Weekend with the Hawkins'

Well Cath came out on Friday night, so no blog was done.  But it was a momentous day as the timber frames arrived.  The truck that brought them up was supposed to be able to come right up the driveway, but it was not without incident.  It was a pretty old truck that leaked fluid like a sieve.  But the timber packages made it safely to the ground and the truck managed to get back down the driveway too.

the house trusses had to be put on the topsoil piles

the peaks of the house are already put together, thus the triangle shape

more packages of timbers, all together 5 big loads

It rained gently most of the night and looked ok on Saturday morning.   We went to town and in an hour had done the laundry, had breakfast at Timmy's and did some grocery shoppping.  When we got back, we found the rain had left lots of water on the plywood.  So Cath got busy sweeping the water off the floor.

there was a lake on the plywood

Meanwhile, Len was doing his favourite job, trying to get the long rods placed in the south wall.

way up on the scaffold

this is as tricky as it looks

Then the skies turned black and it began to rain, complete with thunder and lightening.  Not a time to stand at the top of the house with a metal rod in your hands.  So we went into the RV and enjoyed doing a couple of crossword puzzles.  Once the rain quit, it was time to again sweep off all the water.  (see picture above and imagine doing it all again).  Around suppertime, we were rescued by Dave, Doris and Brad who came up on their way to the coast.  We took them on a tour, gathered together wine and salad makings and headed over to the cabin they are staying in at the Hills Guest Ranch across the highway.  Doris and Brad cooked up some chicken to supplement the greek salad, spinach salad and tortilla/potato chips and dip.  Maybe it was the two bottles of wine, but it seemed like a feast.  

Sunday morning when the Hawkins' arrived, we went to work.  Doris and Cath did some clean up of the forest floor, taking out dead wood and straggling aspens.  Brad, Dave and Len put up a big scaffold.

Brad and Dave 

Then they went to work on the aforementioned rods at the top of the south wall.  Nice to have help as it is  fussy work.

Dave using the hand saw up on top

Cath, Brad and Doris also did inventory of the frames, as much as was possible.  We finally figured out that the blue numbers were the number of the frame and the red numbers were the timbers that attached to the piece.  We found one package had mostly posts, one mostly beams, and one had the braces. 

figuring out what was what

Soon it was time for Cath to leave as she has to work this week.  The Hawkins' will host supper tonight at the cabin.  They are here for another day and that will be a great help.  The weather is supposed to turn hot again so perfect for getting the timbers up.