6/26/99 Made an OSB carrier out of 3/4" electrical conduit. If I end up carrying individual sheets of OSB very far, this should help.

6/29-7/1/99 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I stopped at the 59er Diner on the way and had one of their new cinnamon rolls. They have a new source of supply and they are better than the old ones, although they aren't nearly as big. They have more gooey stuff on them and there is a touch of nutmeg in with the cinnamon.

I arrived at the property about 10:45 and it was a nice cool, dry day-just right for working. I had given a lot of thought to the problem of aligning a pair of rafters at the peak and decided to use two come-alongs to help do it. I made two hooks, one for each come-along. Each hook hangs over a rafter near the ridgepole, and below that, a short rope holds the winch end of the come-along. Then I paid out about 6 or 8 feet of cable and fastened a small rope to the hook at the end. The end of the small rope was then tied loosely around a rafter on the opposite side of the roof. To complete the rig, another small rope was tied to the handle of each come-along.

To use this rig, I would pull a rafter up somewhat beyond the ridgepole and secure it. Then I would retrieve the hook dangling from the come-along on the opposite side of the roof using the small rope. Once I had the hook, I would wrap the cable around the rafter about 6 or 8 feet down from the ridge and hook it to itself. At this point, I could release the hold on the rafter and let it slide down until the come-along rig tightened up and held the rafter. Then by pulling on the rope attached to the handle of the come-along, I could get a hold of it, and as it turned out, I could operate the come-along by using the rope alone. Gravity would pull the handle back for the next pull. Once the cable was taut, I could reach the come-along by laying on my stomach and reaching down, but this is sort of awkward and uncomfortable.

Anyway, after rigging this all up, I hung a snatch block under the ridgepole with a short chain and ran a long rope through it. One end of the rope went over the tops of all the purlins over the roof and the porch and down to the ground, and the other end went through the front door opening. The plan was to try to use this to pull rafters up by hand.

I tied the end of the rope that went over the purlins to the mitered end of a 40 foot rafter so that the rope went under the rafter and not over it. That way, when the rafter got up to the first purlin, it would ride up over it and not get hung up. That was the theory, and when I pulled on the other end of the rope to try it, it worked like a charm-literally. When I pulled on the rope, the end of the rafter lifted up off the pile and swayed a little and hesitated each time I changed my grip and it looked just like a cobra coming up out of a basket in response to a snake charmer. As it went up over my head and got close to the purlin, I timed my pulls so that just before it lurched ahead again, I raised it above the purlin so that it easily cleared it. Once it was up on the first purlin, it was a piece of cake to just keep pulling the rope until the rafter was up to the peak of the roof.

The come-along rig worked even better than planned; I hadn't figured on being able to operate the lever by using a rope and that made it a lot easier. I pulled a 24 footer up from the other side of the roof and fastened it to its come-along rig. Then using the two come-alongs for the fine tuning, I got the rafters aligned correctly at the peak and nailed them in place before the end of the day.

On Wednesday morning, I decided that since lifting rafters by hand was so much easier than using the crane, I decided to dismantle the crane before I went any further. Even though I didn't know exactly how I will get all that OSB up on the roof, I figured that the crane wouldn't work very well for that either because it is even more awkward to handle than the rafters. The crane has to come down sooner or later anyway, so it might as well be sooner.

It took me all day, but I got both the boom log and the mast log down onto the ground in one piece (each). In the process, I fed a few gray jays, and at this point, I can't be sure that I can distinguish any one from any other. I don't know if any of them were Lyndon, Lady Bird, or the youngsters in new adult feathers. I guess you have to be a bird to know one. I also fed a single scruffy looking chipmunk. I haven't seen any of them for at least a month and I thought the owls had gotten them all. This little guy ate out of my hand, so it seems like he might be one I have fed before, but then again, I can't really tell one of them from another either.

At one point when I was atop the high scaffold tower, I got a call from Vladimir Gross. He said that he and Joyce were planning to stop by the next day to see the project and get some rocks for a fireplace in their new cabin.

After the crane was down, I removed all the tackle and rigging and coiled up all the ropes. When I put the ropes away, it dawned on me that another 100 foot 3/4 inch rope that was stored in my woodshed was missing. I hadn't used it or paid attention to it for a long time so I don't know when it disappeared, but I suspect it probably went with the two come-alongs. Of course, this rekindled my old anger at getting ripped off and I decided that I will chain the coils of rope to the woodshed in the future. They could still get them free without breaking the chain or the lock, but I doubt if the thieves are energetic enough to uncoil 200 feet of rope out from under a snug chain.

