Once we had finally got all the walls raised it was time to prepare for the roof to go on. We thought this would happen pretty fast, but (unsurprisingly) underestimated the amount of time it would take us to get the house sheeted and the headplates in place for the roof to sit on. We also decided that life would be much easier if we rented some machinery to help get the job done. We had a lift for four days during the second week which allowed us to get everything done. At first it was slightly unnerving being 35 feet above ground in the windy prairies, but it turned out that the wind we were experiencing at that point was nothing compared to that which was to occur a few days later.
We also had to prepare the roof joists before they could be lifted into place. In total we had 65 joists to cut which didn't really seem like too big a job. However, once we realised that it took all 3 of us to move the joists we realised what we had got ourselves into. It took us more than a day just to cut the joists, but eventually we were ready for the crane to come and lift them onto the walls.
The day that the crane arrived seemed to be a nice calm one, and we looked forward to getting the job done reasonably quickly and easily. What followed was a steadily increasing wind, and a non stop 8 hour slog to get all the joists up. While Lea and I were on top of the walls waiting to secure the joists, Lea's mum was on the ground responsible for guiding everything into place. After being pulled around by the wind for 6 hours she was given some assistance when (another) Rob arrived to lend a hand. By this point the wind had really picked up and there were a few hairy moments with joists being ditched in the neighbouring field after swinging wildly out of control. The crane driver was close to aborting the whole job, but luckily stayed on to help us get it completed.
Unfortunately we don't have many pictures of the joists going into place as there was never a moment, or a spare pair of hands, to take a picture. For James' benefit though we do have one crane shot, as he seemed to enjoy them previously.
Once the roof joists were in place we still needed to get them sheeted, and shingled so that they are weather tight. We had the weekend scheduled to get the sheeting done, but were hit by the windiest weather that we have experienced so far on the build. We did attempt to get some sheets in place, hauling them onto the roof with a rope. At the point when one of the sheets nearly knocked me off the roof I decided that I was too scared to stay up there any longer so we quit for the weekend with only about 10% of the roof sheeted.
This week has also seen Lea and I return to work, so we have been using the evenings to get the sheeting finished. This has been made harder by the shortening days, but we managed to set some floodlights up on the roof to allow us to work in the dark. This was going well until the generator stalled on Tuesday night, leaving us stuck on the roof with no lights! Once again Stan and Nicole have been giving up their free time to help us out and their help is much appreciated.
The intention is to get the sheeting finished tomorrow night, and then spend the weekend getting the roof shingled. No doubt there will be plenty more delays though. We are feeling the pressure now though as the weather forecast is predicting snow in two weeks time. It seems strange to think that the temperature can drop from 23 degrees (today) to a predicted 4 in two weeks time, but it's something that we will have to deal with.
In the past two weeks we have also had the power trenched in to the land. We are currently waiting for our electrician to come and connect the house to the transformer, and then we will be able to stop using the generator and save ourselves some gas money! Also we have installed one window, which was more out of curiosity than anything else. It was quite a learning experience, and leaves me slightly concerned about how we will manage to get the other 20 windows in place!
In non house news this time, we were lucky enough to be offered some tickets to go and see Sheryl Crow on Monday. This was something that we had considered a while ago when the concert was announced, but decided that we wouldn't have the time. However, when Al and Cindy called us up and said that they had a spare pair of tickets (in the second row) we decided that we should probably make the time to relax and have a night off. Thanks very much to Al and Cindy for the opportunity!
Also we have a new address, as we will soon be moving out of our flat here in Saskatoon (well, hopefully at the end of November). The new address is:
Box 316
Grandora
SK
S0K 1V0
Feel free to address any correspondence to us there......
Also we have two new memebers of the family. Following the depression caused by the windy weather at the weekend I decided to invest in a fish bowl and some goldfish. You can see the fish in the video below (mostly because I wanted to try putting some video on here). Also this allows me to throw the blog open to a bit of audience participation. Currently the fish are nameless but I would like to give them names. So, if you would like to suggest names for both fish (please leave them in the comments section below) when I next update the blog I there will be the chance to vote for your favourite suggestion. All suggestions will be entered into the poll (although please appreciate that this is a family website, so no offensive suggestions please). The person who suggests the names will receive a (as yet unspecified) prize for their input.
This talk of polls brings me nicely to the poll from the last installment. Thanks very much for all your suggestions, and it seems that Princess Leia is the overwhelming favourite. I will take that into consideration when I eventually get round to planning the costume.
I think that pretty well sums it all up for now. I hope this blog entry makes sense, I apologise if not, but I am not really 'feeling it' at the moment. Hopefully we will be overwhelmed with suggestions for fish names and the next installment can rival the upcoming election for excitement.
Until next time,
Rob and Lea
