Jennifer tries out the balcony,  surfaced for the first time.  She's looking the wrong way,  but as of now,  the balcony still has a view to the East! 

Day late on this post -- busy weekend.  Apart from socializing with folks from J's office, we got to see Joan Baez on Friday night.  Really enjoyed that.  

Well,  the pour was successful,  although very difficult.  THings didn't get started until almost 2.  The scheduled noon start time was objectionable to me as it was,  given that it's dark here by before 5 right now.  Thanks to a firend named Eddie who brought me all kinds of things that I didn't think I needed, we do have a job site light ,  see (hanging as if crucified): 

 but it's far from ideal to work that way.  Things are pretty sloppy working with concrete.... and they got even sloppier when we had a few "blowouts."  That's when the concrete breaks through and creates a truly awful mess...  It shouldn't happen.  I don't think it will happen again to me... because I could see exactly why it happened once it did, and because it was so traumatic that I'll take any precaution I can possibly imagine next time.  

If all's well that ends well,  then it's well.  It ended at 8:30 PM -- a terribly long day when you're hauling and muscling the weight of concrete.  Furthermore,  there's a big difference between clean up right after a pour and clean up the next morning,  when the grey goop is dry and tough... but live and learn,  we cleaned all day Tuesday.

Thanks to Sebastian,  who thinks a lot better than I do in blow out mode,  the scars where the blow outs were repaired are really minimal and all within what the plaster on our future walls will smooth over...  

After about 1 1/2 days of clean up we moved on to putting up rafters and then decking thatform the roof over  the mudroom and study and the subfloor of  the balcony to the west.  That's what Jennifer is tanding on above, and what you see here:

Also working on completing the sloped sides and then just moving up with the walls until the second floor trusses arrive.  It's getting higher and harder to work on a single height scaffolding.

THis is a short week and next week will start with a small extra pour .  Then if we have trusses,  it will be time for some carpentry again, so we can build up from the second floor platform.  That's it for now from your weary homemaker.  Looking forward to a long weekend OFF!