Week Three

My family.

Time to go home.

Here's the roof, finally done.

Here I am putting up the ridge cap. It's nice to have someone around to take pictures while I'm working. Two notes about sitting up there: 1. For a person as scared of heights as I am, not restful. 2. The edge: sharp.

Putting the metal roof up.

Putting up the felt.

"The Contraption"

I built this so I could go up on the roof which is way too steep to stand on.

Ricky enjoying his newly smoothed meadow.

I started out putting a coat of primer on the cabin. Ultimately, our little place will be yellow, but I didn't have time to finish it up this trip. This primer should offer some protection by itself.

After two days of hard work, I insisted she take a break. She did, sort of. Here she is doing some reinforcing nailing on the front porch.

Lauren did a lot of work. These hay stacks are all thistle bushes she pulled.

It was great getting to show Lauren our place in person. She hasn't seen the property since we bought it last summer. Besides being present in case I fell off the roof and reminding me to take a few minutes every day to go down by the creek to rest, Lauren worked tirelessly. She couldn't help paint and I wasn't letting my pregnant wife on top of the roof so for two straight days she pulled thistle bushes from the big meadow. Our cottage sits at edge of this meadow and clearing it out really opened it up.

Went up this weekend for the last big push. Twelve straight days of work that pays and a kitchen remodel await at home, so this is the last chance I'll have for awhile to do anything major. I wanted to paint our little cottage and put the roof on so I can leave it knowing it will be protected against the elements. As usual, I underestimated the time these projects would take. The thing that made this weekend different than others is that this time I had a helper.