On Thursday morning, I pulled another pair of rafters up onto the roof and secured them with the come-alongs. I have a big pipe clamp that I clamp onto the top rail of the long rafter near the middle, and then use the pipe as a lever to stand the rafter up on edge. Once it is up, the pipe lays over the top of the rafters that are already in place and this holds the new rafter upright. Before I came up with that idea, it was a real struggle to get those long rafters up on edge, and keep them there as I tried to line them up. The short rafters aren't so much of a problem, but I use a smaller clamp with about a 2 foot bar on it to do the same thing for them anyway.

About the time I got this far, Vladimir and Joyce drove up. They toured the project and climbed quite a ways up on the scaffolds to see the view and the building from that perspective. Then, while I put tools away and packed up to leave for home, they loaded a bunch of rocks into their pickup.

Vladimir suggested that I use the two logs from my crane to make a ramp up to the roof, and use the winch to slide bundles of OSB up the ramp and onto the roof. After looking at the situation, this seems to be a great idea and that is what I plan to do. I may not need that OSB carrier after all.

After their rocks were all loaded, we had a nice visit in the trailer while I had lunch. After they left, I finished packing up and left for home at 1:45.

7/6-8/99 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I was beginning to come down with a cold and wasn't feeling too great. I arrived at about 11:30 after stopping for the customary cinnamon roll. It was 80 degrees, hot, and no wind.

I brought a couple lengths of ½" EMT electrical conduit with me and proceeded to bend it into two hangers to make a hanging scaffold for the peak of the roof. A lot of the work on the rafters has to be done at the peak, particularly the alignment and I figured this work would be a lot easier if I could stand on something so that the work would be between waist and chest high. The hangers hang between a pair of adjacent rafters, one on each side of the peak, and they support a 2x6 that I can stand on. I have a rope tied around the 2x6 so the whole thing is easy to move when I am ready to move on to the next pair of rafters.

The scaffold worked great and I used it to align and nail in the 5th pair of rafters. Since I wasn't feeling well, I went to bed early.

On Wednesday morning, I was feeling pretty sick. I scribed and tapered the top two gable logs using Mother Sow. Now that the crane was down, I decided to begin working on the other side of the rafters already in place. I will go from there out to the northeast edge of the roof. That is why I needed to taper those logs right away, and the next thing was to reconfigure the scaffolds on the northeast wall. Part of them were in the way of the rafters, and the very top plank was no longer needed now that the top log was tapered. It took all morning to change the scaffolding.

In the afternoon, I made a rope clamp, down near the pile of long rafters, that can be remotely released from up on the roof. That way, after I pull a long rafter up onto the roof, I can clamp the rope down below to hold the rafter in place, and then when I get up on the roof and transfer the rafter to the come-along to hold it, I can release the long rope, pull it through the block and throw it back down to the rafter pile for the next one.

Next I nailed a 2x4 mast to the building near the northeast peak and attached the block to it. This was so that I could pull the long rafters up over the tops of the 5 that were already in place. Then I went down to pull up the next rafter.

Things didn't work too well. First, when I started lifting the rafter, the 2x4 mast snapped in half. The 2x4 was probably too long, and too weak and the block doubles the amount of force applied to it. I gave up on the mast idea and attached the block directly to the ridgepole. This would mean that the rope would ride over the top of the last rafter, but it was at a fairly small angle and I thought it might work OK anyway.

Next, I made a mistake and either didn't tighten the rope enough around the end of the rafter, or it was too close to the end. Anyway, when I gave the extra tug on the rope to get the rafter to hop up over the first purlin, the rope slipped off and I fell pretty hard on my side and my arm. I landed on some rocks and across the corner of the pile of rafters, but fortunately I wasn't hurt. I thought I might be a little sore the next day, but I wasn't. From now on, I will throw an extra half hitch around the end of the rafter.

After hooking the rafter back up, I pulled it up across the others on the roof with no problem. I was gratified when the remote-controlled rope clamp worked exactly as planned the first time. These little ups and downs are what keep this project exciting.

Next, I pulled up the last of the short rafters that Dave and I had stood up against the building, and I got the two rafters aligned and nailed in at the peak. The new hanging scaffold worked great for this. It swings a little, but I got used to that. I stand up between a pair of rafters and there are plenty of things to hang on to.

