Although we are all about the handcrafted life, we aren’t above using fossil fuels to save three years of pioneer toil such as cutting down a third of an acre of trees for our house site.

Our excavator man is ‘Thor,’ a hulking six-and-a-half foot bloke with hands like bear paws. One January day he arrived. One man, one Husqvarna chainsaw and one massive excavator. Eight hours later, a gaping hole in our forest, sixty trees lined up for the saw mill and a debris pile that burned for three days. There’s nothing subtle about being ‘Thorred’.

On the upside, we got to roast marsh mellows in January with the world’s longest marshmallow stick.