Perseverance

"Continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure or opposition; the action or condition of an instance or preserving; steadfastness"

That one word sums up the last two weeks of our life. I feel as though it has been almost two weeks since we last posted. Oh wait, it has!

Garage progress has been slow. I shouldn't say slow, maybe just tedious and not real noticeable. After getting the trusses all on one would think it is just a simple matter of putting on the steel roof. But first there is the purlins to put up. From top to bottom every two feet. Barb was my helper for this project. 

Roof work sucks. Standing on ladders and trusses. Lifting things over your head, leaning over, walking over between trusses. Barb would hand me a couple boards, I would take the next 5-10 minutes to nail them in, she would hand me a couple more....... Between handing me boards Barb would tidy up the area or sometimes just lay back and enjoy the sun. 

We ran out of lumber which brought a couple day delay in the finish of that portion, but there was plenty of other things to do.  Barb went around the inside and pounded out all the nails that missed the studs while I was putting the sheathing up.  I went around the outside, pulled the nails she pounded out and pound them back in in their proper home. 

I think I have mentioned that the trusses I got were from a remodel that Kevin did last fall. These "free" trusses are costing me about $15,000. So far we have about $3,000 in concrete, $5,000 in lumber, and $9,000 in steel. Doing it ourselves is saving well over $5,000, but I am ready for it to be done!

The tails on the trusses were only 1', which is not the look we are going for, so I extended each of them by one foot. This is done by taking a 3' 2x4 and attaching it to the end of each truss then snapping a line at the desired length and cutting them all. 

It's not quite that simple though as each cut has to be perfectly level so you can attach your sub facia to it. This means getting up and down the ladder at each truss, using a small level to draw your cut line and then cutting it with the circular saw. 

Once all the tails are installed and cut you can install your sub facia which is the 2x6 that is attached to the end of each of the tails. You have to do basically the same thing with each of the ends. But all of that does not even make you ready for the roof. Next comes the drip edge and underlayment. Ever tried to lay underlayment in South Dakota wind? Not fun. 

The pictures below show the 1' tails (before) on the left and the extended 2' tails (after) and sub facia on the right.

Finally, when all that is done you can put the steel up! Laying a couple 2x4's against the building, me and whoever my helper is at the time, set a piece of steel on the 2x4's, then I clip a vice grip to it which is attached to a rope. I then climb up the top of the trusses and pull the rope (and steel) up to me in place. My helper and I then position the steel in place before I tack it down before the wind takes it. We do the same thing 2-3 times before I tell my helper to take a break while I put all the screws in those 2-3 sheets. 

Slow and tedious work and after doing a few sheets the motivation level goes way down, and I am ready to do something else. Like dirt biking!

Forrest and Somer each have a dirt bike and one afternoon Forrest and I hit the trails. I had not been on a dirt bike in a couple of decades. What a blast! I felt like a kid again roaming the trails in the national forest. 

After a couple hours of riding, the young kid had left my body and replaced by a 60 something old man with a bad back and aching butt, but it was totally worth it!

I also managed to get out and mow the "front yard" when I was stuck on the garage and had no helper around. Or is it the backyard? An ongoing discussion between Barb and I.

Needed to get done and it was a welcome distraction. 

Forrest and I went out fishing one day as well and finally found the walleye on Angostura. Each of us boated 10+ walleye and 10+ smallies making for a great day. Below is one of the small ones we caught. We went home and cooked a few of the bigger ones up having our first walleye for the season!

Forrest and Somer went out the next day and brought back even more keeper walleye!

Then came two days of rain, which we needed, but it meant no progress on the garage. It also coincided with our next visitor's arrival. Dan and Jeanie of Florida and Minnesota arrived on Wednesday afternoon and left on Friday morning. We opted for indoor activities going to Crazy Horse where we went through each of the exhibits and read about the native American history in the area. The place was packed! Lots of tourists with many of them getting their pictures taken with a "real live Indian"! I found it kinda of strange until Jeanie mentioned that to many of the foreign tourist's buffalo and Indians are more like mythical beings that they have only read about or seen on TV. Apparently, many of the Asian cultures are fascinated with the old west culture. Interesting. 

After that, the skies had cleared up a little, so we headed to Custer State Park and drove the Wildlife Loop. Along with 9,000 other cars! It wasn't horrible, except when we got to the burros. Of course, we had to stop and feed them a few carrots. 

As a reward for all of our hard work this week we went and checked out a new bar in town. Imagine that! Well, not a bar actually, more of a taproom with 20 or so taps on the wall where you pour your own and are charged by the ounce. 

Here is our one downer of the week. This was discovered when Forrest opened the hood of the Jeep to change the oil. Something (either a chipmunk, red squirrel or a pack rat) took up residence under the hood of the Jeep tearing up the hood liner as well as part of the firewall. Luckily, no wires were damaged. I need to find this little bugger!

This coming week will likely be more of the same, we do have some fun intermixed in there as well as a couple of doctor appointments that will be the opposite of fun. But we shall continue to persevere day by day.