Eight Days a Week

The construction industry, it seems, is no exception to the mad rush up to Christmas and I am endeavouring to get as much done as possible before the inevitable pause until January. So it would be handy to have an extra day in the week. Nevertheless, it has been a good week with significant progress completing most of the joist work but, significantly, getting the ceiling on the garage to enable work to commence on the area above it this coming week.

The weather has also been kind with only one snow flurry leaving a couple of inches of snow, which was quick and easy to sweep away. This weekend the temperature has risen above zero for the first time in three or four weeks but a little snow is forecast for tonight. The roads have been clear but, would you believe it, two days after I had my windshield fixed another stone flew up and dinged the wretched thing again. Fortunately, it is only a small mark on the edge of the shield and if it doesn't spread across the screen I will wait until the spring, when the gritters will have finished laying the ammunition for these things, to get the glass replaced again.

From the far end of the garage looking back towards the main cabin. Visible is the ground level dividing wall, the kitchen on the left and the stairwell underneath the tarp.

Standing in the main bedroom (over the study) looking back across the main living area to the kitchen on the right, the room above the garage and the stairwell again. Two joists are missing from the area just on other side of the tarp and another two long ones for the landing at the top of the stairs, which will protrude another four feet above the living area. These are all on order and I would like to think that they will arrive this week before the break for Christmas.

The garage ceiling is supported by I joists sitting on joist hangers at the walls and a single beam consisting of four 12" x 2" plywood joists, which runs the length of the garage. 

The floor and second dividing wall of the 'intermediate/utility area', between the garage and the main cabin, have yet to be put in.

Looking back into the garage from the utility area.

If the truth be known, I am looking forward to a break for a few days at Christmas. The body is in need of a bit of R&R and some food that hasn't been put together by rough hands in too much of a hurry. I am hungry but in the words of Robert Service...

And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,

But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;

For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;

But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love —

A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true —

(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, — the lady that's known as Lou.)

The shooting of Dan McGrew - Robert Service.

So, I am off to spend Christmas in the best house of ill repute in Calgary - only kidding. I am going up to Chestermere however, which is near Calgary to spend it with friends Jeanette and Elizabeth, who is coming over from Vancouver Island. They were both, in their day, pioneers in their own right in the logging industry in the 70s and 80s and shouldn't be compared (as far as I am aware) with the "lady known as Lou". Nevertheless, two very interesting ladies who have a tale or two of their own to tell.