the cheap and tedious

This past week was spent working with our I-beams. There is a certain beauty in receiving cheap or free beams for your roof, but the beauty isn't in the ease of installation. Nate has been cutting, cutting again, re cutting, and then climbing up a ladder to install all week. It is a tedious task, but one that is saving us loads of money...though not if I was paying him by the hour, which I luckily am not.
We are out on the property five days a week, and loving it. Our view is amazing, the river is the perfect swimming temperature, and we are finally seeing birds again, my favorite is the magpies. Every day makes us a little more anxious and more excited to get out there. My brain is spinning with decor ideas, but Nate warns me that we need to focus on the here and now, and not count our chickens before they hatch...but that's hard for me to do.
On my end, the garden is looking luscious, though that doesn't promise fruition. The deer have taken their share, taking over the beets, beans, and peas. But I a have found my new favorite vegetable - the tomatillo. If you've never grown these, their plant, flowers, and fruit will add so much to your garden. I don't know if I'll get decent fruit, but their external beauty satisfy a certain need.
Next weekend we get a special treat, Nate has two shows with his band, so we won't be able to make it out to the property until Sunday. This may add a little stress during the week for Nate, but I know he's looking forward to having two days where he will guilt free take a vacation from the house. But mark it on your calendar folks - Mid to Late August the bales go in, and all-ya'll will be called on to help!

A roof over your head

I can't keep up with the all the changes going on to our house. If I was to post every time Nate does anything out there, I would have to post five nights a week. This boy is working his two jobs, and then heading out to the property to work on our house. This past weekend clocked him at over 18 hours working on the house. With all this work, we now have rafters on our roof. Please compare the picture of just our fifteen posts, and our current state.
But this work wasn't done alone. On this past Sunday, while I was working, there was a large gathering of boys out on the land, supporting Nate and I. We are really thankful for that. The work was then followed by a dip in our local swimming hole- the new summer hot spot.
In case you were wondering, the garden is doing amazingly. I put up a bunch of tomato cages this past weekend, planted my second round of radishes and spinach, and counted my zucc blossoms. I will hopefully walk out of this garden with lots of tomatoes, tomatillos, and peppers. The deer seem to enjoy my beans, beets, and sunflowers. But I willingly surrender those veggies to the deer this year, but you just wait until this fall! Those deer will be on my dinner plate.

And the poles go up!

We have finally created a the initial structure of our house, and boy are we excited. Nate gathered up five other boys, a cement mixer, and a couple levels this past Monday and a case of beer. That's all it took to put up our 15 poles, and my goodness did they get them square!
The boys arrived about 5 30 and by the time I returned at 6 with the second load of cement, all the poles were placed in the holes. Though they weren't straight yet, my breath was taken away by the sight. It really made the house feel real at the moment. The boys then went through and squared up all the poles. I stayed away during this process because I could feel the brains grinding from my position about 200 feet away in the garden. Instead I cut down some fence, attempted to break in our driveway, and popped two tires on Nate's Truck.
But popped tires aside, this night was a success. The poles were carefully placed, and the cement was wonderfully mixed and poured. And now our skeleton frame is up and the real work can begin.

Diggin' some holes

After waiting and waiting for the rain to stop, it was finally time to get out there and dig some holes. Nate called up a couple of solid friends and headed out to the land with a new tool. He had rented a motorized hole digger for the evening, and was determined to spend the least amount of money possible on this rental, so all the holes had to be dug that night.
The boys set out at about 5 pm and finished 15 holes by 8 30. It was quite impressive. Not only were they digging the holes, but they had to first create the square house shape in order to find out where those holes went. There seemed to be a lot of hemming and haaing for the first hour, but then those kids kicked their butts into high gear and created a master piece.
I just weeded the garden....