Almost half of the shop ceiling was insulated and covered on Monday.

September 15, 2015

58 degrees/clear/calm

Pentoga Road

After two nights of bottoming out in the low thirties, it appears we're heading back into more summer-like conditions. I've gone from wearing jeans and long-sleeved shirts back to shorts and t-shirts. We'll take these temperatures in the mid-seventies. Every day of warm weather signals one day less that we have to heat the house. 

My good friends, Bert and Eileen Cyr, of Herman, Maine, sent this picture of pears they were trying to give away. I've tried twice to grow them here, but it's just too cold. 

I spent all of Monday working on the shop. My original intention was to get the ceiling insulated, but in the end, I insulated half and covered what I'd done with the thin sheeting. In other words, other than a coat of white paint to reflect the light, half the ceiling is finished. 

I've been working around three large work benches since beginning the project. There was just no room elsewhere in the barn and one in particular, would have been a challenge to have carried back into the shop once it was completed. In fact, I have used the front end loader on the tractor to move it from one place to another. 

Since I had to move all three benches to work on the first half of the ceiling yesterday, I decided to do everything all at once. Kind of dumb to move the benches, install the insulation, move them again to put up the rest of the insulation, then again two or three more times to install the covering. 

The first order of the day was to construct a "preacher," a wooden brace that acts as another person to keep the insulation or 4x8 sheets of board in place while being fastened.

Holding up a roll of insulation while the rest is being stapled

It took some thought of how to get the sheeting into place. Wobbly and somewhat slippery, I finally tacked it from the underside through the preacher so it might be hoisted up to the rafters.

There have been times that I wished I'd have used the much heavier OSB particle board for a ceiling covering, but even with Sargie's help, I'm not sure we could have gotten it in place and I wanted something that was light and manageable. This seems to be working just fine. 

With the consistency of wet toilet paper, the sheeting is difficult to cut on saw horses, so I laid it on a two by four on the ground. That works much better.

By 5 PM, I'd hung half the ceiling. I was hot and tired and my arms and neck hurt from constantly working overhead.

I decided to relax by taking my daily three-mile hike. Sargie wouldn't be home until much later in the evening and the temperatures were cooling down a bit. I spent time after in the garden.

The first three cantaloupes of the season were ripe enough to pick.

These are Minnesota Midgets, a short season, northern, variety. Though they don't taste nearly as sweet as the old fashioned, much bigger, southern musk melons, they are about as good as we can grow this far north.

Sargie and I enjoyed half a melon each last night, topped off with black cherry yogurt. It wasn't half bad... and healthy too.

I'm still watering and fertilizing the giant pumpkin... and it's still growing, although not nearly as fast as a month ago. I really have no idea what it weighs, but it continues to spread out and grow flatter as gravity takes its course under the heavy weight. 

Son, Andy, sent a picture of where he's working in the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Barrow, Alaska, on the new Shell Oil rigs. 

I have to admit, it made me a bit homesick. I used to travel that area extensively on snowmobile for the university. 

Monday evening was spent watching Dancing With the Stars. It's one of our favorite shows throughout the year, one we never get tired of.

Sargie's working late again tonight, but has four days off in a row towards week's end. I hear rumors Grady is coming to visit on Thursday and as always, we're looking forward to it. 

As I've gotten older over the years, I've spent no small amount of time reflecting how I'd have done things differently many years ago as a father and husband. I know I could have been much better at each and have often wished I'd have had my priorities in the right places... family first then work and everything else second. It was usually the other way around.

I feel I'm getting somewhat of a second chance with Grady. Though I didn't always get it right the first time around, maybe I'll do a better job the second, even if it is as a grandpa. 

I hope to finish the ceiling in the shop, but we'll see what happens. Yesterday about wore me out and I'm not sure I have that much energy to complete the job today. Continually working overhead sure makes for a sore neck and arms. If it's not finished today, there's always tomorrow.

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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...