Bobby is Missing

My sweet young barn cat, Bobby Seal, is missing. I have not seen him in four days. I fear the worst. I feel sick.

The photo above was taken a week ago, on the first day I ever saw him venture outside the barn for more than a quick glance. I was so pleased for him. He had gained confidence and trust (and much needed weight) all winter. Though still easily startled and shy, he was such a love, always eager for petting. All I had to do was climb up into the hayloft and there he’d be, pacing the floor, wanting me to sit down to snuggle with him.

He had won over my cranky older female, Flossie — who went from grumbling and hissing and slapping at him with raking claws to pushing her head into his flank and purring.

I am going to check at the trailer park across the highway, but I’m afraid.

Sheep on Grass

Yesterday was a long day, but a satisfying one.

At 7 AM, my friendly lumberyard delivered a bottle of CDT vaccine during the school carpool. At morning chores, I brought my sheep in, trimmed all their hooves, and vaccinated the entire flock. (At one point I was wrestling a ewe with a loaded hypodermic clenched in my teeth.) Next I gathered my portable fencing and charger and drove the mile down the highway to Betty’s field, where I set up a temporary paddock. Then I hitched up the school’s stock trailer, drove to the farm, backed the trailer tight to the barn door, loaded the sheep, and trucked them to the grass.

For the next few hours I drove back and forth between the farm and the field, ferrying shelters and my lawn tractor. My two oldest shelters had rotted and needed new braces. I cut fresh 2x4s and made the repairs before carrying them down. The shelters barely fit in the stock trailer, and were right at the limit of my ability to lift and load without help. I sweated considerably. Taking them off was easier, however, and as I had trucked the lawn mower down in my first trip,  towing them into the field was a snap.

Through the day I was happily aware that my skills in all areas (vaccinating, flock handling, backing a trailer, carpentry) had improved in the last few years. I decided to concentrate on that positive thought, rather than the undeniable fact that my muscles are weaker with age.

These photos were taken at dusk, after I’d washed out and put away the trailer, and returned to re-fill the water trough.

The sheep are so happy. And watching them, I was happy, too. They are newly wormed, vaccinated, clean-footed, and out on new grass. After this very discouraging winter and spring, I felt like Super-Shepherd.

Snowing….?

Yesterday it was snowing as I built a new dog pen, and even wearing a jacket and wool hat I had to stop often to warm my hands. This morning the lawn is dusted white and the wind is blowing scattered flakes in a sullen fog. Ugh. However these days I am trying hard to remember to count my blessings. Yesterday as I worked I told myself firmly,”I have to thank you, God, for no black flies!”

When I bought the welded wire for the dog pen last fall, the salesman suggested I try a green-coated version. I thought this might look nice, and agreed. I didn’t realize I was buying wire so light-gauge that any self-respecting labrador retriever could push through it just by leaning against it. Our lab, Tess, is almost 11 years old, slow, and arthritic. Within five minutes of my finishing the pen, she was sitting outside it. This is just one more example of why I must never take helpful, last-minute suggestions for substitutions in material when I’m building anything. I am too ignorant of the hidden variables. Today I’ll call to see how much long tent stakes would cost, to pin the bottom edge to the ground so she can’t bend it up.

Yesterday was my first Mother’s Day in 25 years that I had no children at home. Lucy is on a four-day hike, and Jon is in Boston. However he emailed and telephoned and I was happy.

Unfortunately on Friday my old computer collapsed and breathed its last, so it may be a few days before I’m up and running again.

A Small Setback

I was excited to start cutting and setting rafters yesterday. It is fun to lift the 12-foot or 10-foot boards into position on the saw and cut the ends to a precisely 10° angle.

I am using D’s compound miter saw, referred to by most of the guys as a chop saw. (I am currently borrowing so many of D’s tools, I am guiltily aware that I am way behind on the diabetic cooking part of the equation.)

Using a chop saw is easy, but the whole process of lifting the long boards, measuring, marking, and cutting — flipping the board to get the whole cut —  is just challenging enough for this airhead, who has to constantly double-check to make sure I’m cutting the angle in the right direction, that I am foolishly pleased to manage it.

