Roofing is like Ballet. One bad slip, and there goes your career. The way you stand on the cleats nailed onto the roof is 3d position in Ballet too, I think. Got one half of the roof finished today! I couldn't have done it without help, unless I had superhero levitating powers. Peter was nice enough to use one of his days off to help me. Next weekend, we'll hopefully get the other half on. I could do it sooner if somebody else wanted to come over here and be a big help ... any takers? :)
December 27th
Yay! Got some roofing done today :) Peter helped, as did Joaquin <wa-keen>. We ran out of plywood on the last row. Used some spare plywood Peter had that was hanging around, that was slightly smaller width. Ran out of that, so I'm breaking down and buying another sheet tomorrow. It was nice and sunny, mid 20's. Joaquin's kids were zooming by all day in their sleds. They've got a really nice trail packed down. Hmmm...:)
January 2nd
Peter and Joaquin did work on the house without me! They were unscrewing the piece of plywood I had bought for my house roof from the sled Peter made to haul in wood. The next thing I knew they were in the house saying they put that last piece up and put on 3/4's of a flying rafter! Looks good.
January 3rd
Today we started work at 10 under slightly snowy/blue skies. Peter cut and drilled the sheets of metal, while Joaquin and I drilled them onto the roof. We finished that side of the roof! It's a very pretty shade of red.
January 6th
Peter, Joaquin, Cedric, a WWOOF'ER from Switzerland, and I got almost all the metal on the roof today! All that is left is one sheet, and it's on backorder at the hardwear store. I had to climb to the very top and scoot along on my butt to screw on the ridge cap. Great views from up there! Luckily nobody fell but me! I accidentally stepped through a hole in the scafolding and scraped my thumb. We're lucky to have everything go so well with such a steep roof, and working on it in the winter.
January 11th
I got a kitchen sink! It was sitting by the side of the road. It was made in 1949, and still looks good. Joaquin drove me there and back to pick it up, and I dragged the thing over the snow to the house. Snow can sometimes be such a pain in the butt, but when you're dragging things it's not bad. We also stopped by his storage unit and picked up a woodstove.
January 12th
I now have a sink, stove and fridge in the house! We got Matt and Tanya, woofers from Burlington today, so I immediately put them to work :) We all carried this huge, heavy, 6 burner gas stove over the snow and laid it into our homemade wooden sled. Peter drove the atv, and we all pushed and directed the sled occasionally. Managed to get it into the house with only breaking 1 handle and a door :) They're easily fixable, though. I also marked out all the outlets in preparation for wiring.
January 18th
Was busy doing other things today, so I left Joaquin a 3-d model, drawings, and instuctions on how to frame the gable window up in the loft. He also cut a sheet of plywood for sheathing the end wall.
January 20th
Peter showed Joaquin how to wire correctly - Joaquin had wired 5 outlets, but didn't ground them properly in the way Peter had told him. Peter taught me how to wire and redid three outlets, then helped me tinker with the woodstove setup. Joaquin is still tinkering with the plywood sheathing and can't get the angle right. Wacky angle...
January 21st
Peter took a switch and some wire and wired it all up correctly. It's a model for joaquin to use for my light switches so he won't make a mistake. Peter used it to poke and tease Zeke, tomorrow it will get used correctly :)
January 23rd
It was beautiful today! Sunny and blue skies in the morning, with a temp around 44! Then it got that cool erie dark blue-gonna-rain color and sprinkled a bit. I tried putting up the last sheet of metal today. I could not get it to stay put! Sliced three of my fingers on the edge of the metal when it started to slide for the thousandth time. OWWWW! Kept trying, but finally dropped the metal. It slid to the ground and crumpled. I had bled all over the roof while still trying to put it up. I went in to get bandaged up, then lingered to make dinner in advance. Chicken marinated for 6 hours in a spicy sauce, and some peanut dipping sauce to go with it. Scrubbed the new fridge so we could transer food from one to the other and I could take the old fridge to my house. Went out again and ripped a piece of 2 by 3 to fit the door molding where the old stuff had rotten away. The door weighs, at a conservative estimate, at least a ton and a half. Caulked and slid the door in, fits perfectly!
January 26th
I learned how to wire, and wired the rest of the house today! Peter explained how to wire, then checked over my outlet after I wired. He said it looks good and is up to code! Wired the entire rest of the outlets, except for one we didn't have the parts for.
