Week of June 21

This was  a full 6 day workweek, so here's a fast post from a tired workerwoman.  The highlight of today-- my day of rest -- was the installation of my solar clothes dryer.  

The outside of the house is pretty much done now,  minus gutters & paint & railings & the balcony frame that has still to be made and attached .  

We're inside now,  framing out the first floor and then getting to the radiant floor sandwich -- the heat delivery system.  

("we"  is yours truly and a new helper named Mike,  as the detail of interior work required a sad farewell to Sebastian at the start of the week.)

The guy I hired to place the steel on the  roof  completed his work this weekend,  and it has changed the look of the west side a lot.

 The covered porch areas are now actually covered.   

The steel roof is directly overhead in those areas.  Maybe that's a mistake in terms of noise when it rains.... we'll see. 

In any case, it gives quite a different feel when entering and exiting the main door and also the kitchen door.  Even those on 4 legs  notice,  as you can see.  =; -)

Belated report on the week of June 14

Getting the house plastered was a major stress for me,  so I fell into a weekend of rest and have not picked up the "pen" until tonight -- Tuesday night.    

Becasue of the way that lime plaster dries,  it was necessary to have at least two people competent with a trowel working at once.  In addition I had a helper working with me on carpentry... so it was like being a manager all over again.  You never get anything done very well yourself because of constant interruptions!   FInding a number 2 troweler took a little doing,  but we did finally find a fellow who was able to help Sebastian get a lot of material up in good time. 

The upshot is that from the outside we no longer look like a block house!  

The weather has been glorious.  Now that some heat is showing up I really am glad to be moving inside to frame walls and put down floors and such.    

But Barley and my evening walks are ever-so-blooming now.  There are daisys all over our land this week:  

And even in the woods there are random out breaks of flowers. Even the ferns in the woods are on steriods.

Final Stucco and First Beets! WO June 8

I will be very relieved when the plastering of the exterior is done.   The first coat is completely finished and we've mixed all the material for the finish coat (heavy work).  I was glad to drive the monster mortar mixer back to the rental place.

We added some pigment to the finish coat -- just to make the final paint coat have less to cover.

So,  the grey that you see is the final coat,  and the white has only had one. 

Today I harvested our first beets from the garden -- up to now we've been eating our own salad and greens -- a first for us.  They might be more interesting to look at,  or at least more novel! They are ciogga beets -- so no deep red.  Really good.  Can't beet living up here!

Week of June 1st and before.

It looks like I skipped last week,  but I actually had a blog post all done -- the tedious process of uploading about 6 photos on our satellite  service was behind me -- when the whole thing disappeared into the ether ozone,  so I went to bed!  

Upshot of the lost post:  Needed a scene change, as perhaps you might appreciate too, so I' staring with a few pics  from our hike along the Rogue river. 

It was just one night away,  but still a good break. 

There weren't too many photogenic changes in the house building during the missed week.  A lot of energy and time went into moving myself out of the little shop that I had been renting.  It was a combination of moving very heavy equipment and then collecting literally thousands of little things that always need to be reorganized each time you move... Each are in their own way exhausting to deal with, and it took a lot out of me.    But,  after a few days of rebuilding and  reorganizing,  I've got the basement set up as a nice shop now,  in time to get to work on the interior of the house, soon, I hope.   Here's a shot of my lovely saw arrangement all set up in the basement. 

Next major event was the long awaited visit this thursday from a pair of women who trained us (Sebastian and me) so that we can get to work on the lime plaster (or lime stucco) finish on the outside of the house.    It was a long and messy day that started with renting a tow behind mortar mixer.   Pictures of it don't really capture the iritating deafening engine noise... it's a pest,  but it does the trick.  

Meanwhile the women of FLying Hammer got started and eventually Sebastian joined them with the trowels.  I don't think troweling is a skill I'll be learning in time to want to look at my own handiwork,  so I hauled heavy buckets of lime and moved scaffolding hither and yon.  

 

Most remarkably,  after a morning that included some drizzle but also very hot sun,  we retired to the mobile home for a lunch break only to watch the sky break open with the most INTENSE storm.  (Tornados in the vicinity we later learned.  Great to be in the mobile staring at the concrete bunker through the window... Oy)  We watched as the ground turned white with hail about nickel-sized.  That was between buckets of water.   We were pretty devastated at the thought of the morning's work washed away.   45 minutes later it was all over,  but for the pock marks on the morning's work.   Well... THey'll get covered next coat. 

As if all that wasn't enough,  this weekend was a working weekend as the moonlighting roofer that I hired to put up the metal for me was finally able to come.  

WHile I am tremendously relieved to have things moving  faster than I could move them myself,  it is bittersweet for me to have someone else complete such a major portion of the house.... I'm getting pretty close to having done it all.... Still, it was a relief.  In part it was so because there was was disappointment on my part with how wavy the roof material is turning out to be.  I'm sure that if I had been doing the installation I would have thought the problem was with my work and taken 50 detours to try and re-arrange....   And that's all I'm saying about the "oil canning" in the roof.... I'm trying not to let it spoil the otherwise pleasant addition of roof.

There was ONe more momentous development this weekend:  

The first in the project trip to the dump.  If you know construction at all,  you should be very impressed to learn that up 'to now we have done this project with the only garbage going out in our every-other-week domestic garbage barrel of 30 gallons.  All the other materials have been recycled,  and that which must be dumped has gone on a pile which we loaded into the truck on Saturday.   This is quite an accomplishment and believe me it takes time to sort through everything and keep the land-fill contribution this low. 

Ok.  That's a very long blog to make up for some short and missed ones.  I leave you with shot of how things are looking at the job :   

And this one of how things are looking at the garden -- which has begun to feed us daily.  THere's plenty left over, so come and see for yourselves sometime and we'll feed you fresh veggies!