BUILDING A FORT IN THE WOODS WITH MY DOG. Huge Addition, Blizzard in April, Assessing Winter Damages

We're looking a little different over here at the fort. Snow's mostly gone. It's held up. Lots of trees came around on top of it and near it. Let's go check out all the damage, check out the situation. We'll hang out here for a few hours today. I only got a small backpack. I can't have a fire because of the fire ban. So no cooked lunch. I got some snacks, some bars and stuff. Looks like there's more gap up there for some reason, which doesn't really make sense to me. Let's go around and see. so yeah that was all pulled down quite a bit past that all the tarp was this way so that's got to be fixed but look what happened that tree fell right on top and probably rolled off if not on top right next to it that's like touching you know what i mean there so that could have been worse i'm glad that worked out the back is pretty saggy but we can tighten that up that's no big deal all the snow that fell off the back of it still all substantial very very dense it's just destruction from all the trees that fell it's on the way in it was it was a mess now that the snow is gone you can actually see it even that one there that's the one that took down my my paracord you saw in another video so we'll get that plastic down we'll get this tarp squared away start looking at cutting up some stuff cleaning up the area look at that too what you doing big guy don't go for a hike first so burn some of your energy out here's jim and my old camp jim baird came to camp that's our shelter under there old logs we didn't even know they were there these old mossy logs pretty decent size stacked right underneath our tree it's fun to be under a tree it smells nice it's fun to be under a tree what'd you find red squirrels i imagine see all this mitten it's truffle dog i was walking i was thinking about some things that i wanted to do out here i might want to put roof on this thing like that that tarp is cool but if i can make like a longer roof maybe to extend it out to these two trees on either side here just have have a more of an enclosed space then i can work on starting to build out these walls that way towards it could lean lean um side posts on it to create walls to come out you can put a door i could feel i could do that on all three sides really cool hut i used to build that way in windsor between two car factories in this small little patch of woods me and my buddy Brian built log cabin but not not even put together half correctly but solid pieces like that all of old hardwood fruit wood got a roof on it lined with ash bark big thick old old mature ash bark anyways this reminds me of that if I were to do that all that if I were to put so all I have to do tie two ridge poles going off my main ridge pole onto the trees behind you then one across on top of it over there and then Put a couple brace points in the middle logs going up and then I could just lean like almost straight up Lean big logs going all the way across It'd be a solid structure put a roof on it. Like I said, I might as well do that while I'm out here There's tons of wood tons of wood that's down I can't go camping in provincial parks or crown land right now I can camp here because this is an old hunt camp like I've told you guys in the past This is private land that I have permission to use hundreds of acres here I stick to this part mainly because this is where my fort is, but I just hiked with Tripper all around. Yeah, I can't camp. I can't go canoeing and camp multiple days and stuff like that, so I might as well spend a lot of time here doing that. I wanted to do something like that anyways, but spring is normally my canoe tripping season. But due to the laws, because of the virus and all that stuff, it's not happening. Hopefully that gets eased up soon, but I'm not trying to make anybody rush to open up anything either to be honest with you so We're not gonna get too much done today. We're gonna fix the tarp. We're gonna go around and clean up the area We're gonna clean up these trees. I want to cut down that cherry tree behind you But leave it at a certain length so I can still use it to tie off to the two trees at least Wow, okay. I'm gonna have to section them up. I do want to keep I want to keep them as long as possible actually, for building sake. Aspen, this top of an aspen came down too. Okay, we can chop up the aspen to make it easier, that's what we'll do. There might be something under there. Tripper's a little interested in that. No, back off. Oh my goodness, Can you see the size of these things? Yeah, they're big trees, man. I need to keep them. I don't want to cut them shorter because they'll be good building material. I obviously can't really use weak wood like this up here, like this up here so i can get rid of this to make it easier to move again the tops are probably yeah they're all iced in look at that look at the amount of that that's a lot that's a whole lot wow chipmunk and red squirrel maybe even mice because remember the chipmunks and red squirrels can go to the tops of the trees normally to get the buds i don't think over the very top so that's where a lot of them are but maybe the mice take advantage of it when they're on the ground like this there's a lot right here and that's tripper was smelling them inside the fort too it was underneath the bench when i looked underneath there there's a ton of this under there too so they could be bringing it underneath the back crack in there and eating it there's a tarp in there so maybe the mice are using the tarp as a house who knows i don't mind i don't mind see they're all still um those are all really stuck in the snow watch out buddy at least on on that other one. This one's not so bad. I'm just trying to do some due diligence for next time so I don't have to mess around with this one. I actually want to try to build. I already have my building materials ready. Watch out, buddy. Yeah, this one's not even, as you see, it's not even coming off the ground yet. Trev, man. This ball is foam and he keeps getting it stuck in his teeth. This shoe, in the little rumble in the Bronx, I gotta go. I gotta get out of here. I'll pick this up another time. Grandma's axe. today for the first time in a long time i banged up the handle when i first moved up here and i've been afraid to use it but i've decided whatever if it breaks i'll just re-handle it there's no sense in having it not using it so old grandma's axe old school boreal saw it's cold man i gotta put my glove back on a new blade on here so i've got lots of adequate tools today i've got some snacks water jerky so let's get back to work man it's windy day okay so here's the deal we're going to tie off from there and get a ridge pull going to that cherry tree these are swaying and then we're going to pull attached from there to one of these trees it's not going to be perfectly square i know that if they're both going to be leaning this way but i don't care this isn't perfectly symmetrical it doesn't matter at all it's