In the process of putting these two rafters up, I discovered that I can move around on the rafters quite easily. I thought I would have to nail temporary cleats on the rafters in order to walk on them, but I don't have to. In fact the cleats get in the way. It is easy to walk horizontally on any of the purlins, and to go up, I just walk up a pair of rafters on my hands and feet like a four legged insect. Going down is even easier; my feet just slide down a pair of rafters while my hands walk down the same rafters behind them. It's kind of fun, but I don't like looking down at the ground when I do it.

On Thursday I finished nailing in the 6th pair of rafters. Then I mitered the nine long rafters that were left in the upper pile, and then cut 80 feet of TJI into blocking, the short spacers that go between the rafters. I loaded all this blocking into the pickup so I could take it home. I decided to cut the vent holes and start the nails in the blocking at home to save work time up at the property. I am using 16d common galvanized nails, and all the nail holes have to be pre-drilled. After that, I packed up, had lunch, and left for home about 2:00. 7/10/99 Made 65 pieces of blocking and loaded them back into the pickup.

7/13-15/99 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday

I was still sick; my cold had moved back into my throat and down into my lungs. I went up to work anyway and got there about 12:00. I carried all the blocking back up to the work site and mitered two more 24 foot rafters. Then I lifted, aligned, and nailed in the 7th pair of rafters. I went to bed early hoping to shake off my cold.

On Wednesday I lifted, aligned, and nailed in the 8th and 9th pairs of rafters and lifted the 10th pair up onto the roof. I felt lousy all day, and worked pretty slowly.

On Thursday I was still feeling sick. I nailed in the 10th pair of rafters. In the process, Larry Copenhaver stopped by to chat. He didn't stay long. After he left, I lifted the 11th pair of rafters up onto the roof, had lunch, packed up, and left for home about 1:45.

7/20-22/99 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I felt a lot better this week. After a cinnamon roll, I arrived at about noon. It was pretty hot-about 80 degrees. I aligned and nailed in the 11th pair of rafters. Then I lifted, aligned, and nailed in the 12th pair. This completed the rafters up to the northeast edge of the roof. It felt really good to be healthy and strong again.

On Wednesday, I needed to nail more ceiling boards on the purlins so I could begin installing rafters in the other direction. The ceiling boards on the wall purlins need to be ant-proof, so I planed the purlins and caulked the entire length of the ceiling boards to keep the little guys out. After I had nailed on the six 16 foot ceiling boards, I removed the top southwest scaffold. Then I moved all my rafter lifting and aligning rigging to the other side of the roof so I could start installing rafters in the other direction.

With all the ceiling boards in place, I could see the alignment of the purlins a lot better, and I could see that the center purlin on the northwest side of the roof was too high. I had had to shim the rafters over the northwest wall before, and now I could see that I would either have to shim them over nearly the entire wall, or shim that side of the ridgepole. I decided shimming the wall was the best choice. The alignment of the purlins on the southeast wall, on the other hand, looked almost perfect in spite of there being five of them.

When Dave had been up a few weeks ago, he saw the tapered slab that I had ripped off the ridgepole to fix an error and make the ridgepole more symmetrical. He quipped that it looked like the world's biggest shim. It dawned on me that he was right and that slab might be the perfect shim to fix the northwest wall. I did some crude measurements, cut the slab down from about 20 feet to about 18 feet, and nailed it on top of the ceiling board on top of the northwest wall. It now makes the purlins look like they are in perfect alignment.

In the wildlife department, there were a lot of deer tracks around the salt lick. I was also visited by the family of gray jays. The young ones were just getting their adult feathers and they watched as the parents landed right on my hands and took the peanuts. The youngsters got up the nerve and also tried but they weren't too good at it. They would peck at my fingers until they figured out where the peanut was. Then they had trouble holding the peanut in their beak and would drop them, but they will learn.

I also had a face-to-face encounter with a pack rat. I knew some animal was living in my cement storage bin because a lot of foliage had been dragged in there and I could hear the little guy move around in there occasionally. I thought it might be a mouse (or mice) and I would deliberately bang on the box when I got something out of it and tell the animal to go find a new home. Well, on this day, I needed a tube of caulk which was way back in the bin, probably where the nest was. I started moving things to get back there and out walked the pack rat. He was sort of trapped and stayed way at the back of the bin, but he knew he was at my mercy and I think he wanted to be ready to make a break for it. At one point, he walked to the edge of the bin, looked out, and then went back in. I guess I was less scary than being out in the open in daylight. We sat about four feet apart and just looked at each other for quite a while. He was gray, bigger than a mouse, smaller than a rat, and his tail got bigger at the end instead of smaller. I don't know if the tail itself was fatter at the end or if it was just fur. Anyway, I hope he got the message that he probably better find a new home.

