So, Gentle Readers, it is May, I am back in Africa, and I finally have some time to write ...
I had this chapter finished just before my Son's death .... and am pleased to finally present it for your consideration ...
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I WAS FRAMED ...
So there I was, Precious Bride was back home keeping the Giant Multinational Corporation from certain financial ruin, and I was off on my own with a credit card and pickup full of tools ... a full tank of gas ... and a pile of materials already waiting for me ...
Now I am sure I mentioned this before, but I LOVE building barns ... my first job after moving to Texas was with a barn builder from Washington State who learned the craft from his father who learned the craft from a USDA school while working for the Civilian Conservation Corps during the depression ..
Tom the Barnbuilder was a natural teacher ... easygoing and always cracking jokes ... lthough he was quite the perfectionist, he always knew when enough was enough ... " ... OK NOW, we are building Barns here, Fellahs, not pianos ... " was his way of letting you know whatever you had already built would pass his inspection ... and it was time to press on ...
A unique feature of Tom were his hands ... he was a big guy to start off with ... 6 foot and a smidgen but his hands were enormous ... rough as alligator hide with a grip as strong as a vise from years of hard work ...
I have a size 10 hand and his gloves fit me like feed sacks ...
So naturally, Tom always greeted everyone with a huge smile and a double-handed handshake ... losing your hand in that greeting was like getting it pinned in between two waffle irons ...
I worked for him for a couple of years, and travelled all over the Great State of Texas, building barns, sheds, bridges, houses, warehouses and even a few aircraft hangers in places that didn't show up on the roadmaps ... and along the way kindling a love of the backroads of this state that has yet to subside ....
Tom eventually moved back to Washington to retire, and I moved on to other work ... some of the lessons remain with me still ...
So, with a wonderful pile of salvaged lumber and steel courtesy of Precious Bride, I got with the barn-raising ...
PB had leant a hand with staking out the string lines to spot the poles, and I had already laid paint marks down, so drilling the holes then setting and tamping the poles went quickly ... PB had made me an early birthday gift of a 3 point post hole digger (GAWD BLESS TEXAS WOMEN!!) so, all the hardest work was done by the Little Green Giant.
I love when that happens ....
I saved a couple of new fence posts to protect the electrical junction box alongside the driveway and set them as well ... I don't want to be the one to run into a plastic box full of 13,600 volts ...
Then I put together some sawhorses out of parts of an old set of bunk beds we found in one of the containers ... some cheap hinges and a bit of rope and I had a set of WAY heavy-duty saw horses ...
Oh yeah.. I had POWER too! Nothing quite so nice as plugging into the grid ... I smile now just thinking about how good it felt to have that skilsaw rev up the first time ... It was right up there with finding a $20 in your jeans pocket on washday ...
The building style Tom taught me is designed to rely on only light equipment to build even the largest buildings ... and when I was working for him, we never used anything larger than a backhoe/loader on any jobs ... All the girders or trusses were built onsite, with truss halves built flat on a set of horses, then stood up vertically around the poles to be nailed/bolted together ... and then raised with hand or 12volt winches hung from plates nailed onto the tips of poles ... the poles were purchased a little extra long to accommodate the machinery ...
Once the girders or trusses were secured, the poles could be trimmed to their finished length or left full length depending on the design ...
For this little shed, I built the girders around the poles and then used a single gin-pole and hoisted at the balance point, jacking them up into position with a ratchet style power-puller.
I followed the girder up on the ladder as I pumped the jack, occasionally dismounting to nudge one end or the other with a short scrap of 2x4 to keep the whole thing reasonably level.
The 300lb + girders (a pair of nice new wet treated 2x12) were no match for the power-pull even using just the single cable ...
Tricks like this let me work solo ... I like it like that ... no labor / management disputes this way ...
The photos show the process .... cut the girders to length, lay out the positions of the rafter ties on the twin girders, then assemble and hoist into position ....
Repeat if necessary ...
Building the horses, laying out the girders and cutting all the blocking for all three sets of them, then assembling and erecting one set was a nice afternoon's work on a beautiful spring day ... the other two went up before noon the next day.
That next afternoon included a trip to the Big Box Store for more screws, bolts and enough new lumber to put across the face of the barn for show ...
It is a good time to be out riding in central Texas ... spring was just beginning and here and there you can see a purple fuzz of clover blossoms hinting at the wildflower riot that is just a few weeks away ... new calves are everywhere ... and things are beginning to green up a bit after the thin cold rains of winter re-invigorated the pastures ... and watching a sunset, even thru a windshield, still counts as a properly attended sunset in my book ...
The next morning, it was time to sort thru all the salvaged rafters and then pull out about a zillion nails, but once I got a rhythm going, it went along nice and smoothly ... it was easy to get lost in the repetitive work and it wasn't very long before all the local birds had grown accustomed to my noise and were back at doing what they do best, so I had quite a choir to accompany the banging and sawing ... I soon had all the rafters prepared and ready to raise.
