October has gone, Halloween has passed, and November is upon us. It's a race to get the roof on and beat the snow. Despite our best efforts this week progress seems slow. Lots of detailed cutting and fitting around each window will pay off later, but it takes time and more time now. Every day is a fight with the rain, mud, and weather. We are working on the west wall now, and are going to leave the east end wall until after then roof is finished.

Here are the recent photos.

These pictures were taken on Tuesday 11-1-05. We spent the weekend mostly repairing the pickup. We got the new transmission installed on Sunday afternoon, and then hooked up wires, tubing, etc., on Monday. As soon as it was ready to roll we loaded up the rental scaffold and took it back to Spokane.

On Tuesday, despite more rain, we've been fighting rain almost every day, we finished the south wall, including the second story window which will be in the storage loft.

Here is a view of the east side with the walls both in place. You can see our pickup parked nearby and ready to work

After lunch on Tuesday we started the west end wall. We got 3 panels up, 9 feet, when the weather turned windy and it wasn't possible to put up more siding today. There are only 3 windows in the east end, and it's only 60 feet long, 20 panels.

This is the area in the middle of the building where we have been rolling out and cutting the insulation. It's so rainy that we have puddles even on the gravel. Outside where the soil is clay it gets really sloppy, sticky, and slippery.

On Wednesday it didn't rain so we pushed rapidly ahead on the siding. By evening we had finished the siding on the west end, making 3 sides complete. Rather than do the east wall we are going to press on to the roofing.

Here is another view from the east. You can see progress by comparing this picture with previous photos from the same place.

Here is a picture of the back of our surplus U-Haul truck that we have converted to a portable job shack. We have now installed lights above the plan table and a heater that is used as a glove dryer.

Even with the scissor lift it is still a chore getting the insulation rolled out on the roof. The suggested method is to build a temporary walkway across the roof. One person can walk across with one end of a roll of insulation while the other person walks down roofing already installed with the other end. Of course the first roll is difficult because there is no where for the other person to walk. We substituted our mobile scissor lift.

Here Justin is putting plywood on the 2x4s that are the temporary walkway. It will slide along down the roof on the purlins as we progress.

It took most of the morning to clear away trash from the siding work and get ready for roofing. the temporary walkway took a couple of hours altogether. By the time we were ready to start insulation and roofing the wind had come up. The wind blew the insulation off the roof two or three times, but we finally got it to stay put by hanging buckets of sand on each end. Most insulation is 6 feet wide but the starter roll is only 4 feet. It began to rain as we installed the first roofing panels, one each side of the center. At least the wind died down, but we decided that it was too wet and slippery to continue today so we quit early. One panel, three feet, three percent of the roof is done. At least it's begun. We'll get faster. Maybe it won't rain as much tomorrow.

You can see the temporary walkway next to the insulation. Standing next to the west wall you now stay dry.

We've been fighting rain mixed with snow, day after day out here. The lead CNN news story on Thursday was "Winter storm hammers Northwest." When the rain lets up for a couple of hours we slog through the mud to put up a couple more roof panels. One roll of insulation across the roof takes 2 panels each side or 4 panels to cover. We don't leave insulation stretched without being covered. Wind has been a problem too. The insulation won't stay put if it's too windy and it becomes dangerous for the workers as well. We had to quit early on Thursday because of wind. With all that we had about one forth of the roof done by Saturday.

Looking back it is just 2 months ago, September 6, that the big rock breaker began our excavation. For a house this big it's moving right along despite our various problems.

On Saturday night we had an inch of snow which melted by morning. We spent Sunday morning doing winterization maintenance on our various vehicles, add some antifreeze here, flush the radiator and add antifreeze there. Bear came out with Sunday lunch and the sun shone while we dined in some patio chairs in our future living room. After lunch Justin and I put up 4 more panels, another 6% of the roof, making it about 33% roofed.