Step Six - Try not to run out of steam...

So I left you hanging with only 4 of the walls up - 2 ends and 2 half sides...

We finished the walls, filled in the corners, did the 'plumb-and-line' and bracing, got the trusses delivered, and got about 4 hours in on the roof. I hope to have most of the rest of the trusses raised over the next 2 or 3 evenings then have the whole thing sheathed and nailed off over the next week or so. I may not be 'Dry by July', but I'll be close. Here's the run-up to today:

Finished the walls...

The corners will be closed off last:

Door trimmer detail:

Corner top plate detail:

Window trimmers/cripples detail:

Anchor / corner detail:

Bracing (not much needed really - it came out straight, for once)

Roof trusses as delivered - it was the same driver as the last two times...

If you ever need a roof - call Fairbanks Truss Company (907-479-4346)

It's about as worry free as you can get...

Starting to spread them out - first gable is up:

Trusses spread out for raising:

First 3 and 2nd gable:

Blocking (Detail courtesy Martin Engineering, Inc.)

Blocking from the inside:

As it stands now...


I'm picking up the Insulpex pipe over my lunch break from Keller Supply - it's the pipe that'll run underground from the boiler house to the house - all one piece, insulated...

No mill news - haven't had the time to crank it up lately.

No bike news other than I've bought the drive sprocket cassette, the disc brakes are in the mail, I have the pillow blocks for the rear axles, and I have several pounds of fasteners all conveniently arranged at the bottom of an old lasagne pan, along with a handful of wood chips and some escaped pellets for padding... I'll have to get pictures of the progress soon...

No chicken news... Though I'm thinking of side blogs for each of them to record their chronicles... Barnia? I can imagine it would be pretty boring... "Pecked at the shiny thing, ate some crumbly stuff, had a drink. Considered the consequences of my actions concerning my particular place in the universe and my personal role in it all - the 'what would happen if I weren't here?' question. And did I come first or was it the egg? Oh, look - a shiny thing!"

Never mind...

~Gustatus Similis Pullus~

Step Five - More waiting - building - inspections...

So what do you do when you're waiting that first week before building anything on your new concrete? Walk barefoot on the new coolness, of course! Use all 4 if you got 'em - Styopa did... I only got off the pad long enough to take the picture :)



OK - we had the pour done on the 7th - then waited a week before building. In the meantime, I arranged for the bulk of the building material to be delivered on the 14th - hopefully earlier in the day, but the 14th sometime... The truck pulled up about 3, dropped (literally) the load in the driveway, and left - Alexander and I started moving piles... About 4 we discovered that there were 8 single items missing - called the friendly folks at Northland Wood Products, Inc. (452-4000) - in 45 minutes it was delivered and stacked... Whew! Try that with Homie D's or Lowelys... I guess I'll be going back there for quite a few other things in the next couple of weeks...

Sunday I spent building the main walls (north/south end of the main section, and the east/west walls of the studio side. We shuffled some things here and there and stopped here:



I stopped in to Lowe's that evening to see if the shingles had arrived. (only place around that deals in Owens-Corning...) I knew they had because I checked my order status online. But I wanted to see if they knew that the order had arrived. Nope. I got there with my receipt, asked if they could locate my order - it took 30 minutes to determine that: yes, they were ordered - yes, they were delivered - they came off the truck the day before and that they were ready to pick up. Interesting that they hadn't called me to tell me they were in... Oh, well... Three trips later (with the handy mini-trailer) I had a stack of shingle bundles at the side of my driveway. A good day's work...

A day deserving of one of the best lagers ever!

(A shout out to the members of the former 32d Armored Regiment, 2d Bn, A Co., and the 69th Armor, 2d Bn!)
AND - not only was it Father's Day, but I was building stuff! :)

A bit later the building inspectors came to check out the framing:

One of them had harsh comments...

Hmm...

See you next time~

Step Four - Done waiting - and off to a good start...

If you want fantastic concrete work and great service - call these guys:

McConnell's Concrete Finishing and HC Redi-Mix. They were right there - early! They were sure, quick, efficient, and friendly. And unlike some people that I won't mention, they didn't crush all my plants or back over anything. They didn't back into my trees and rip the bark. They didn't drive into the forms and cause a delay while they were reset. They didn't jerk me around on price. And they didn't mind if I dipped in the donut box ;)



So now I've got a coat of sealant on the concrete, waiting for Saturday and a large pile of lumber so I can begin framing... I'm hoping to have walls up by Sunday suppertime... A roof up in 2 weeks... Dry by July... I wish I had more than evenings and weekends, sometimes...