Before I quit for the day, I had time to use the relocated rigging to pull up the 13th pair of rafters, align them, and partly nail them in place.

On Thursday morning, I finished nailing in the 13th pair, then pulled up, aligned, and nailed in the 14th pair. I left for home about 2:00. Before I left, I checked the blackberries and there are about a half a dozen big red ones that should be ripe next week. There are a lot of green ones, and if someone doesn't swipe them, we should have a pretty good harvest this year.

8/10-12/99 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I skipped the previous two weeks. One week on vacation with Ellen, and the second week dealing with various family, car, and computer problems. I also skipped the cinnamon roll and arrived at about 10:30. Fortunately everything was intact. There was no sign of vandalism or mischief. Except at the blackberry patch. It didn't look like anyone had picked any berries, but somehow a bunch of berry juice and berry seeds were smeared on the sign I put up threatening dire consequences for anyone trespassing and picking my berries. There were a lot of nice ripe berries so I spent about an hour and picked 5 small cream cheese tubs full.

I had used up all the long rafters that I had pulled and stacked part way up the hill, and I decided to try pulling them onto the roof directly from where they were dumped down by the trailer. I started out by mitering five of them. Then I fastened the long rope to the mitered end of one and pulled it up the cliff and up onto the roof. This was a mistake. It got hung up at least half a dozen times coming up the cliff and I had to climb up and down each time to free it. Next, I mitered 5 short rafters and pulled one of them up onto the roof. I nailed this 15th pair of rafters in place, but I became concerned about the alignment on the northwest side of the building.

On Wednesday morning, I used two tight strings and measured how far the purlins were out of line for each rafter position all along the northwest wall. I found that the error, or gap, increased to a little over an inch at the center of the wall, and then decreased again to nothing at the southwest end of the wall. The problem was that the purlin in the center of that side of the roof was too high by a half inch in the middle. After thinking about it, I figured that I caused that error by cutting the B2 PSL too long and forcing it in place anyway. I remember beating on it with a big hammer to force it in. This evidently deflected the purlin up a half inch in the middle.

I thought about a lot of alternatives to fix it. One was to trim off a little of the PSL and let the purlin drop. But nearly half of the rafters were already in place and shimmed to make up for the error. I decided instead to nail a 1x8 on top of the shim I had already nailed on that wall to provide a shim for all the rafters. I caulked between the 1x8 and the other shim and nailed it in place. If you make a mistake, you pay for it somehow later.

With the shim in place, I pulled up the 16th pair of rafters. Instead of pulling the long one up the cliff, I pulled it up the same route I pulled the earlier ones that I stored on the roadway. But instead of putting it in a stack, I pulled it directly up onto the roof. Then I nailed the pair in place and I was gratified that they didn't need any shimming at all.

Finally, after half the rafters were in place, I finally felt that I was in steady state. I lifted and nailed in the 17th pair and everything went efficiently and smoothly. Too bad I didn't know how to do this at the outset.

On Thursday morning, I installed the 18th pair of rafters and pulled the 19th pair up onto the roof. I picked another tub of blackberries, had lunch, packed up, visited with Larry Copenhaver for half an hour, and then left for home at 2:00.

8/17-19/99 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

It was 80 degrees out when I arrived at 10:30. I was pleased to see that there was no evidence of any mischief. After moving in, I nailed the 19th pair of rafters in place. Then I mitered 5 more long rafters and 5 more short rafters, and then installed the 20th pair of rafters. During the work, I fed one little chipmunk a couple of times.

On Wednesday, I didn't install any rafters at all because I had to do a day's worth of preparatory work. I started out by lowering the ends of the southwest scaffold. They were resting on top of the wall purlins and had to be moved sooner or later. But now, the one on the northwest wall was preventing me from getting accurate measurements for the shims that I needed on that wall. The 20th pair of rafters used up the shims that I had in place, and now I needed to see what shims I needed for the rest of the wall.

