Better give you and up date on the shop building

I have forgotten how long it has been since I posted anything to do with the shop building! This is what it looked like from the public road September 25, 2010.



This has been a real blessing to see this all come together so well and to a certain degree easy. It is a testimony of what I feel is good communication and great work ethics. John Landers he is the builder we hired. His dad is the one that owns the sawmill and the excavating equipment but that is not why I hired him. Though his dad is very handy to be able to give him a call and he is right there as much as possible. For example he brought over his self loading logging truck and swung trusses. I can only imagine what is would cost to bring a crane up there for thirty thee trusses.




I hired him for several reasons. He designed a shop or building this is patterned after. However not with the same construction methods. Ours is a conventional stick built building. The one I seen him build last year was a pole building. He had a method for doing the door ways that did not take up room but actually made the doors taller and more useful. This was done by setting beams on top of the wall rather than a conventional header, and the trusses had to be modified to accomplish this. Thus comes in good communication. Conveying to the truss company exactingly what he needed was done with very little tolerances. True carpenter craftsmanship.



You just do not get this type of craftsmanship much anymore. Not in less the Amish will take on your project.



This is the back side or the east side. It is house wrapped and boards started on. Note how straight the bottom is all the way across.



I have so much more to say but best stop here.

Blessings from us to you all....

John Raabe's READ ME FIRST

I can not say enough good about John Raabe's booklet titled READ ME FIRST that comes with the his whole Whole Enchilada Plans. John is not an engineer nor architect but he does bring to the mix a very good bases of self building and self design. Facing reality there are so many here in the USA that can not afford a engineer or architect or general contractor to take a hold of a project for them. For some of them the last thing they want is two thousand sq ft. Two thousand sq ft in the winter and heating with wood is a real nightmare for some.

Here in my world there are many dumping five or ten dollars at Starbucks and not thinking twice about it. Real facts of it are there people that can not do that. Shocking as it might be. They are looking for a well constructed small home. How plain is determined by how good at Craigslist they are. I became aware of him and his work when I started researching for a simple cabin Ellen and I could build at the ranch. Then I got connected with a forum there and they are sort of family now. But that is another thread.

After reading and rereading and digesting READ ME FIRST several times I have had a whole different attitude biting off this project. Number one I have had to come to terms I have to hire it done. It is that simple. Because of time constants and other items on my plate it just was not do-able. I might have the foundation poured by now if it were just me. So in effect I have had to act as the general contractor. I have had to do so on several projects in the past. That 'aint hard' I guess and I gain more confidence in each of these projects. I am there some times to help - sometimes to just answer questions and some times to be the gopher. I have had to make the drive out and in and out and in in the same day over the years several times. (Mostly having to do with building.) I am not below cleaning up, toting boards or helping pour concrete.... I still love to do that....

This time around I have really taken it to heart from John's booklet and it really helped me get a grasp on this project. "Your highest use is not pounding nails or pulling wire but carefully controlling the money flow and getting the best materials and labor for the money you spend.

I still work full time for Union Pacific Railroad and am gone a lot. When I am here this time of the year I / we are up at the ranch. Yes it is a real ranch but until now bare ground --- well from the time Ellen and I tore down the last barn. (My dad built it in the late thirties) And I burnt down the last house a couple years ago it has been just bare ground with the exception of one small shed. Though we do lease it out, there are still certain things we have to do.

This shop is the first of the building steps we have to take to move up there full time next year when I retire. Up until now every thing has been underground. Septic is in, 1200 feet of poly pipe and frost frees are buried and is about that much direct burial wire and 500' of 220 conduit to our RV pads. A well of sorts is in, we are still questioning if we are going to have to re-drill or huge tank -- that is another tread in the future.

So last Saturday we took the last of the lumber package up. Then we came back down and I went to work that night. I worked home the following night got in Monday morning. I got a couple hours sleep and got up and headed off to the ranch again. This time stopping off at Costco picking up some RV batteries for the fifth wheel - those lasted huge - since 2004 - but they were done. The builder and his helper had made very good progress I thought.

Ellen and I took time to get the berries fertilized. They are coming along very well. I am hoping that the black berries we picked out will handle the winters up there. The blue berries I just do not know about. About four thirty I knocked off and ran over to the store and got the builder and his helper some soft drinks and ice cream. It was very hot and they had put in a very full day. We got our stuff loaded up and came out as well this time with the flat bed. We will have to haul up the metal roofing next.