Meet The Peepers

Back row, left to right:
Dot and Dash (The Morse Sisters) and Cogburn (Reuben)
Front row:
Saffron and Cinnamon (the Hippy Chicks)

I know you're not supposed to name your food, but the hopes are that these few will be making eggs all winter and not make the trip to the freezer and 'The Big Sleep'... Maybe a new brood in the spring, even. (Seed chickens...) They'll have their own room on the side of the boiler house, a window, and a straw box each. Maybe name plates or personalized quilts, I dunno... I hope they don't want the room painted 'Eggshell'...

Meet The Pellets

Yep - getting there... 3 kilos last night before I gummed up the mix again... In the meantime I'm building a sifter/mixer and collecting parts for a three-pass chip dryer. I'll have pics of that as it gets working.

Long day - gonna go clean my framing hammer and dust out my nail bags before bed... I need to sharpen a couple of pencils, too... (yawn) Not enough hours in the day, anymore...

~Remember to live while you live~

Step Three - Get really busy and forget your blog...

Tomorrow it will be a month since the last time I was here - in the interest of appearing not lame I should post something, right? That and I'll be really busy again tomorrow...

We've been digging, digging, digging... Scraping, picking, chipping, chopping, hacking, and scooping our way down and back up again in order to be able to make the floor of the boiler house. The forms are all set and the concrete comes tomorrow...

There are Arxx brand insulated concrete forms (ICF) around the perimeter, one side cut down to allow the floor slab to be connected to the footing strip. #4 rebar is placed in the convenient clips built in to the forms, then wired together and finally staked to the ground and banked up with gravel to keep it all in place. Foam sheets are placed within the cut down area to insulate and isolate the slab from the ground. 6x6 welded wire mesh is placed over the foam and linked together to reinforce the slab (it will be pulled up into the center of the slab as the concrete is poured, hopefully it will stay where it is put...) Anchor bolts will be placed around the perimeter, peeking out the top of the slab, ready to hold down the walls that will start to go together about a week from tomorrow... More news on the boiler house later - but here are some pictures...

The site:

The stack of foam form blocks:

Forms ready for concrete:

Detail of forms:

Remember those chickens we raised on hand-fed bugs and worms and rainwater and grass and dustbaths and frisbee matches?

Freezer.

And man are they tasty :) Whupped up a meal the other night - involved honey, mint, lemon, and some other magic something. I had half this bird to myself... mmm-MM!

The pellet mill finally made it to the driveway. Actually I had to go pick it up with the trailer since the trucking company conveniently forgot that they were going to drop it off... Probably a good thing... The mill was defunct when I opened the crate. It had not been secured to the crate so it had flopped around a bit. The bolts that had previously held it assembled (disassembled for shipping) were in the bottom of the crate rolling about and trying to hide from me when I tried to hunt them down. The washers and nuts were loose, too, only they were inside the switch box that holds the controls, metering, and breakers for the motor. They had caused their own mayhem in the switch box and there were wires disconnected and small metal things wedged between the electrical bits. I can only imagine what I would have if I had followed the 3 page manual (the light version with no parts list or electrical diagrams) and plugged it in and hit the switch... (Probably nothing, actually...) There were paint flakes everywhere that had once held residence at the bottom of several dents in the back of the switch box and there was one unlabeled bag of the rest of the bits and one tool I would need to put the mill back together.

Sigh

Reassembled, I plugged it in and pressed the start switch. The breaker popped. Reset the breaker, checked everything, pressed the starter switch again. GRRRRRRRpop. The ammeter pegged out at 50 amps before tripping the breaker again. hmm... (emails and phone calls ensue - requested wiring diagram (I may post a picture of it later) , talks about warranty issues, who pays for testing, new motor, parts - last suggestion is that the centrifugal switch is not closing so that the start capacitor can actually do it's job...) I bent the arms of the centrifugal switch just slightly, hit the start switch and off it went...

So far I've made a mix of flour, oil, and sand to polish the bores of the plate die so the material can go through smoothly, and I've made a mix of just flour and oil (cooking oil, by the way) to oil the plate for 'storage' so that I don't have to use a punch or drill to clean out the hardened wood bits. So far the formula for perfect wood pellets (as shown by the company on the web site) eludes me, but I still have a fair amount to go through as practice...

At least I can use it as a dough mixer - maybe at Christmas I can use it to make dough pellets... ;) More pellet news as I make it...

~Use it up - wear it out - make it do - or do without~