The Barn Frame

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Once we returned to Tennessee after being gone for nearly a week, it was amazing the change in the garden. Everything had grown so fast! We watered it right away:


Here's a good shot of the corn and winter squash:
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And here the broccoli and cauliflower, with tomato behind:
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I pulled a potato out of the bin that was starting to flower, to see if it had any tubers coming:
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Here's a closeup of the young red potatoes forming:
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Very exciting.

And there's lots of yellow summer squash to eat, which we steam:
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Cucumbers also:

Butternut squash:

Here's a mantid on the corn:

Back to the barn:

The huge pressure treated 2x10 cleat on the front left post of the barn wasn't staight. It had a slight crook to it, so I just nailed it up at top and bottom. It bowed about a half-inch to the right at the center.
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In Atlanta I got a pipe clamp and a 3 foot piece of black pipe, to use to move the board straight before I completely fastened it down. It did the job almost effortlessly. And this began a new era of building for me - one of clamps. When you're building alone, you must have clamps. And the more the better.

On the barn I basically just picked up where I left off in an earlier post (THE MODIFIED POST AND BEAM FRAME), maybe a little wiser, refreshed, and with a few more tools. Here are some close-up shots of connections. The mid left inner post:
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The front left side of the barn, from outside:

A closer look at the beefed up 4x4 post, now 8x8, with it's cleats and 2x10 beams and 2x6 braces:

Here are more shots of the framing:

The front left corner of the barn, from inside:

We've been back in Tennessee for 2 weeks, and the frame is 2/3rds finished. And we're now totally out of money. The girls and I will have to go back down to Atlanta for 2 weeks so I can work at my father's factory to make money for boards. We'll stay with my parents. 2 weeks' pay should cover the cost of lumber and fasteners for the back 1/3rd of the barn.

Here's a photo of where it stands now, with the kids swimming in the foreground:

And one with me out front:
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Since we're going to be gone for 2 weeks, I need to build a door for the shed so I can lock my tools away. I call it my "bad mood" door, because I just throw it together with old boards and drywall screws in a hurry and don't give a damn what it looks like:

Here's my journal entry a few days before we go back to Atlanta:
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7/16. A whole month since I've written. Night, full moon rising, insects calling. We've got a cantelope down in the garden. The tomatoes are beginning to turn red. We had a salad from the garden, kale and mustard greens and three big cucumbers. We also steamed some yellow squash and had it with pasta.
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I've been building the barn ever since Patty left and I finished the driveway. I've put in 92 boards according to Rachael's calculations. It's a modified post and beam made out of 2x4, 2x6 and 2x10. The framing is over 2/3rds done. I can't finish it because we're out of money. We're going into Atlanta on the 21st and I'm going to work at the plant for money for boards. Then I'll come back, finish the framing, scrub and seal it, and harvest food from the garden. We've been gathering a quart of berries, blue and black, every morning, for our oatmeal. Today we put them in our pancake batter. There's no shortage of food here. And no shortage of insects either.
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I read in the evenings. I finished a great book called MIRACLE IN THE ANDES by an Andes survivor. It sort of fortifies Doestoievski's outlook for me, that wisdom is found in suffering, when I read this book. This guy really saw life for what it was. I'm also reading a book on the Soviet gulags. Man's inhumanity to man knows no bottom. I just finished tonight a book by a guy who paddled the length of the Tennessee. It reminds me a lot of our trip up the Susquehanna.

We looked at a couple of foreclosures in Atlanta. I'm still ambivalent about it. Patty's all for the pragmatic money side of it. I'm concerned about the soul side of it. Do we really want to sit in Atlanta and work and commute up into our forties? Hell no! is my instant reaction. But do what instead? We could homestead up here and I could work locally and we could use food stamps and I could finish the barn. But that's a lot of work, a lot of $, and rough living. I'd love to try the Southwest again, but am partially bored of it. Hawaii is too small, and the Northwest is miserable.
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Patty's flying to L.A. (she's never been on a plane before) with my mother and sister tomorrow morning for Stephanie's bridal shower. She'll be gone for 4 days. Then I'll meet her down in Atlanta on Monday.


Some things we've found great solutions for. There's a sawmill right in Sunbright, three miles away from us. The actual mill is huge, in what looks like an airplane hanger. They've got many pallets of 2x4, x6, and x10, because roofers use them for trusses. Not only is it a great cheap local place for wood, the guy who runs it has told me I can come in for sawdust whenever I please, and take all I want for free. So I go in with large black garbage bags and shovel dust from around the saws for an hour. Three bags of dust should last me months. And sawdust works a lot better in the collection toilet than peat moss - the bucket doesn't fill as fast. And the stuff is free.
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Ripe blackberries and blueberries are absolutely everywhere. The north side of the dirt road below us has tons and tons of blackberries, some of Oregon proportions. Blueberries are everywhere also, but small and low to the ground. It's hard to pick as much in the same amount of time.
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