Raising the 20+ foot-long rafters was easy ... if you look closely at the pics you can see a rebar hook holding up one end of the rafter on the side of the ladder while the other is already up on the girder ... in this way I raised one end of all the rafters in a bent and then lifted the other end up in two stages, lifting the rafter to the hook, and once up on the ladder, reaching down and completing the lift up to the girder ... move the ladder ... repeat if necessary ...
By evening, all the rafters were up and screwed into place on the center girder rafter tie blocking ... the outboard rafter ends were left free to allow the poles and girders to be trued.
The salvaged poles were a bit smaller than I would have liked, making the frame a bit more limber than desirable ... so the next morning started off with cutting some nice new 2x6 as wind bracing and I began truing up the frame one pole at a time.
I shot a level line for the low end of the braces at 6 feet above the highest point in the grade to keep me from banging my head or tearing the braces off with the truck and then set some scrap blocks under the line to hold up the low end of the brace.
After truing each pole with the power-pull, I climbed up the ladder, clamped and then screwed the brace into place at the top, checked plumb one more time after I climbed down, adjusted as needed and screwed the bottom end of each brace into position.
Setting all the braces and truing the frame by myself means lots of trips up and down the ladder, but it sure keeps the labor costs down ... and tho I may talk to and even argue with myself, I nearly always win ...
With the poles and bents trued and the braces screwed in place, I broke out my new toy ... a Harbor Freight "Hole Hawg" drill clone ... and I got busy drilling and bolting the critical joints.
The drill is a real BEAST ... after a poor start on the first hole I figured out the tip of my 9/16 ship auger was a bit dull and spent a little time dressing it up with some needle files ... the drill then ran it thru 10 or so inches of a well-dried treated pole and blocking like it was drilling thru butter ... the 12+ pound weight at a right angle to the bit is a real advantage spinning those long bits, easily countering the considerable counter-torque generated ... and a piece of nylon rope between the drill handle and the top of the ladder made hauling it up and down a lot safer ...
I will retire my ancient single speed, non-reversing Milwaukee 1/2" Hole Shooter inherited from my Father to honoured retirement duty mixing paint or resting in a shop-built drill press ... my wrists bear the scars resulting from binding up large diameter or long bits in that little monster ... even with the little accessory handle clamped to the front end, it would wrap you up around the handle and toss you into the next county or worse when a bit would inevitably bind up in a hole ...
The bolts were soon snugged up and the power-pull was removed ... and the frame was nice and tight , jst the way things ought to be ..... Tom the Barnbuilder used to say "... if you need to put in bracing at ALL, don't put in little ones..."
By the end of the afternoon, all the rafters were fully secured on their outboard ends, the pole tips and lower ends of the wind braces were trimmed off neatly, and I topped out the frame with the traditional flag and evergreen bough ....
While taking some photos, I noticed that by some small miracle, I had put exactly the right pitch on this roof to hide the rough surface of the salvaged roofing completely from view on the approach from the driveway, proving the old adage about blind squirrels and acorns ...
So ... with the barn frame done and time before deployment growing short, I cleaned up the work site and my tools, then spent a day cutting down a couple of long-dead pines, dressing the driveway and drainage ditch, raking the stumps and staubs out of the "someday-gonna-be" flower beds on either side of the entry gate for PB, and finally smoothing out some rough spots in my MIL and FIL's front yard.
On my last afternoon on the Ranch I spent some time out at the back fence with the Pasture Posse ... Lilly White is getting quite big now, and is very tame ... while her mom and pop will occasionally nip a finger in their rush for the sweets and you ALWAYS have to watch out for the teeth on the mules Buck, Geraldine and the gelding PITA, Lilly is always very gentle in accepting her goodies ....
It is always a pleasure to come chill with the Posse ... And of course, I do LOVE to tell certain folks to come up to Bedias sometime and kiss my Lilly White *** ...
The dense woods in our backlot was a swarm of bird activity ... the red-birds and blue jays seem to be vying for all the same nesting sites, and the air is full of their aerial combats with twisting, darting slashes of squawking blue and red in the fading afternoon light .... it was quite a show! I can稚 WAIT for the mockingbirds
Morning broke to a light rain ... and tho it wasn't enough to have stoppe work, it seemed a good point at which to say my good-byes to MIL and FIL, Good Neighbor Joe, and the mob down at the "Jubilee Feed Store, Hair Care and Tire Emporium"
Next trip will see that salvaged tin up on top of the frame, and I will finally have a dry and shaded spot to work in ... I am hoping that we will have enough money socked away to buy the supplies for the water main, but if not, I can keep working at levelling the containers and then wiring and plumbing them and fitting out the two open containers as a Feed Room and Office.
There is always something to do, l just never enough time or money ...
"Mucho trabajo .... poco dinero ... "
Now go tell someone you love them...
Terry
(Photos to Follow)
