil samples tested last fall confirmed that. But since the nitrogen and phosphorous were low, the potassium is not much available to the plants.
Nitrogen can be supplied simply by planting inoculated clover. Our fine biological woodsmen from Healing Harvest have volunteered to help with this, and have located a seed drill. We’ve got about 130 acres to plant, so it won’t be a trivial task.
Getting the phosphorous up is much trickier. There are only a few organic sources of phosphorous – generally bone meal, greensand and rock phosphate. These cost about $4 per pound of available phosphorous, let’s see I need 100 lbs per acre, times 130 acres, equals……YIKES! You can do this on your garden, but certainly not on hay fields!
Another organic option is manure. I would need about 250 tons of manure. Unfortunately, due to the high cost of fertilizer these days, other farmers around here are spreading any available manure they have on their own fields.
So that leaves chemical fertilizers. Much as I hate to do it, I’ll be spreading some chemical phosphate on the fields shortly. Phosphate is critical to the establishment of new plantings, and fear that my new clover crop just won’t take without it. Clover, besides creating nitrogen, also makes the phosphates that are in the soil more available to the grasses. So I’m hoping this is a one-time application, and moving forward I can just use pure organic management practices to maintain soil fertility.
On our current farm, Snipe Hill Farm, we applied phosphate *once* several years ago and it made a huge difference in the quality of the pasture, which it has maintained ever since. Our friend and neighbor (and soil scientist) Jeff Walker convinced me to do this “to get a good stand established”. So far seems to have worked.
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