Shortly after the scaffold was lowered, I was visited by Scott and Lisa Eberhardt, two of their kids, and two of the kids' friends. They own the new house directly across the road, and this was the first time I had met Scott. We had a long chat and he told me about being sick with leukemia while their house was being built. He had a bone marrow transplant and says that he is clean right now and feeling good. He teaches aeronautical engineering at the UW and wants to build a vintage airplane. He says he would like to build an out building near the Lake Wenatchee house and build the airplane in it. He says that he will probably wait until he retires before he does that.

After they left, I used tight strings to measure the purlin alignment for each remaining rafter location on the northwest roof. Then I figured out a strategy for bringing them into alignment. The hard part of this strategy was planing quite a bit off the surface of the central purlin. This was hot, hard work, and I didn't have a handrail on the scaffold, which is about 25 feet up, so I was very hot, sweaty, and glad when it was done.

I also had to make two shims to meet and finish off the two layers of shims that were already in place. The 1x8 on the top was used up and didn't have room for another rafter on it. Then 42 inches from the end of that, the long tapered shim I made from the slab cut from the ridgepole came to an end. It was about 3/8" thick where it ended. Knowing the shim thicknesses I needed all the way along, I figured I needed two shims: one 3/4" tapering to nothing in 42 inches, and one 3/8" tapering to nothing in 21 inches. To make these shims, I used the skilsaw and Jack, the ripsaw, to rip a 42 inch piece of 1x8 ceiling board diagonally the flat way. I don't think many people have ever cut a board this way.

These shims worked perfectly and I caulked them good and nailed them to the northwest wall. Then I measured for the ceiling board to go on top of them out to the end of the purlin, and cut it to length. I also cut the two holes to accommodate the ends of the rebar anchor hooks. Then I caulked and nailed the ceiling board in place. By that time it was 6:30 and a thunderstorm started booming, so I quit for the day.

On Thursday morning, everything was ready for more rafters so I installed the 21st and 22nd pair of rafters. It was nice and cool for the first pair which I finished at about 10:30 when the whole roof was still in the shade. The second pair was a different story. I worked mostly in the direct sun and I sweat like a pig. Most of the time I was looking straight down, and the sweat would run in and pool in my glasses. This severely changed the optics of the glasses and made it hard to hit the nails on the heads. I managed, though, and finished, had lunch, packed up, and left for home by 2:15. Unfortunately I didn't have time to pick any berries which were getting ripe again. Most of them are still red so next week I hope I can pick a bunch.

8/20/99 Wrote up a 90 step description of how I install rafters by myself. The procedure finally has all the kinks worked out of it and I figured I better get it documented.

8/24-26/99 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

It was 80 degrees out when I arrived at 11:00. I installed the 23rd pair of rafters and then took a break for lunch. By then it was 85 degrees out - too hot for me to work. I took a siesta until about 3:00. I went back out and checked the berry patch. There was a whole bunch of berry juice and seeds on my warning sign, and it looked like most of the berries had been picked. I am beginning to suspect some small furry animal who eats them on top of my sign and makes a mess. Anyway, I didn't have time to worry about berries so I went to work and installed the 24th pair of rafters.

On Wednesday, I mitered all the remaining rafters. Then I removed a scaffold handrail that was in the way, and installed the 25th pair of rafters. That pair used up all the ceiling boards that I had nailed on the purlins, so I needed to install the rest of the ceiling boards before I could do any more rafters.

Before I could do that, I needed to true up the ends of a couple of purlins. I knew that the end of the Grid E purlin was too high, but I didn't know exactly how bad it was. I made and installed 4 ceiling boards on purlins that I knew were straight, and this allowed me to use a tight string to measure the Grid E and Grid D purlins to see how far off they were.

The E purlin was a half inch too high out on the end. The D purlin was too low, so I decided to shim the underside of its ceiling board before I installed it. While I was doing this shimming, Earl Landin stopped by and checked out the progress. After he left, I climbed out on the overhanging end of the Grid E purlin, about 20 feet off the ground, and using Mother Sow, reached out and ground a half inch off the bearing surface of the purlin out at the very end. I was pleased that I was able to get it nice and flat looking. By then it was about 8:00 and starting to get dark so I quit for the day.

On Thursday morning, I nailed the ceiling board on the Grid D purlin and made the ceiling board for the Grid E purlin. All of these ceiling boards had to have two holes cut into them to accommodate the clinched ends of the rebar anchor hooks. Using the ceiling board as a straight edge, I checked out the surface of the Grid E purlin that I had ground down with the chainsaw. It had a couple of high spots in it, so I crawled out onto the purlin with a big heavy wood chisel that I had sharpened very well, and used this chisel to plane the high spots down. It worked well and I was able to get the surface nice and flat. Then I nailed the ceiling board in place. I tightened up the string again, and was pleased to see that all 5 of the purlins on that side lined up perfectly.

