FINALLY, CONCRETE

This was a happy sight for me.

We've been waiting for these guys for weeks.

It's about 95 degrees this afternoon so he parked in the shade.

He had the young guys running the pumper truck stay in the sun.

Their morning job had been a gray/black driveway.

One of the young guys passed out from the heat 

so they were happy to be doing a pour out of the sun.

This is hard work.

Joe owns this company . He's 60 years old and going strong.

He says he has to set an example for his workers to get the most out of them.

Funny how concrete guys are always short.

Joe says long back and long neck guys can't bend over as well.

I'm looking forward to finishing the walls and ceiling.

Ruth and Ellie put their paw prints by the door.

IT'S FATHERS DAY

The girls said that I am the boss today.

Yahoo.

For the last two years I have gone to the Fathers day car show in city park with a friend 

who is the greatest car entheusist I know.

It's so much fun with him because he knows something about every car built since about 1930.

I sent him a text on Friday to remind him about our annual car show breakfast and walk about. 

He was on Vancouver island until Monday for his son's graduation. Damn.

So I didn't bother going to the car show this year(not as much fun without him) and 

decided to go back to the garage sale where I bought our plainer. 

This fellow is selling off his shop and has a garage sale every weekend before he sells his house.

This was the 5th weekend he has done this.

 It shop is a Man's Mecca.

As I'm driving out of the yard I stopped to take a picture of Ruth and Carrie.

They are starting to stain this side of the log house.

It really is turning into a great Fathers Day.

NOTHING IS EVER EASY

Carrie and I went halvers on a commercial plainer.

It weighs about 1000 pounds and the only way to get it home is to 

put the tractor on a trailer , take it to the sellers shop and pick it up with the tractor's forks.

Put it onto the trailer ,  reload the tractor on the trailer and bring it home.

The only problem is that the forks on the tractor are only 24 inches apart 

and the new plainer is 26 inches wide.

Carrie made up a 1/4 inch reinforcement  plate at work and redrilled it for the forks 

before welding it to the bucket with a 28 inch space for the big lift.

I sure am happy to have such a compenent daughter.

THE KIDS YEAR END CONCERT

Friday Evening at 7:00 the kids had their year end piano concert.

We had to get a picture of them all dressed up. 

Before the concert Teacher Chris had all the students performing come on stage 

and have a picture taken with him.

Ellie loves to make faces for the camera.

 She can't stand still.

She had the audience laughing.

Finally. A nice picture.

She played great.

Three songs by memory and she sang the second one while she played.

Her pitch was perfect and she made no mistakes.

Jack got up there and played 2 fairly complicated songs perfectly.

This is the only still picture I got of him. I did get a video but it s too long to put on my blog.

 Saturday Morning Ruth is out as the sun starts to rise .

She stained the remaining pallet of ceiling boards for the porch.

She's a hard worker.

This would have taken me all day but she was done in a few hours.

Ellie had her hands and forehead all over the patio door window this afternoon 

so I gave her a rag and some windex.

She claims that she likes washing windows.

Notice the party hat.

Good Times.

THIS WAS A TOUGH WEEK

On Monday I decided to start a fresh spoon. 

The one I started while watching Ruth stain the deck boards was a big learning curve.

Since I took that knife sharpening coarse I have become dangerous.

Originally I thought the stem of the spoon was carved down enough 

but I had to keep going to get rid of the blood.

I decided to start a fire and roast a couple of smokies in the back forty while I worked on the spoon.

This is lunch time on Monday . Sounds like a good idea to me . 

I washed them down with a couple of beers.I was fun at the time.

Down side was that it was raining out a little.

I got a chill and was having HeBeJeBees by dinner time.

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday in bed.

So Typical. Everything's great but I don't take good enough care of myself.

The good news is that I have my spoon almost ready for sanding.

Wednesday evening I did manage to start staining the boards that the log guy dropped off

 for the porch ceiling. 

After 18 boards I quit. I didn't feel at all well. 

Carrie worked until 8:30 before she was worn out. She had already worked all day.

Most of them were stained by then.

Ruth got up at 5:00 AM Thursday and finished them off.

Thursday morning I felt better and the guys were here at 6:30 to start putting up the roof.

It's half covered . 

They are off on Friday and Saturday so we will have the next pallet of boards stained

 and ready for installation on Sunday morning when the come back.

Those boards are custom cut  1' 5/8 x 5 tongue and groove Douglas Fir.

Beautiful wood.Beautiful roof.

THINGS WERE A LITTLE SLOW THIS WEEK

Ruth and Carrie went to the Island for the week.

Sharon ran a 3 day woman's weekend at her camp for 115 women.

Carrie ran a welding classes as one of the activities.

I had to spend the week at home by myself.

I did get one looming job completed.

I upgraded the player system on a friends piano.

I thought I was finished when they told me they also wanted new solenoids as well.

Damn. 

This created more work for me.

When the girls returned they started work right away.

Carrie decided to take a break on hr new deck

The boys got the rafters up on the porch.

They also strapped the dormers.

It's almost ready for the roof.

Ruth stained the boards used for covering the dormers.

I sat around watching her as I whittled a spoon.

At the end of the day she stained the deck.

I knew Carrie was around somewhere but didn't know where.

I finally found her having a little rest in her loft.

I think she's looking forward to moving into the house.

Everything is put away for the day and it's wine time.