(Back in 2008, when Dean and I paneled the inside of the cabin, I was in charge of cutting the tongue and groove knotty pine while Dean nailed it up. Poor Dean regularly informed me with patient control: “Beautiful job, Sel, but you reversed the angle.” It was at this time that I began to understand that my brain doesn’t visualize well. In fact, I’m terrible at it. If this skill had been tested in school, I would have been diagnosed with a learning disability. However, like my loved ones with dyslexia, I’ve learned ways to compensate. Pictures. I need pictures.)

I was also pleased to figure out how to brace the long rafter high in the air for nailing without another person on the other end of the board. Again, this is elementary stuff, but makes me feel brilliant.

Unfortunately I ran into another snafu. It turns out that the main barn roof that looks so perfect from the ground is not. When I put the 10° angled rafter for the shed roof in the place where it wants to fall, it is too tight to the main roof. There should be a 1.5″ gap. There isn’t.

Len has patiently answered all my worried questions. He reminds me that this is a remodel and measurements may not be exact. On his advice I am changing the rafters to a 9° angle and will snap a chalk line across the header to keep the lower roof-line level.

It’s all do-able, just time-consuming and a little unnerving for this neophyte.

We Need Rain

Everyone is enjoying our fabulous stretch of good weather — clear blue and gold days of 70° and brilliant starry nights in the low 30s. However as gorgeous day follows gorgeous day, I feel my stomach clenching.

Last summer was the worst in my life, and one of its prominent features was drought. The pastures baked brown in the sun and quit growing, and feed for the animals grew scarce. I bought expensive hay and found it nothing but dry stalks. The sheep and cows refused to eat it, and lost weight. My lambs did not grow. Day by day I was haunted by lines from the memoir of Mary O’Hara, the author of My Friend Flicka, about her real-life experience raising sheep on the “green grass” of Wyoming during the drought and Depression of the early 1930s:

Sheep growers lost fortunes. Prices went down. To save the cost of molasses cake and hay and the wages of a sheepherder, we sold a couple of thousand at a price per head less than the price of a single lamb chop. Prices still fell. Then we simply turned the remainder out to fend for themselves, and were harrowed by the sight of the little band ganging up outside the corral gates, begging to be taken back and cared for; or, terrified and abandoned, tearing about the prairie, their fleeces ragged and torn — hanging in strips from the attacks of coyotes. They constantly diminished in number; at last, melted away.

I would shoot my sheep before I turned them out to “fend for themselves” — sheep have no defenses — but even with my miniscule flock I could understand the desperation. Last summer I listened to the lambs crying and wanted to cry, too. Drought is a nightmare. The thought of global warming and that this may be the new reality scares me deeply.

Currently my pastures are turning green but barely growing. Now should be the spring flush of abundant grass. Instead the fields are dusty and dry. The water level in the pond is dropping steadily. New York State has issued a burn ban.

Please God, let it rain.

*    *    *

Yesterday I stood on a ladder to measure and mark the headers of the addition with the layout of the rafters. Over the years I have watched a number of men do this work with tape, square, and pencil: Dean, O.B., and Gary. So yesterday afternoon in my imagination I was alternately tiny and Italian, short and burly, or tall and wiry with a black mustache.

I have a long list of domestic chores today but my goal is to try to put up four rafters a day. Inch by inch.

Inching Forward

The problem with feeling empowered is that a little power can go to your head and make you very impatient with any obstacles in your path.

I want to get on with the barn addition! screams my brain.

Who wants to stop for changing beds, unloading the dishwasher, folding laundry, grocery shopping, or cooking meals? Paying bills? Putting gas in the car? Arrrgh. Even transitioning the cattle and sheep to the meager spring grass feels like a huge imposition. Oh, heavens, I have to walk all those fence lines and re-tarp the sheep shelters!

I am having to keep myself on a short leash, with frequent snaps of the collar to redirect my attention to my real life responsibilities.

