Barn Raising - Part 3
Figuring out what the heck we're doing,
getting the first trusses up.
The actual day of the barn-raising dawned bright and clear. By the
time we arrived, a couple of people (Hobbit and Tam's sister Sonia) had
already arrived. Sonia was the "official photographer" for the day.
We only had a vague idea how we were actually going to get the trusses
up, which caused us to waste a couple of hours at first. The basic
idea was to have Rosie use her backhoe to lift the trusses or pieces thereof
into position. There was one false start where we set the columns
on the piers, only to find that Rosie's backhoe couldn't reach high enough
to get the cross-pieces into position. Fortunately, we had in attendance
enough construction geeks, engineering geeks, and rock-climbing geeks so
that we were able to eventually work out a solution that made use of the
tools and people at hand. It was risky, but doable. More on
that later.
This is Rosie's machine, parked in front of the worksite.
She inherited the business from her father, Harold Clark; thus, the "H.E.
Clark" painted on the loader arm. Rosie is a gem, a sweetie, a tough
cookie, and all-around wonderful person. She pulled our ass out of
the fire more than once on this job, and we're extremely grateful!
Step One was to lay the first truss out on the deck so we could
get some idea what we were up against.
Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of the first truss going
up, since Sonia had been conscripted to assist one of the rope crews for
that one (we're hoping to get more pictures from the other folks who were
there). Here we show the second truss going up....
...and here's Tam setting one end on the bolts. Sounds easy,
doesn't it? Hee hee hee....
With two trusses in place, some of us knocked heads together trying
to plumb and square them, while others (far right of picture) set to work
assembling the third truss.
Hey! It's starting to look like a building!
Unfortunately, about this time the caterers showed up. You
guessed it; it's 5:30 pm, and we only have two trusses up. And we
had expected to be through by 6:00pm. Uh, right.....
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