Tearing Down the Roof

June 21, 2008 - Let's see, where to start. It's been a busy two days. Yesterday we got an early start on the demolition project. Joe spent most of his time on the roof -

but don't worry, I took a turn too cuz I'm tough like that -

Honestly, I don't quite have the balance Joe does and so I'm not all too comfortable up there. So I mostly spent my time cleaning up around Joe - getting shingles into the dumpster after he shoved them to the ground, moving more insulation and drywall, and managing the fire which we had burning the whole time we were there -

We incurred our first injury yesterday too. Okay, not so much 'we' as 'me.' It was very stupid and I'm ashamed of myself, but somebody had to get hurt at least once so if this takes care of it then I'm cool with that. Basically, I had just headed down to the lower side of the house to pick up shingles and after my very first handful I stood up and bonked my head HARD on this pretty pipe that's behind our house. Been there since we bought the house. Knew it was there. Hit my head anyway. Joe heard the ping from the roof and came running to my rescue. No blood, just a big old bump and some soreness, and I got back to work pretty quickly. But Joe, being the king of safety, tied this orange tape around it to try to keep me from repeating my stupidity.

Once we got tired we quit the hard labor for the day and went over to Williams Lumber to see my brother Bill and get some info...on lumber. We're going to use engineered lumber for the floor, so we needed to ask him about what we can get so we can add the proper dimensions to the plans. As you can see, he was happy to serve us. :)

As it was my first day of super hard work, I passed out that night around... 8 pm. Hopefully my body is going to get used to this energy level and I won't be so exhausted EVERY day.

This morning we woke to our maturing rooster crowing his heart out. He's definitely getting to be a problem. Every time I hear him I cringe, not because the noise bothers me but because I can only imagine what the neighbors are thinking. So we decided to try something new tonight - a dark box maybe? We'll see. But the sooner we move him to the new property the better.

We had to do some shopping this morning to buy some tarps, rope, and a screened tent, which we then took over to the property. We have less than a week before we need to move out of mom's house so we decided to start working on our camp site today. We raked a big clearing for everything and found the ground is actually pretty soft and squishy. We went ahead and put up the screen tent so that while we're working we have a place to go chill out in the shade and away from the bugs. It's amazing to sit in it and look up at the trees and the sun peaking through. We love our property. And it looks pretty from down by the road too -

We stopped for a pizza break, besides the local deli it's pretty much the only food nearby, and then did some more on the house. Here's where we were at when we left tonight -

In two days we'll have had the dumpster for a week, which is when I thought we'd be done with taking down the whole house. Obviously an unrealistic goal. But we do think it's coming along pretty well and we are actually enjyoing the hard work as well as the time alone together, working toward our goals.

I still owe you a garden update, which I do not have time for tonight. But for just a taste - here's a broccoli head starting- shouldn't be long before we can start eating it. :)