However, on Thursday I did cut and nail up all the remaining ledger boards, as well as the final 16-foot piece of the beam. The center of this treated board was bowed 3/8″ above its corresponding ledger. I felt very clever when I hung a ratchet strap over the board and stood in the loop to pull the board straight for nailing. This is very elementary carpentry but nevertheless made me happy to manage on my own.

The basic frame of the west wall is now finished and ready.

Next up: I had to remove the metal edging of the main barn roof. I’d been unhappy to learn this would be necessary. When Dean put up the sheet metal in 2008, he did a beautiful job. He had pre-drilled all the sheets on the ground, with the result that there is not a crimp or dimple in the metal anywhere. I hated to touch it.

However, the edging, nailed beneath the roofing, did have to go so the two roofs could conjoin. Len patiently explained to me how to remove it without bending the sheet metal and wrecking the look of my roof.

The process involved standing on an 8-foot ladder with a cordless driver, two pry bars, and a hammer.  With the driver I removed the first two rows of fasteners and gently inserted one pry barn under the edge of each metal roof sheet to lift it. With the hammer, I attempted to smack the end of the ring-shanked nail upward from below. Finally, with the second pry bar I removed each nail and dropped it in a bag on my shoulder. Then I screwed back down the upper row of fasteners.

There was a nail every foot along the 32-foot edge. The first nail took five minutes to remove. Though with practice I got a little faster, not much faster. For one thing, I constantly had to adjust my glasses just to be able to see the tiny nail point inches from my nose. For another, I am notoriously absent-minded when engaged in repetitive tasks, and remembering not to step backward off the ladder took a bit of concentration. (Yes, really.)

So: five minutes times 33 nails comes to… oh dear.

However, between other responsibilities, yesterday morning I got it done. Today my hands are sore with the usual bloody nicks, but I’ve saved the edging to use on the new bottom edge of the roof.

Rafters next!

Progress on the Barn Addition

I have decided to go ahead with work on the barn addition by myself. None of the boys I know are both interested and available, and it will be a challenge to see how much I can accomplish working alone.

Moreover, I have found that sometimes working alone suits me.

I have realized in recent years that I don’t visualize spatial relationships well. It is hard for me to picture how things fit together without seeing the physical objects or a diagram. Then, too, math is not second nature to me, the way language is. If I recast a sentence to add a dependent clause, I know automatically to change the punctuation. This doesn’t happen with my carpentry arithmetic. For example, when the lumberyard subbed (in a kind effort to save me money) different pier footers for the ones I’d ordered,  it didn’t occur to me that the height of the piers would change, until the Sonotubes were buried — and wrong.

If I am working with Luke or my friend Gary, we figure these things out together. Almost always, these guys see the problems before I do, but we take our time. We measure and re-measure. Gary’s motto is, “What’s a sixteenth of an inch between friends?” Luke is even more fanatically exact. However, too often, when I’m working with other people, I adjust my pace to suit their boredom and impatience. I hurry. The consequences are usually disastrous.

Now when I looked down the length of my addition wall, there was a perceptible bulge at the middle post. I measured. The post was 1.5 inches too far out. I realized that the “dumb end” of the measuring tape must have been held to a 2×6 ledger board instead of the face of the girt on the main barn. What to do?

“Forget about it,” D advised when I consulted him, and quoted his father’s favorite line: “You ain’t buildin’ a church.”

I laughed wryly. “I can just imagine someday selling this farm and trying to explain a bunch of racked and bowed buildings. We weren’t buildin’ a church!“

I pulled the nails on the post anchor and looked underneath at the bolt to see if I could move the post back. The post already was fixed in place with eight heavy 2x10s, cut to measure and thoroughly nailed. The only direction the post would be able to move would be straight back toward the barn. Unfortunately, this was not possible. The kidney-shaped opening in the plate would require the post to move north an inch and would only gain an inch east toward the barn.

“Cut the bolt off,” said D. “The post can just sit on the pier. It ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

“I’ll ask Len,” I decided.

“That the Einstein in New Hampshire?” (D tends to be very suspicious of people with book learning. He calls them all Einstein.) “Well, you can forget it, then. He’ll tell you to pour a new fuckin’ pier.”

