quiet water sun bursts

This week's work has been focused on "knocking out the frame" as Tilt would say. They have completed both plate sections and one bent. Plates are basically the walls for the sides of the house and a bent connects them together. The plates are done first and then taken apart so that the posts from each side can be used to create the bents. Our house has four bents (one on each end and two in the middle). Most of this work is done by hand with chissels: check the fit, chissel some more, measure, chissel some more, check the fit, measure, chissel and on and on until the whole plate or bent measures square. It is a group effort with some chisseling, some measuring and sometimes everyone puts forth a burst of 'umph' at the same time, moving beams to put things together, or take them apart to chissel out a little more. It is a challanging process with a real feeling of reward at the end of the day when a whole section measures up square and looks pretty.

The work site has been busy but quiet with one to four people working on the frame. Well except Tuesday there was a big burst of energy at the site. The excavator and the well workers were there. The water was hooked up from the well to the house. K and M had a great time helping the water wells guys (one of them is M's Dad). We watched as they placed the litte pump way way way down into the earth. Besides digging th trench for the water pipe, the excavator did some back filling around the foundation. We can walk right to it now, but we still need a ladder to get up there! I imagine the rest will be filled in later.

All this and Tilt has managed to squeeze in building the bonfire at Solarfest (www.solarfest.org). He worked late into the evenings and finished off on Friday afternoon. The fire will be ready for Saturday night.

Summer goes by so fast!

worker ants

I killed an ant that was creeping into my front door. The ant next to it rolled over and played dead. He took me by surprise and made me laugh. The house building is a different kind of drama. In the past couple of weeks the house has changed from a concrete structure to one with window openings, door openings and a ceiling above. A closed in space where we once tried so hard to image it.

By the July 4th weekend break Tilt had the site cleaned up and the deck on. I have always found basements creepy. I guess it is some kind of leftover childhood fear that seeps into me from dark corners and boilers that surely will come alive and eat me. I thought I wouldn't feel that way in a brand home. However, the first time I walked in and couldn't see the sky above, I knew which corners I would avoid. I decided that K's foot prints will protect me from the ghouls under the stairs, but I suspect I may walk fast past the other dark corner.

The joinery for the timber frame started Monday morning when LL generously showed up and gave us a week of work. Tilt, Dad, and LL have been working in the hot sun all week without the usual breeze that hits the hill. They are building the frame next to the house with a view of the open deck that we cannot fully imagine being enclosed like the space below now is.

The stress to get the work done is on Tilts shoulders. I can see it on his mind before he speaks of joinery and framing and insulation all at once. He then tells me that he is "trying to build the house in one day again." It is this unrealistic goal that lets him know he is tired and should stop working, planning, and thinking. It is time to hang out in the doorway with a beer and the death feigning ant.