This is one of the posts that hold up the porch on our hay barn. It's made of locust. I used a chainsaw to cut the mortises that hold the upright supports. I love this post because it reminds me of a saguaro cactus, something that doesn't grow in western North Carolina, where we live. The day after this photo was taken, we put the tin on the roof.

I needed some posts for the new hay barn so, instead of using pressure treated timbers, I hauled from locust posts out of our forests. They worked great and gave the barn a groovy, old timey feel that was worth all the extra work.

This is one of the locust posts that holds up the front porch of our hay barn. Here, I'm cutting mortises that will hold up the braces that support the roof. The chisel and wood maul belonged to my dad and I hope this project would make him smile.

This is my favorite wood - yellow locust. It's rot resistant and makes great posts. It's really hard on chainsaws, though, because it's so tough, which is why most carpenters don't like to work with it. This is a section off a locust post I used to build our hay barn.

My wife Julia and I met Morgan in Susanville, California on the road trip where we hit a mule deer and destroyed our car. Morgan drove a pulpwood truck and hoped to ranch full-time one day. He brought us home to meet his parents and his dog was as excited to see him as they were.

I found this patch on an old barn outside Aden, California. It reminded me how people used to get by on a lot less than we do know - and how the meaning of "recycle" has changed over the years.

I don't remember his name but I met him in a stretch of desert they were selling off ten acres at a time for not much money. All I remember of him was a he had a big black dog, a son and gave me a bale of alfalfa hay that looked like it grew a long way from where we were standing in the desert..

The wagon my mule Polly pulled across America. Here, outside Salt Flats, Texas. Note how much hay and water I had to carry to get through that grassless, waterless stretch of desert.

I met Alex Leyva Pena in Hudspeth, Texas, as I was traveling through the area with my mule Polly. He was a truck driver, pulled over to see where I was going, and gave me a bottle of water. He wished me a good trip and told me to look him up if I was ever in Purlear, California, where he was from.

You can leave that rattlesnake you don't need anymore here. Just kidding. It's not that kind of transfer site. It's actually a temporary collection area where trash is collected before it's shipped to the landfill. This one is near the Blackfoot River Canyon Rim outside Blackfoot, Idaho. I saw this sign as I was riding my mules Brick and Cracker from North Carolina to Sun Valley, Idaho.