I did get the metal roofing ordered today. We will be able to pick it up Friday morning. My builder says he can not believe how smooth this whole thing has gone except for one day with the building inspector who is sort of confused on code for what we are building. I think that all has been resolved. We are getting everything ready for the autumn - into the winter thing. As soon as we get a few storms we will get some more fire wood cut. If all goes correctly we will be living up there this time next year and working on the new house... cool

Seasons are Starting to Change

It is one of those things you notice in the air. The little chill that gives you a clue something is a little different. A change in the air. Or you happen to notice a tree that is looking a little different. Oh my word is that .... well it is just a hint of fall color.



I know that this is not one of those stunning Colorado golden aspen shots. Nor one of those shots that New England is so noted for with its maples and other hard woods erupting in yellows and golds and the reds some moving in to the purple range. Nor is it the best autumn photograph I even have taken. But it was more that just a hint, it was proof. It was more than getting fall, it had arrived. I did not need the newspaper or internet to warn me that fall was almost here.

I myself had seen the evidence that Mother Nature had come calling with her palette of autumn colors. Oh this just a hint, a teaser of what is to come. She will continue to visit and paint though no one - at least no human ever will notice her. Oh I have heard that the deer and elk know her. The beaver and the chipmunks talk to her. The sly fox and coyote will even carry her paint on occasion. Indeed she has tricked them and used their tails from time to time as paint brushes. Thus the dark spot on a coyotes tail and the white nib on the foxes.

Mother nature and fall are so strange. It is such a brief time. A time where she Mother Nature puts on the most unbelievable art show we ever see. On the calendar autumn is three months. Oh how I challenge that, at least in the north country. Fall or autumn is that time when the colors change to the reds and golds. Then the leaves fall as does the snow. The snow that white washes and cleans the canvas.

Yet my calendar says Autumn shall continue until the shortest day of the year in the north country. This is wrong. Where is autumn when there is snow and no color. Where is the magic of the color. Gone and buried under the robe of white. Yet the calendar says we are still in autumn. I say it is winter that season of intermission of color. Winter! In the winter her palette is changed to north country to whites and bold contrasting blacks. To me and my world fall or autumn lasts about a month and a half. It stops being autumn when the frosts and the snows go to war and cover the golds and reds.

Lumber has arrived

Dave Browning a lifetime friend - well almost a life time friend. We met when I was twelve and I think he was thirteen and we were deer hunting. He and his wife started Kuna Lumber. They have been good friends over the years. So when it came time to order lumber ..... Here he is taking the warps off the lumber package.



Hey Dave you did not leave any instructions.



This is a road that we put in that goes around to the orchard.



This is a entrance to the property now. We put this in several years ago. My brother Bill asked that we find a easier way of getting access like a cattle guard or a metal gate rather than the old hard to open, harder to close wire gates. I think the neighbors backhoe got our sign when they were clean out the snow on winter. With all the new road road topping we should not hazard getting stuck in the 'wet season'. Although we never really seem to sink down it was more just throwing mud and gummy stuff.



The old way was to continue up a hill and get on a old logging road and winding around through trees and things. Then continue back on sort of a loop. It worked well but there were several things that did not. One was two huge snow drifts the occurred every year. (Excluding the drought years of course.) The other thing, once you got off the old logging road there had never been any decomposed granite applied to those roads or trails and so there was mud and a chance you just were not going any where if it was wet.

Nature Abounding

On the seventh of September 2010 we were coming out from the ranch. It was dusk and were in Ellen's car. Ellen yelled stop and I mashed down on the brake and there was a yellow calf standing in the middle of the road. About a six hundred pounder that matched the road very well in deed. Adie and Tig wanted to jump out and give chase to the calf. They live for a chance to do so. We did not allow it, they pouted. I sort of took this as, 'this is going to be one of those trips.'

We were very near the mouth of Smith Creek and there is something small yet tall in the road. I once again did a panic stop. As we were siding at it we identified as an owl. There is this owl on the road. It will not move, I slid to a stop. It is so close it has now disappeared from view. It is now under the car or about under the car. I threw it in reverse and back up. There it still is standing in the same place. It begrudgingly sort of gives us a dirty look and flew to the side of the road. Adie and Tig still want a chance to go after some thing.

We get to the river grade where you go down to the river bridge and there where you make the first hair pin curve there is more deer than I have seen in years. Does and fawns and fawns and does but no bucks did we see. Adie and Tig once again offer to get them out of the road for us.

