Onward with the Roof

A new beam was added Saturday to create the porch off the guesthouse bath. Leaning up against the building is my painted plywood of a few days ago -- it dried and the paint stuck, despite the painting in cold experience.

Rafters notched and ready to go up.

Really Cold!

Today the temperature is in the mid twenties and our Whidbey world is white with frost. The leaves of the Rhododendrons and other broad leaf shrubs are distorted with the cold. I need to paint the underside of the plywood that goes on the guest house roof. Under the overhangs it will be visible. My prospects of painting look slim. I will try to catch an hour or two of painting time during the middle of the day. Far from ideal, but...

Later: I did get the plywood painted, despite the cold, so who knows if the paint will stick or even dry. It was an interesting juggling act. I leaned the painted boards up against a ladder to dry, but the ladder tipped over after I'd finished. There I was holding five sheets of plywood, covered with wet paint, and at the same time I was trying to right the ladder. No help in sight as I struggled to manage the heavy, slippery, finger pinching mess.

Vegetable Garden

Here come the fence posts for our vegetable garden. Dick & Mary generously donated their no-longer-needed orchard fence to us for our garden. Although we encourage wildlife to visit, there are places where that doesn't work and the vegetable garden is number one. We will be fencing a corner of our property to keep out both deer and rabbits.

Dingle

A new word came my way -- thanks Diane! It is dingle meaning a deep narrow wooded valley. Although the Grace Lane property we purchased had been mostly cleared prior to our purchase, it had been, before clearing, a dingle. Our home on Saratoga Road was dingle property too. I seem to have a love affair with dingles, seeking them out, unintentionally. Since the once wooded part of our deep narrow valley is being partially restored to wooded, is our new home's name Grace Dingle, Dingle Grace? Hum...

Purlines on the Rafters

Today Ben and Brad worked at adding purlins to the rafters on the guesthouse. Erin cleaned the wood in preparation for turning it into purlins. Once again, as with the barn, the wood is recycled from the Tacoma warehouse. The southeast corner of this building will have large corner windows, looking out over the pond-to-be.

Conduit

Ed spent the afternoon putting conduit in place, in preparation for pouring the slab in the main living building.

Rearranging the Garden

Today plants got rearranged and replanted to start shaping the new garden. Before we sold our Saratoga home we moved some plants over to Grace Lane. We created a spot for their storage, and our pleasure, until landscaping in earnest began. Now, as we begin developing our new garden we can steal those plants from the "nursery".