Building in Progress

I think we are on our second week of building, and these photos will show you how far we have come. It's really true: a picture is worth a thousand words! That's great, because I'm short on time!

Here's the beginning of our first wall.

Jonathan and Peter are the apprenticed workers for the day with Jim. They have become experts at wielding a hammer.



Even David is willing and able to help out with the building process, and holds a very steady board.

I guess the wall is showing some progress! The pop-up camper is what we lived in for 3 weeks when we first moved up here; we lived there until we woke up one morning to 27 degree weather, and knew we needed to make other arrangements! Anyway, the camper has become Jim's construction headquarters.

I should have one of the experts in here telling me what these photos represent!

This must have been taken just before our friends came over to raise the walls and brace them. In the background you can see the wall to our hoop house, and the blue tarp covers some of our chickens.
The wall is up!

And I think this is the other wall that was raised. It was a good thing the walls were well braced, because 2 days after the walls were up we had wind gusts up to 45 miles per hour. Thankfully the walls stayed up.

This is a photo of the beginning of the 3rd wall, where the peak is starting to take shape. I neglected to mention that the house will have a main floor and a loft, where the boys will have their bedroom. Jim decided it would be better at this time to raise the walls for both levels at the same time, and then later build the floor for the loft area.

Good progress at the end of yet another beautiful day.

Here is our work crew -- minus Peter, who is taking the photos. (I must have been glued to the stove with more canning.) Samson, Andrew, Jonathan, Jim and David.

Jonathan enjoys wearing a harness so he can do some free floating!

The building crew on an electric lift that a friend's neighbor graciously offered to us for use for a few days. We need to take it back soon, since someone else has asked to use it.

In the meantime, this is the view from my clotheslines. We have 9 Bourbon Red turkeys that love to come and visit me as I hang clothes. They enjoy spending their day scouring the countryside for bugs, and then hang around their pen in the evening until Peter gets them back in for the night.

This is the view the boys will see every day from their future bedroom in the loft. We haven't cut down any trees by the lake until we check out our view from the main floor, and will then decide what we want to do.

I will include more photos as I can. If the trusses arrive by the weekend, we'll have a possible large crew of families coming to help set them in place.