This morning September 8, 2010 I did not plan on returning to the ranch. But I was so far out on work I decided to make a trip up there. The building package or lumber was going to show up. It is also the last day they were going to pour concrete up there and I needed to talk to the finisher so up I went again.

Along the canyon rim next to the river there at the Dawes Flat. There in a fir tree growing up out of the South Fork Canyon was an eagle perched there. I stopped and watched. The smaller birds were pestering it like they do. They flit in and squawk tease and just seem to make life miserable for no reason other than they can.

It seemed so applicable, the great symbol of our nation and these small harassing birds. A couple jays and magpies. (No the West Nile has not killed them off.) They always remind me of of those nations who have a Gross National Product below that of WalMart. Totally disconnected to the USA but always there for no known reason harassing and jabbering at it.


It has been a great week for wild life up there.

That evening driving out. There in a draw in Grave Creek was a group of about ten or twelve young bucks all all spikes or small forked horned bucks. The older bucks must have put to flight. Indeed the season is starting to change.

When you make as many drives in and out of there as we do collectively. We will go days with out seeing much even wondering if there is anything left in the country. Then there are those days when nature does abound!

Shop is Coming Around

The shop at the ranch is coming along very well now that it is all in motion. Footing or footer is formed here. If you notice Tig has taken her supervisory roll here very well.



Here the footings have been poured and the walls formed except for the one end that we left open to get Pat's backhoe in and fill the center and level it all out.



Pat did such a great job he was only high one spot and we work it down and compacted it after we got the walls poured. Here is a photo of it up to that point with the reinforcing wire down. The reason it looks so un-level is the wire not laying down flat.



Ellen looks so good here this place does her well.



Me and John Landers discussing business. High level stuff we will not even allow the dogs to come around. Note them in the car.




Second week of September and the finisher brought up concrete blankets. He said as much as this is costing up there for concrete he was not going to take a chance. I really think he has done 110% for us. We sort of just meshed very well.

Forest Cattle

What few cattle we do have are out on Taylor Grazing or on a Forest Service Permit. The last we had seen them was early last summer or late spring. They were down on an allotment called the Lower Bench.

The Lower Bench is not an easy place in and out of. The road is one of the few on the Prairie that you would call a jeep trail. It is sort of straight down over the South Fork Canyon rim. There is no dirt left on the road all. So you are sort of ricocheting off of rocks and boulders concentrating on that going down into a seeming primeval canyon that very few have ever been to. Conveniently about half way down you have to stop, kick the rattlesnakes out of the way, open a gate and that is sort of suspended over thin air. Ninety percent of the time the gate is fool locked. Most people see this huge padlock. They have flipped rocks up and dented their pick up and had a flat tire or two and are glad to use it as an excuse to turn around and go back up. This a good thing to do because it does get worse. So they shimmy their rig around and return the way they came. Cussing the padlock out loud and praying silently under their breath thank you Lord for an excuse for bit of saneness in my life.

Once you are past the gate you continue your free fall to the bottom. It is diffidently the hardest ride Ellen had ever tried. Going up is not so much better. Other than you don't have to see the rocks you are falling in to if the machine flips over with you.

When we arrived at the bottom the cattle looked good, but the grass was about gone as was the water. There is water there all the time, but the watering holes at the far end dry up early and they have a long walk to water. It was time to move them. They were all bunched at the proverbial coffee pot (the watering hole) gossiping with each other. We could almost hear them complaining and carrying on. Anyone would know we deserve better than this... I am telling you they have forgotten about us... We are going to die down here.... How the heck do we get out of here anyway....

I sort of sensed a prison break. I almost feared for our very lives. Knowing that they might force us off our four-wheelers and storm the gates. I then knew they did not know the secret of the padlock....

Ellen and I the other day when we had the four wheelers up at the ranch decided that we would take the opportunity to see how the cattle looked. We rode through our place up into the Woods place. Part of the allotment they are on now. The Woods Place is now owned by the US Forest Service. This allotment is quite large and they will be there until they are gathered or they decide to come into the Prairie. This happens when the feed starts getting sort as do the days. The temps start to fall as do the leaves and the old cows lead them home.



I came back feeling very good. The grass was superb. The cattle looked great and the calves now coming fall are near eight and nine moths old and fatter than I think I have ever seen them.



Lord I know we have have to take the bad with the good. But this is goooood!!!