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We managed to come up with the money to hire Monte, the Log Home Restoration Man.  To save a bit on the bill, he lent us some scaffolding and we (meaning me) diligently got to work to remove the brittle, curling caulking between the logs.  It had long ago lost it's effectiveness, so, inch by inch I poked, prodded and pulled what remained.  The product I was removing was inefficient, ineffective and unattractive.  Some of it was still somewhat pliable, but it was not helping to retain heat inside the house, nor did it help in keeping the cold out.  I managed to fill a few buckets full of the stuff before Monte was due to come over and start removing the old stain.
Monte, it turned out, did not actually have employees to help him with this substantial project.  He brought with him a couple of guys he had probably picked up at the local shelter.  Neither of the two men had many teeth nor did they seem to have any inkling of what their responsibilities were on the job site.  They helped him cover all of the windows with plastic and because the logs were not properly chinked, they also taped plastic sheets inside the house. The correct way to remove stain from wooden logs used for homes is not by using a spraywasher - water and wood don't exactly go hand in hand.  He had told me that we didn't want the wood to swell and then have to wait for weeks so that they could dry out properly; that would have also required some hand sanding.  Nope.  He corn cob blasted it.

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