A morning straightening the mudsill. It's straight along the wall, very level in fact, but across the plate it tilts towards the centre. The solution to this problem, to the generally crappy state of the wall top, is shimming, filling in with cedar shingles all the way from Quebec. We use four bundles and at the end the mudsill is very straight, We finally have a good starting point for our floor and then our walls.
We are now waiting for the Building Inspector (reminds me of Gogol's The Inspector General) to visit our foundation and drainage. No word from him, no response to an e-mail, in a week that is and they insist on 48 hours notice! We have to backfill to allow the backhoe to get close enough to deliver gravel to finish the crawl space floor. Can't build the wooden floor, fill in the space with a beam and joists before the floor is topped up, plastified and gravelled.
So it's now back to sawing lumber, making beams and joists. The biggest beam the MB makes is 6" by 12" which is so heavy he has to bring it back to the site with the backhoe. I feel I must be getting stronger: I can now pick up the 4 by 8 rafters without any difficulty...
Tuesday the MB is off to Sydney trying to get his Ford Mustang going: turns out that the keying system is so secure that even the owner of the car can't get it started. He has to have the car towed to Port Hawkesbury where car and key can be reconciled and made to function together. When the MB gets back to the Cape we resume sawing, making 3 rafters (now up to 21 of 42)and 5 joists. In the MB's absence I fiddle with beer in Janet's cabin: I'd like to leave a batch of summer beer at least when we're away. From the goodness of my heart... If I can't drink too much why not help our young relatives to a certain amount of sedation?
And Wednesday I manage to fall off the 4 foot wall right onto the shale surface of the crawl space. Unfortunately there is no photo, no snappy little Youtube clip. Somehow I don't kill myself but I do produce a large egglike structure on my left hip. Then I fall again carrying an end of a rafter, cracking my head on a pile of beams. I think I may have once agin smashed my hearing aid, but no I can still hear the birds singing by the shore.Is that the loon? Or am I just loony?
The MB entertains us with tales of deaths on the many construction sites he's worked on. Let's hope I am at the end of my follies. I am determined to stay on my feet until Fall.
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