I don't see what Joaquin is whining about. He's had experience wiring before, yet only managed to do 3 correct outlets in almost 2 weeks. I learned how to wire today, and wired all the rest of the house. It just proves that if you have the ambition, you can do anything. However If you don't think you can do it, you're probably right.
We got so much done today! Wired the rest of the house, got 3/4's of the sofit and vents up on the north side of the house, and prepped the loft for another couple sheets of plywood! As a bonus, all the snow fell off the roof as we were working below it :-) The only bad thing was that I sliced my left ring finger while stripping wire. OW! My hands are a wreck. We're doing metal tomorrow. Hope we don't get sliced!
January 27th
Well, we didn't get hurt on the last metal sheet we put up today! I accidentally sliced myself with my knife when it closed, though. Wrapped my finger up but it kept bleeding. when I poked the top of the band-aid, blood would spurt out. Came in to gross out mom and got bandaged up. :-)
Today was another glorious day. Peter cut a hole in my wall for the stovepipe and puttied a hole in the top of the stove, we put on the last sheet of metal and the last ridge cap to seal everything up, nailed down all but one remaining piece of my loft floor, cut the correct angle in the plywood and put one piece up on the end wall, made and installed a flying rafter ... all in 3 1/2 hours. We would've done more, but Peter did family household stuff while mom and I went to church for regular services (Non-holiday) for the first time in 11 years. :-) Services were 3 hours long!
Found out the wiring was not completely done as we thought it was yesterday. Turns out Joaquin had messed up all the outlet boxes, putting them way too far out, and not at 1/2 inch per instructions. To fix that I'll have to take off the covers, take out all the wiring guts, unscrew the box, move it to correct depth, screw it back in, cram the wires back in, and put the covers back on.
January 28th
It was HOT today! We got all the way up to 50. I worked in a t-shirt for most of the time :) Todays job was definately for somebody with hips. I had to hook my hips around the window frame, brace my feet against the wall studs, and lean backwads out of the gable wall window to fit and nail plywood. At the end of the day it felt like I had done 3,000 sit-ups. I held the window out over the ground 13 feet below while I caulked it, then carefully slid it in. Let the caulk settle while I took a lunch break, than came back to create inner window frames. I'll wrap and staple plastic to them for extra insulation. Made all but two frames, as I ran out of 2x3s
January 29th
Made the last 2 inner window frames, sawed and nailed the last loft plywood, and put the last two outer triangles on the gable end walls. Started to make outer window trim frames. They kept coming out too big, even though I measured them to be too small. I think I'm unconciously sabatoging myself because I don't want the house to be finished. :-)
February 7th
Ding dong, the driveway dwellers are gone! We officially told them to leave on the 31st.
It is such a relief. The deal was, Joaquin and the family could come here and live, finishing up my house, then they could move in and stay until June.
The wife and kids never worked a day. He forbid the kids to even come in and look at the house. We went through my journal and estimated the time he had put in, giving him lots of credit. We came up with 17 hours. 17 hours in 40 days. And what he did work on, he messed up, leaving me to redo.
We met weekly with him, making sure everything was ok. He was in here just about daily, whining and complaining that there was nothing to do, that he couldn't do it without more materials, that it was too cold.
This winter is the warmest on record, with an average temp of 30.
We gave him detailed lists. He needed them in order of importance, or he couldn't work. We rearranged them. He wanted a work schedule. We told him we were not going to do that, if he wanted to work on the house he should just DO IT, and if he didn't want to, they were still welcome to live in the driveway in their trailer. No, no, he said, he was very excited to build the house! In fact, he promised to close in the two endwalls before he went anywhere...the next day they were gone. They didn't even let us know they were going. They were away for 5 days. When they got back, he didn't even walk over to, much less touch my house in 5 more days.
We called a meeting, and had them all come into the house. We explained the situation, and asked for an explanation. We told them that on account of their behavior, they had to leave. They had broken farm rules number 2, 4 and 6. They had read and agreed to the farm rules beforehand.
Joaquin got really, really nasty. He started calling me names. He told me he hated me, thought I was evil, couldn't stand me. He said this in front of mom and Peter. He said some other choice words. He taunted me, asking if I was going to have him arrested. I said YES! If he was going to continue.
Then he asked if he could keep his trailer here 5 days more.
We gave them two days to pack up and get out.
They finally packed up everything and moved their trailer 5 days later, on the 4th.
Joaquin told us that before they left, he would pay us for his bills, because he was not the kind of person to leave without doing that. We haven't heard from them since. Hmmm.........
So if you all are wondering why I haven't been working lately, that's why. :) We're all still recovering from stress.
