More Friends Arrive at the J Bar B!

Each week as I prepare a new blog post, I go back and reread our previous post and am amazed at the progress we make each week. Last week we had pictures of us putting the roofing up, this week it is completely done and water tight which was an adventure in itself.

But before I get into that, our next visitors arrived this week! Jim and Diana Belisle have been making their way north via Utah, New Mexico and Colorado on their way to Michigan and stopped by to help out with our projects. It is interesting, some people like the Alexander's and Belisle’s will go out of their way to visit and help out while others plan a trip to Alaska to get as far away as possible to avoid work! (I won't mention any names but if you click the link about you will find out who went to Alaska to avoid work.)

Jim, Diana, Barb and I out on an adventure in Custer State Park

Jim and Diana have arrived at the J-B!

We reached several milestones this week. Number one was getting the roof sheathed and water tight! You will have to take my word for it as it was quite the adventure and did not have time to take pictures. The day started like all the rest, with a silent prayer that we make good progress and that no one gets hurt. And with one day of roof work left (for now) it seemed God wanted to have a little fun with us.

We had finished the sheathing the day before and all we had left was the underlayment which would make it waterproof. With rain in the forecast we wanted to get it done before the roofing got we so up on the roof we went and started laying the 5 rows of underlayment. The views up there go for miles in every direction and we could storm clouds rain and lightning on two sides headed our way. We hurried to get the rows down doing minimal staples trying to finish the task. We were rolling out the last row when the rain came along with it came the wind. As I cut the last piece off the roll, Barb held it down trying to keep in in place. Once that was secured the rain was coming down pretty good but we were watertight!

What was once a fairly tacky surface now turned into a giant slip and slide with a 16’ not so soft landing with us on the peak of the roof! Barb got down while I finished stapling. She walked across the top of the peak so she was directly above the basket on the skidsteer and did the crabwalk down the roof. At least if she began to slide she would slide into the basket and not the ground.

I stayed up another 15 minutes and got everything tacked down before I climbed down completely soaked. Barb was waiting in the garage and high fived me as we put the tools away for the day. What a great feeling to have the roof watertight!

We are trying to be as careful as possible as neither one of us can afford to get hurt. Besides of the fact that it would bring the build to a complete standstill, we took a chance with our health insurance this year choosing a high deductible policy over the more expensive low deductible policy we have had in the past. We are saving several hundred dollars a month which we are now putting into an HSA in case we need it in the future. According to our calculations should something catastrophic happen it should be a wash compared to the more expensive policy. With all the high risk activities we are doing, this may not have been the best year to do this!

We also took delivery of our windows this week! The delivery guy and I tucked them in the corner of the garage waiting to be installed after we got the house wrapped.

The windows have arrived!

The timing of the Belisle's arrival, like the Alexander's, could not have been better, it was right when we needed three people to complete some critical tasks. Day one of their stay found us wrapping the lower course of the house. Jim would roll out the 9’ high roll of wrap while I followed behind him smoothing it out and stapling it. It got too windy to do the upper course so instead we decided to install a couple of windows!

After a phone call to Kevin we felt like we knew how to cut out the house wrap and layout the waterproofing tape to correctly install the windows so off we went to install our first window! 5 minutes later we were on the phone with Kevin again just to make sure we were doing it right. 20 minutes later we had our first window installed!

Kitchen window in!

The next day with the winds calmer we carried on with the house wrap. With Jim and I up in the basket Barb drove us along the side of the house. While Jim unrolled the wrap I stapled it into place. Although that is an extremely simplified description of how we put it on, it did go pretty well and 5 hours later we had the house completely wrapped! Jim's arms were rubber by the end of the day!

Barb rolling us along as we tape the seams

Sunday we took the morning off to attend a training session for the Mount Rushmore Hunting Retriever Club. This time we took Daisy and more importantly Dakota. One of the members gave Dakota a run through to see what she had and she did great! He said she was a great "marker" meaning she had a good eye for knowing where the dummy fell and thought she would be a great addition to their club. So...… the Mount Rushmore HRC now has two more members!

Black lab on a training run

Daisy watching some of the action

Monday was Jim and Diana's last day and Jim wanted to make it count so we installed 8.... count them, 8 windows! What made this even more incredible is that we installed 8 of the highest and hardest windows. The first two were the heavy traps in the front.

Lifting up the first of the traps

Jim and I were outside in the basket while Barb was inside leveling and adding shims

Side window above the sliding door

6 of the 8 upper level windows we installed!

We are sad at see Jim and Diana go, they are great friends and we cannot thank them enough for their help. The last night of their stay, Jim snapped this picture of Dakota who was waiting for someone to throw her ball. Probably the best picture taken of Dakota to date.

With their departure, we had another arrival. After trying to meet up for the past several years, we finally got to meet virtual friends Al and Ingrid! It looks like it is going to be another action packed week at the J Bar B!