Our crack house

Our frame has been making all sorts of scary cracking sounds lately. Sounds that wake us up in the middle of the night and send Willow down into the basement with her tail between her legs. The technical term for this cracking is checking and it happens as the wood drys out. Apparently it's very common in post and beam construction. Some people out there claim that it adds character. We don't know though, when you see a check running through a post like this one, you've got to wonder whether or not the character is strong enough.