Gable Ends

Framing in the gable ends on the house, and installing cedar tongue and groove in the soffit took the bulk of the last two weeks. We deliberated on what material to use on the gable ends. The cedar looks so great, we were tempted to use that, but Papa Dave advised we save it for the interior. Log slab seemed like a worthy possibility, but in the end, we thought it would not be similar enough to the real logs to look good, so we went with blued pine 1x12 and 1x10 board and baton style. We are quite pleased with the results. We bought this lumber from a local guy with a mill, the same mill we got the 4x10 floor joists from.
John, who is 15, learned to use the chop saw, table saw, and measure and cut for his dad. They spent hours and hours, rain or shine, finishing this part of the project. The overhang on the roof is so great that even in blowing rain storms, they were not much affected and kept working.
Although we looked at some angled windows at Habitat for Humanity, we opted for the less expensive all around Pella 48x48 lo-e, which we will use on the second floor as well.At this point, we are pretty much done with the exterior with the exception of the chinking, and will move to installing floor joists and flooring next, maybe the porch as well, as that would make bringing materials in and out of the house much easier. But alas, there is Vacation Bible School at the church this week and then a Staff Conference to attend , so I suppose that the next phase will have to wait until July. That will likely be a welcome break for Brian, who has been putting in some really long hours, studying early in the morning, squeezing in visits, counseling, Bible study, meetings, and family around the daylight hours he can work on the house. What a guy!! We are truly blessed to have such a wonderful daddy and husband.

Friends and Solar Panels

The Dole family showed up a couple of Fridays ago to help us with the house. It was a very nice surprise. Mr. Dole went right to work, the boys went right to shooting ground squirrels, the mamas went right to fixing more pizza dough for dinner, Savannah baked cookies, and the babies played in a mud puddle. The rest of the children ran from tree fort to pond to tree fort, and all had a great time. It was so encouraging to Brian to have a buddy there to help him with the project.

The next weekend, the McKinney’s came up. Brian had asked for the wise council of Mr. McKinney in getting a fused service disconnect hooked between the generator and the invertor.
Getting power into our slightly remote location was going to cost a bundle, and we had always wanted to be off-grid, so we have solarpower with generator backup that will provide all the electricity we will need. Our set up came from Mike Slanga who owns and operates Inland Generator in Spokane, WA. Mike built us a 10KW generator powered by a 3 cylinder Perkins diesel engine. We have a battery bank to store the electricity and two solar arrays that total about 920 watts. With all the beautiful weather, the solar panels are powering all of the electrical tools and the electric man lift. That is pretty satisfying! Making your own energy is a wonderful feeling. Equally great was watching the 5 teenagers hammer away the next Monday when the Doles returned. There must be a nail every three inches on the top of eqch log insikeand out on eqch log. These are put in right next to the center of each log, and leave 2 ½ inches of the nail up for the chinking to hang onto. Each young person got a hammer and a bag of nails and went right to work. Many hands make light work! They did a great job, getting up four logs in an afternoon. Brian and Mike were working on the gable ends, and Mike jack hammered a hole in the foundation for the septic to go through.