However, Len wrote back to say that he agreed with cutting off the bolt. He added, D sounds very smart. I reported this to D, who just grunted, but I could tell he was secretly gratified.

That evening he and his father were looking at a job across the street, and stopped by my farm on their way home. They used a lever to lift the post (with attendant boards and post anchor) off the pier. D wedged a small stone in place to hold it up.

I was a little confused. “Why do we have to lift the whole post off the pier?” I asked. “Why can’t I just cut off the bolt inside the anchor?”

Allen smiled. He knows me well. D said in exasperation, “Now, c’mon, think about what’cha just said, for chrissake! The plate will catch unless you cut the bolt off underneath!“

“Oh. Right,” I said humbly. As I said, most people see these things before I do.

Here is the exposed anchor bolt, with the stone holding the post lifted the crucial half inch.

Yesterday morning I borrowed a Sawz-all and bought a nine-inch metal blade.

The blade cut the bolt with a swipe. It took me quite a bit of time to knock out the support stone and the scrap of bolt with a pry bar and a sledgehammer, but at last it was done.

Then I went through the same process for the post next to it, which was one inch out (it had clearly been measured from the barn siding). Pry out the nails. Open the post anchor. Remove the washer and nut. Jack up the post. Cut off the bolt. Knock out the support.

(Len is sending me braces to re-attach the two posts to the piers. I will drill them into the concrete and feel reassured. Still, I remind myself that it is only two posts and entire buildings sat on foundations for centuries without post anchors.)

Even with the bolts gone, and the crushed stone along the base dug out, the two posts resisted moving toward the barn. I measured and drew a line on the pier to mark where the posts needed to go, but when I smacked them with a sledgehammer, they merely bounced (and the wood dented). I was stymied for some time until I remembered Dean, back in 2008, driving a chisel into wood alongside bowed siding and using pressure to lever the board into place. I took my six-foot iron pry bar and drove it at an angle into the ground under the bottom girt and then lifted the bar as a lever. Hooray! The first post jumped to the line. I immediately braced it to the barn to hold it in place. I did the same with the second post.

My wall was now straight and tied to the barn to keep it that way.

Next I began cutting and nailing up the ledger boards. These boards help support the heavy triple beam above and increase the weight-bearing capacity of the wall — very important considering that this will be an almost flat roof in snow country. Incidentally the boards make it much easier for one person to hold the heavy, 16-foot treated cross-beam in place for nailing.

I used my new clamp to hold each ledger board at the proper height while I wielded the nail gun.

It was fun to go at my own pace and get more comfortable with the big gun. I am afraid of nail guns and almost as afraid of looking stupid in front of others when using one. The result is again that I tend to rush, and again the results are not good.

The nailer weighs about ten pounds. It fires when you pull the trigger while touching the nose to the wood. All the guys hold a nailer in one hand like a hammer and swing it effortlessly into place. Bang! If I try to do this, almost invariably my arm drags and my aim is slightly off, or the nose skitters on the surface of a board, double-firing. Bang-ety-bang! The latter is time-consuming to address, wasteful of nails, and embarrassing.

So it was pleasant to toil away slowly in the afternoon sun and realize I could use a nailer perfectly well — if I use both hands to carry the weight.

Once I had the ledger boards up, the next task was to put up the next to last piece of the cross-beam. A treated 16-foot 2×10 weighs a little over sixty pounds. My challenge was to lift this long, heavy, wobbly board over my head and set it on the “shelf” of the ledger boards without dropping it on my neck.

I proceeded very slowly, step by step, using my clamp, and managed to get the board nailed up by quitting time.

I felt great about the day. It really wasn’t that much progress, but the essential correct dimensions were now in place, order had been created, and I had proved to myself that I could manage on my own. This was very satisfying.

Today after a couple of hours to set up the sheep and cows on pasture, I hope to cut and put up the remaining dozen ledger boards, nail up the last 16-footer on the triple beam, and carefully remove the roof edging on the main barn.

When all this is done, I will be ready to start rafters. Yay!