Ol' Wily Coyote sniffing things out in front of the web cam. 

July 13, 2014 - Sunday

56 degrees/partly cloudy/windy

Pentoga Road

After Saturday's humid high of 78 degrees and sweating from sunup to sundown, today's much cooler temperatures feel wonderful. I guess we're in another Polar Vortex, the same type of weather system that brought us last winter's record cold. Temperatures are to continue dropping for the next two days before warming up on Wednesday to "...just a few degrees below normal." I need to ask Al Gore how that works sometime. He seems to know everything about our weather. The way this global warming thing is working, we're liable to be in another ice age before year's end.

Saturday was a busy one. I left for town to purchase several 4x8 sheets of flooring to install. Thankfully, the price has actually dropped in the past year; OSB 5/8's particle board, from almost $10 a sheet to $8. 

Before I could begin to install anything, I needed to attach the last 2x6 sill to make up for the sloping barn. Actually, it was easier than I'd anticipated and you should have seen the little dance of joy I performed when the two corner 2x6's met at right angles and I discovered they were square and level with each other. I bent low and looked at that bubble two or three times to make sure I wasn't seeing things.

Next was measuring the sills so I could install the hangers and the joists twenty-four inches on center. I read and re-read the measuring tape and still, I managed to make some errors. In the end, I cut a piece of twine exactly forty eight inches long (from knot to knot I tied on the ends) and it took no small amount of doing to tie a knot in the middle at exactly twenty four inches. My eyes will occasionally lie to me, but my fingers still have 20/20 vision. 

Hmm, eeny, meenie, miney, moe... I know I'm to cut on one of these lines.

It took an agonizingly slow four hours to install four floor joists and flooring, but the first two sheets are laid, with only four and a half more to go. I occasionally had to unscrew a board or two and once I had to adjust a post, but the floor is coming together. It appears that I'm off about a quarter of an inch in 27 feet, but I think I can live with that. Since I plan to build the walls in a conventional house-construction manner atop the base, that quarter inch will be our dirty little secret.

All the construction is being loosely screwed together and once the floor is finished, I'll go back and tighten everything up, pour concrete in the holes, and set the posts. At Garry's suggestion, building it this way, I am able to go back and readjust anything that might not be correct. If I were using nails, I'd have walked away from this project long ago, But screws are much more forgiving.

I needed to pick strawberries last night and started, but honestly, I was just too tired. My back and legs protested each time I bent over and my eyes were burning. In fact, I didn't even enter the garden once yesterday. It was the first time since early May that I didn't at least take a stroll through the raised beds. 

Sargie was home early last night. We enjoyed eating meat pie after which she worked around the house. I barely made it to 9 PM before kissing her goodnight and trudging up the steps. 

A mama turkey being followed by her babies alongside the road

We're heading north to Marquette and celebrating Macrea's birthday today by taking them out for lunch. And of course, any reason for Grandma Sargie to see and hold Grady is a good one.

I'm going to try to pick berries before we leave and I know there's broccoli to pick in the garden. I want to get it before the heads begin going to seed. The zucchini squash are setting and are at their prime right now, small and tender. Also, there has to be handfuls of snap peas prime for the picking. I'd better get busy.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...

Sargie saw this and said she didn't know I'd taken a picture of myself....