we're all just we're just tying pieces of wood up on trees out here it doesn't have to be perfect and it'll be uh way better than it is now especially with this type of weather it'll be more enclosed okay i am tempted to cut that cherry tree down high up so it doesn't get caught uh just so it doesn't blow over and break the whole thing down if i tie up to it so i have to find a way to get up a little bit because i need height working out so let's see if this does i couldn't get a good angle on it holy smokes this is heavy watch out buddy come on now we will use this as a step stool where the cross pieces are we shall see tripod for the win make sure it's all in frame because it's not it's all for not oh look at that it's getting pretty nasty out here man to figure out where ridgepole going out to that spot so the wall stops here the ideal spot will be directly out from here to that tree it's almost right across it was right across we'd be probably here we gotta go a little bit over that way but like I said I don't care if the wall is straight so that's a pretty good distance i want to say from here back to there man that's a good 12 feet at least and then so say on that side the wall comes out farther much farther even though I have to fix this one here wall comes out much farther than that wall right and across from here will be this smaller maple and I can put it on that one definitely and I still don't regret cutting the cherry the cherry was dead it could have potentially messed things up in the future I could still use it and for wood uh for firewood at least but here i could even put it in here in this crotch or there in that crotch and tie it off almost right across so this side is probably eight feet maybe maybe eight feet to the uh to the pole let's do that we have to find sturdy logs so we can't be using these green ones that are falling down because they'll just bow if we do use them we have to use fat ones and then we'll have to put supports which might be an option too yeah we could do that we could do that there's just countless possibilities for building materials like look at how fat that is around that's down right i can use probably three lengths of that as supports like look at it compared to my foot all right so that's huge and i can it's straight all the way up i could probably use like i said two or three maybe even four lengths of that as supports in the middle of the um the new walls that are going up so that's perfect i'll just have to clean off the limbs and stuff like that but that stays there waiting for me until I'm ready to use it no problem and then actual firewood from the limbs look at the size of the limbs right so that's all good and then back in here there's even more just tons of stuff down it's it sucks like for the forest but like it is what it is it's all natural right you can see where it goes but there's a piece over here that I think might be a good candidate for a big long ridge pole this one here on the ground it's pretty strong I busted it up a bit and it kicked in and didn't bust up rather get your ball get your ball yeah making things difficult bro I was 2019 maybe 18 oh dude my piece of wood over so that's awesome see it's about once I get a solid piece in like I have here for this frisbee ball it's all fine even put two but I don't think I'll need it so if it goes there I'm happy if it goes there I'm super happy. That's quite a bit high. So it can sit on that branch for a hot minute. I am going to take the excess off because it's a lot of weight extra for no reason. I'll mark it where it needs to go. So I want to leave a little hang off. as sturdy as last time Right about there. Canadian jam knot and then we're going to wrap the Canadian jam again is tie a knot on the outside, tie a loose knot behind it. I'm going to wrap on a diagonal the cordage and the ridge pole I'm gonna pull it all together nice and snug and it's gonna constrict. It's a constricting knot I have plenty of times used this knot in detail on my channel Shouldn't have a hard time finding it good distance above my head, especially even with the snow pack down here There's a lot of overhang on the other side so I can take it down whenever I want to push it over Head it down. So actually I do want it right there exactly where I will stay on the other side planting boom boom I have a full wall have two wall entrance have the fire pit in here have a hole in the ceiling for smoke come out or if you guys are gonna remember this or not but when I first started building this I cut down a forked a straight cedar that was forked at the end and I kept it it was part of my wall when there was a lot of snow for a long time then I kept it to chop on I still have it I wanted to use it for something I think this is perfect it's seasoned for like a year and a half two years now but it's buried a little bit let's get it out i think if it reaches it's going to be perfect so hard oh god that sucks but it's definitely long enough for a support see there's still a ton of ice and snow that's the problem on the ground like this isn't even as far down as it'll it'll be normally you dig just yet but it's good to know that you can thank you thank you back up where's your ball go get your toy go get your toy go it's a perfect spot for this so if i i can definitely prop this up in the middle here, and this is on the ground. I might even be able to dig down and touch. That's what I think I'll do with this one. Come here. Good boy. Come here. Dig. Right here. No, here, here, here. Tripper, here. Tripper, here. Tripper, come here. Dig here. Right here. Tripper, right here. Tripper, look. What's this? Here. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig. Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig. Good boy. Dig, dig, dig, dig. Dig, Tripper. Yes, yes. Good dig. Yes, yes. Keep going. Dig he's actually made some pretty good progress. There's a decent route there. We'll have to get rid of oh, sorry You want to do that all right? Get it good dog Watch out man move I know tell me about it. All right troubles are pretty handy. Oh, that is looking really cool now Becoming a force be done for today I can't really stack any more logs on the sides because of the ice like I was saying We'll buck up this cherry tree just to have some good firewood and so it doesn't go to waste. We'll stack it in here Yeah, man. I'm happy with the progress next up. We can start building the roof actually. That's what excuse me That's what we can do slow slow. Let me say super nice wood for burning I don't want to let it go watch out big guy. Thanks for watching the video Hope you guys are doing all right at home Not too bored to see another video from the hut here for the fort here soon Maybe we'll start calling it a fortress building a fortress in the woods I'm going to start coming out here a little bit more often like I was saying just because of the situation. So you can expect more fort videos. As always, for your support, you guys have a great day. I will see you soon on the next video. Take care.