timber frame near complete

about a dozen folks are on the land for lammas today, many staying through until next week. the work force has dwindled to a half-dozen dedicated folks but we got quite a lot done over the weekend. we have just four pieces left to finish, two of which are mostly complete. another day or two and we will be done with the timber frame carving for the kitchen. this is a major milestone. much thanks to everyone who has persevered for the past two seasons.

it's worth pointing out that we have actually accomplished the construction remarkably quickly given the number of days we have worked. for instance, the porch, which has a total of 37 pieces and around 80 joints, has taken, to date, just 12 work days to carve, most of them with two or three workers. that works out to around 6 joints per day carved, which is more than i anticipated would be done. taking into account our entire work effort on the kitchen, we have approximately 54 work days into it, which would be, with a normal work week, just 11 calendar weeks, or a bit less than 3 months. so, we ought to pat ourselves on the back for building quickly and with quality. of course, that's not to say we can slack off any time soon. we still have the interior of the building to finish. i'm hoping that all of you with decorating bents (and i know there are more of you in this category than in the timber framing catergory!) will step up.

blow-by-blow:

thursday, daisy, peter, autumn and i worked the beams and afterwards dined out at zachary's pizza, where we either utterly entertained or completely irritated the waitress. later, in the yurt, we had a sweet (and naked) jam session and worked up four new songs.

friday, i finished up the braces with chamfering and other finishing touches while daisy organized the wood piles and cleaned up in general. i layed out a couple more beams, including the monsters that will hold up the porch that are 24 feet long and many hundreds of pounds in prep for carving saturday.

saturday, we had a revolving work crew, that included zenya, daisy, greg, mac, orange and me. mostly we mortised the beams and i cut one of the scarf joints that joins the porch beams into a continuous stretch. i stepped out for the evening, but the gatherers donned red apparel--jungle red in fact--in honor of the theme for the gathering, a reality tv version of "the women" to be enacted next weekend. moss moved much firewood.

sunday, mostly more of the same with mac, chris, daisy, me, neth, orange, greg, bambi and jim pitching in. we moved the longest of the beams with just four people. personally, i find it a lot of fun figuring out how to move huge things with just a few people. i realize this is somewhat unusual. moss and greg in their quest to tame the meadow, which apparently shook the engine mount bolts right off the lawn mower, spent part of the day getting new bolts and fitting them. moss also relocated the lower kitchen solar panels in hope that a bit more sun would charge the battery enough to keep the lights on regularly.