Weekly Update: 9.24.23
Yesterday was the first day of fall -- but you wouldn't know it. As the cliche goes, all good things come to an end -- and here in the Ozarks, we really couldn't have expected the idyllic weather to continue. The storms were back this week, as summer decided to go out with a bit of a bang. The rain made keeping the bunkhouse dry quite the effort. We had daytime storms and nighttime storms. I worked on some of the final edits of this post in the storm shelter late last night, waiting out yet another round of weather. It's been a bit exhausting -- which is funny, because you would think we would be used to it by now.
The big project this week continued to be the walls -- framing and sheathing. We made a lot of progress -- as of yesterday morning, we have all four walls up. Some days we focused on framing, while others we worked on sheathing some hard to reach places between the bunkhouse and the tent. We are officially entering and exiting our build site through doors now, which feels like a paradigm shift. Even the dogs know something is different, as both the Jack Russel Terriers ask before coming in the door space.
The other big project this week was cleaning up from storms. Last Sunday morning, we decided to remove our plastic sheet from the subfloor. It had so many holes, water was leaking in, but it wasn't drying out well. Since we removed the plastic, when it rains, we start the day (or end it) with vacuuming the build site with a wet vacuum. On Friday, we had to do it twice. Estimating by the size of the vacuum, I collected and dumped more than 20 gallons of water on Friday morning. Another storm rolled in the afternoon, so Grace took a turn that evening.
Right before the Friday afternoon storm hit, our roof order arrived from Menards. As we watched the delivery guy work, we kept a wary eye on the clouds rolling in. It started to sprinkle as I checked over the supplies, making sure everything was there. As soon as the last pallet was unloaded, everyone who was home helped pull tarps and sheets of plastic over everything so it wouldn't get ruined.
While it rained on Friday, I finished typing up a project schedule for the next month. The day before, I had sat down with my dad to get a reasonable idea of how much we can accomplish at what pace. Both of my brothers hope to take some time off to help with the roof, so a tentative plan helps. I made another big order from Menards on Friday, too, which won't arrive for a few weeks. Our windows are special order items, so they take time to arrive. We ordered other items we will need at that point to come out on the same truck -- insulation as well as framing lumber for inside the bunkhouse. It's exciting to see where we might be this time next month -- all in God's timing of course!
Between work and weather, we managed to find time for some fun over the last week. Last Saturday, we knocked off a bit early to attend 7C's Annual Meadfest, which was a nice break. Grace wrote about it here.
On Monday we celebrated our mom's birthday with some tasty treats and fun projects. We sisters fixed our mom a country breakfast for brunch -- campfire hashbrowns, sausage gravy, and over-night crockpot biscuits. I was skeptical about biscuits turning out, but surprisingly, they did!
We also assisted our dad in a shelf build for inside the tent. It goes over the door, providing additional storage as well as a mounting site for our projector screen. After it was too hot over the summer to watch many TV shows, it has quickly become too chilly most nights. We decided we would enjoy the projector more inside the tent, so our dad came up with the shelf solution. It couldn't have turned out better.
We had to run errands that afternoon, but we sisters and our folks finished the celebrating with a family history drive. We drove near several homesteads of ancestors who settled in Polk and Cedar counties in the 1850-70s. We finished with a stop at Lindley Prairie Cemetery, where several of our ancestors and many relatives are buried.
Before the storm hit yesterday, we squeezed in a little time to visit a couple area events -- the Bois D'Arc Primitive Skills Gathering and Knap-In and Greenfield's Blue Grass on the Square. Each deserves a post of it's own, so look for those later this week!
Looking ahead the the next week, the weather looks more promising, so we hope to get a lot accomplished. We will be finishing up the last portions of the walls and starting on the roof. It really is an exhilarating part of our build. As our skills develop, its fun seeing how we sisters are taking on jobs we once would have been overwhelmed with. This has been such a season of growth for all of us, in all kinds of ways. On one hand, I see our confidence really blossoming, as we have learned we are capable of so much more than we thought. But at the same time, we are confronted daily with the bittersweet taste of humility, as we have to own up to tangible mistakes, be they bad cuts, missed nails, or poor supply estimates. It's a spiritually rich lifestyle that way, encouraging us even as it challenges us. We are becoming better people through this process, and for that -- along with so many other things -- I'm thankful.
Thank goodness, summer is over. We boxed up our summer clothes this week and unpacked some of our warmer items. We also did a little fall decorating. Here's to the new season -- blustery (if still warm) days, cool nights, flannel mornings, and with all the festivity, renewed energy as we race toward a dried-in bunkhouse.