Then I moved the lifting rigging over one rafter, and installed the 26th pair of rafters. By then it was about 1:00, so I quit for the week, had lunch, packed up and left for home by 2:15.

8/28/99 Spent the morning with Curt Pritchard, owner of CP Sheet Metal, Inc. I learned a lot about metal roofing but I still have a lot of questions. Curt is too booked up to put the roof on for me, but he could cut and drop the materials so I could install it myself. He would charge an extra $100 to travel over there. He has a portable machine that he takes to the job site and fabricates the roof panels on the spot. The steel comes in big rolls that feed into the fabrication machine on one end, and the finished panels come out the other end. If things line up right, he can even shoot the panels directly from the machine up onto the roof.

I am going to see if there is a machine like that on the other side of the mountains but if there isn't, then I will figure out if there is enough room for Curt's machine to maneuver and produce the 40 foot panels I need at my site and have him supply me. In spite of increasing my knowledge of metal roofing by a factor of 10, I have more questions about it now than I did before.

8/30/99 Called Mike Turner of Matco in Wenatchee (509-884-7083) and talked to him about metal roofing. Earl Landin had told me that Mike has a machine that fabricates metal roofing panels on site. Mike said he would try to get over to see my site in order to see if he could give me a bid on the roofing job.

8/31-9/2/99 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

It was a cool 50 degrees out when I arrived at 11:00. There didn't seem to be many mosquitos, so I didn't put any bug juice on for the first time this summer. I installed the 27th pair of rafters and got the 28th pair lifted, aligned, and partly nailed before my drill battery went dead and I quit for the day.

Wednesday was a pretty cold 35 degrees and I started the heater for the first time this season. The difference between August and September is pretty abrupt up in the mountains. I finished nailing the 28th pair and got the 29th pair up and almost nailed by 12:30 when I got a call from Mike Turner. He said that he was just leaving Wenatchee on his way up to see my site.

I took a break for lunch and had just finished when Mike and his wife drove up. I talked to him about roofing until about 3:00. He said that he would provide me with a bid for materials only and another bid for the complete installation. His panels and methods are somewhat different from those of Curt Pritchard and we discussed a lot of issues and pros and cons of metal roofing. Mike's machine is a lot bigger than Curt's and would be virtually impossible to get past the hairpin turn. After talking and looking, it seemed that the best strategy would be to clear the vine maple thicket at the end of the hairpin turn and stack the panels in there. Then build a gentle ramp directly up onto the east corner of the roof and carry the panels up there by hand. That leaves me with three new, pretty big jobs: clearing the thicket, building a storage rack, and building the walking ramp. It occurred to me that if I have to build that gentle walking ramp anyway, I might as well build it before I carry the OSB up because that ramp will make that job a lot easier.

After Mike left, I nailed the 29th pair of rafters down, and installed the 30th pair. On Thursday morning, I moved my alignment rigging out into thin air. The remaining rafters go on top of the ends of the purlins that are sticking out over the upper roadway with nothing under them for a long way down. They are also sticking out almost over the cliff edge so when you look down over the cliff, it is even further down. I don't look down too much when I am working up there, unless I am not doing any work at the moment and am hanging on pretty tightly to the rafters. Then it's kind of fun.

After the rigging was moved, I raised the 31st pair of rafters. As I have been moving along the building with each new rafter pair, the rafters have to be lifted higher and higher. They aren't actually higher, but they need to be lifted up more directly rather than at an angle. This makes lifting them harder and harder. It was all I could do to lift the 30th long rafter by hanging on the end of the rope with all my weight, and now with the 31st, I found that I couldn't lift it by hand. The 32nd, and last, rafter would be even heavier and in addition, would have a lot of 1x2 backing fastened to it that would make it even heavier.

To solve this problem, I decided to rig up the windlass (mentioned in the 8/5/96, 8/12/96, and 9/3/96 entries of this journal) to the rope so I wouldn't have to pull it by hand. This worked very well, and now I am set up to handle the last rafter.

I finished nailing the 31st pair of rafters in place by 1:15. Then I had lunch, packed up, and left for home by 2:15.

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