Will it stay or will it go?

Lots to talk about this week. I hope I can remember it all! I really wanted to write last week, but lately, Sunday’s seem to go one way or the other. They are either super busy and I just run out of time, or are much less busy and then I just have to pick the right time to write. It takes me a solid 2-3 hours to write an entry. About half is the physical writing and the other half is the downloading and editing of pictures and making sure all the coding is correct so that the links in the journal match the right pictures!

There have been many a Sunday where I knew I could not write that day, but really figured on writing the next day. Last Sunday was one of those, but poor Grace cam down with a bad cold and needed extra attending to by Nora and I. I had hoped to still write on Tuesday, but Grace was still sick and then Nora and I got sick Wednesday and have been down with the bug ever since. My worst day was Wednesday, when I was just zapped for energy and could barely get out of bed. Every day since, I have been feeling a bit better and am no too far from full strength.

Before I forget, while I was writing the last entry, I was waiting for a picture of the apartment’s kitchen to come through and it never, so I gave up after waiting 30 minutes. By the next morning, the image had finally come through, but too late to make that entry. I did keep it so that when the last time I write I could share with you. So here it is. The kitchen inside the barndeemininum.

When I go two weeks without writing this time of the year, it can be hard to keep the days and events straight. This go around the weather helps a lot to keep things in their place. The weather two weeks ago was about as beautiful as it can be this time of the year. Temps in the upper 60’s to low 70’s and loads of sunshine. Every local I knew was taking advantage of that weather to get outdoor work done, Including the crew working on our new home and me. The crew working on our new house did a lot on the foundation that week, digging out the area for the home and foundation, as well as forming up and pouring the  footings.

For over two years, there was a pile of rough cut pine that was sitting all stacked and stickered on the side of the driveway for the shop. It came from a large windfall at a neighbors place. Another neighbor was kind enough to cut it into 1/2″ slabs for me with his portable bandsaw mill. My plan all along was to use it to side the interior walls of the shop. The look I am wanting for the inside of the shop is that of the inside of an old barn. 

So on November 2nd, my brother came over and helped me pull the slabs off the pile one by one, square up the sides using a track saw with an extra long track and then restack. In two days time, we were able to square up half of the pile and get restack them inside the shop. The other half of the pile we ended up bringing inside the shop because the weather had closed in and the days to be able to square them up outside would be very limited. So all of that wood now sits inside the shop, either ready to be put on the walls or to have their sides squared up. Plus, for the first time in over 2 years, that pile is not sitting there looking ugly!

Last week provided less favorable weather for working outside, however, there were a few days that were good enough to get things done. I did not have too much left to do, so spent much of my time working indoor, or in bed! The crew spent the good days setting up and then filling the insulated concrete forms, then backfilling the field with sand, so that they could do the under-slab plumbing. They then finished the work for the week off by putting the rigid foam insulation down, then the wire mesh and lastly the pex tubing for the in-floor heat. Doing all that just in time for a ton of rain to hit Thursday and then some rain and snow Friday, with snow falling Saturday and flurries today. All told we picked up around 1-2″ of snow, with the higher terrain picking up double to triple that. There is still around 1-2″ of snow where the slab will be poured and on the grass. I have a feeling that it will be the snow that sticks around until the final melt in spring.

The plan is for them to pour the slab on Monday, tidy up things and then disappear for deer season and most of the month of December, taking time off to be with their families for the holidays. There is a small chance that a few of them may be here in December to do a bit of the preliminary framing work, but I am not going to expect much and just be thankful that they will be returning in force in January to get the place framed and the work will then continue pretty much non-stop until the place is finished in late spring.  

This afternoon, I took my truck over to a friends place to put it’s winter boots on. He has a lift which made the job easier, but man-oh-man those tires and tims weighed a ton! and were not the easiest things to lift into place. Got the job done and now all that is left to do before the snow gets serious is to swap the loader for the snowthrower on Big Red!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
JD