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Today Walter and Wad got the sheathing on the second half of the barn roof. Tomorrow they’ll get the tar paper and metal on. That leaves the trim and ridge cap for a future day.

The foundation is in for the south wall of the sun porch. It went quickly, with the minimum of discourse. When it comes time to get the foundation in for the house, I think we’re going to be golden.

I got the holes drilled for the papercrete mixer tank bolts. I’ve got one bolt with nut and washers, one bolt with just the top washer and no nut and four empty holes. I’m short on washers. I have one of the bolts in the Boop and will get nine washers and two more bolts and nuts the next trip to town. Just the application of my weight to the trailer nearly bottoms out the tires, so I’ll be putting spacer blocks in before I proceed with mixing.

I also got the nose of the gearbox prepped for the application of Bondo. I’ve already got the Bondo so with reasonable weather tomorrow I’llget it applied.

With sincerest thanks to Karen and her father, Harry, I now have a riser! Karen is a friend, a confidante and the president of our quilt guild. Harry is retired from the wells/pumps business and has lots of contacts in the industry. He’s also the guy who helped me figure out how to organize/plumb our water storage tanks and install filters (future project).

This riser weighs a lot. Okay, okay, steel weighs a lot! I loaded it in my pickup and it’s HEAVY!

Next “gotta have” is stove pipe for the runs through the sand bench and exhaust out of the building.

Well, half the barn is roofed. We have a whole crew to thank; our son Lorr , neighbor Gary, Wad’s brother Walter, my friend Mindy’s husband Wayne, Lorr’s friends Austin and Roy. The other half is going to have to wait. We’ll need another $300 of sheathing before we can resume roof construction.

Wad and I spent yesterday stacking lumber in the dry side of the barn and moving things in the living room, getting ready to install the rocket mass heater. The bookshelves we use for our movie collection are now on a different wall. My jungle has been shoved further into the corner and the living room has been roughly rearranged. I’ve got lots yet to do, but now I have the room to roughly lay out the components of the rocket heater. I’ve got commitments for the next three days, so will get back to this when the weekend hits.

Terry’s got not quite half the foundation dug for the sun room. We’re going to need more gravel.