Hello fans and followers. I know I said we were okay after that tornado and that we would update soon, but we haven't had the time. We have just worked ten full days in a row (ten hour days that is.) We're tired and dirty as usual. It can be hard to motivate to write something in the end of the day. I'll see what I can dredge up to show you though. First of all, Dave and I went out to breakfast the first day that they opened up the road out of town and we got to see some of the damage the tornado did to our neighbors. These pictures are from a lake about a half-mile from our lake.
All the bare trees used to be in the middle of the woods!
These guys are just fishing in front of the disaster area...
You can see the house across the lake from here is completely smashed.
Okay okay, enough of the disaster. I am going to see how far I can get telling you about where we are at, but we have done so much that I doubt I can catch you all up in just one entry. Hang in there, maybe I'll have time for another one tomorrow. First of all, we did frame the front wall. It is beautiful. We framed it with rough cut 2x6, so it looks really tough. We appreciate that after seeing a tornado rip through. Here is the wall all framed. We finished it on Thursday, the 24th.
Here is Dave taking a rare break to enjoy the odd spot of sunshine that poked through.
It was still raining, so we had to wait another day before we could put the sheathing on. It only took a couple of hours, and here is what it looked like once we were finished. The top window it not going to be that shape once we are all done, we think it may end up being an octagon window if we can scrounge one up.
I suppose that I should show you a little bit more of our life here on the lake, since our experience is all part of the adventure. A few weeks ago, my parents lent us their Coleman stove so we could make our tea and coffee in the morning. We enjoy our wake-up-drinks as the sun rises over the far shore. (the picture is a little off kilter because I balanced it on a damp cardboard box.)
And here is Dave cooking us up his special breakfast eggs.
Yes, we feel we are living large now that we can eat breakfast "on our own" - meaning not at Mom and Dad's house. We love having breakfast with them, but we missed our quiet morning times. Ahhh. So peaceful. But, it is early to work for us. Once we finished the East wall, we started in on the South wall. Our goal is to preserve as much of the existing timber framing as we can. So far, we have only been able to save the rafters and collar ties though. The ants have been having a field day in some of these posts. Here is Dave cutting off the tip of one of the rafters to try and preserve it. We think we were successful.
We lifted up the rafters a bit in order to cut the bad posts out from under them. The results we good, but we have some new holes in the house!
The holes from the outside...
So, we have since this picture, replaced the framing on the inside of this wall and managed to keep the exterior sheathing! I will have more pictures for you soon. It will have to wait for the next update, though because my camera is somewhere else at the moment. meanwhile, we helped Gary a little bit on a film that he is working on that involves people dancing on water. We spent Sunday evening in the water installing an underwater dock. Here are Dave and Gary enjoying the results of this experiment.
We tried to show how deep the water is where we set up the platform.
Oh the weird and wild things we do at the lake. We look forward to being able to entertain visitors. More updates soon!
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