We made the best of a rainy day...

I was almost out of "glue" (adhesive) for my block laying and it looked like rain so Alexis and I drove to the AAC block place in Ringgold, GA (just south of Chattanooga). We bought some more adhesive and some replacement tools (that I had worn out) and used SafeCrete's band saw to cut some blocks anticipating the need to create a bond beam in the very near future. Here you can see me bringing in a pallet of blocks to cut.This is a picture of me using the commercial band saw to "slice" the blocks into the 2" side walls for my bond beam above the 12th course of solid blocks (the "Joseph Mansfield" course). I'll put rebar in the middle and pour the center cavity that has been created with concrete to form the beam that ties the building together from top to bottom (from the footing through the stem wall, slab and blocks that have already been laid... I'll also put "J" bolts in the bond beam to bolt down the top plate... we'll nail the trusses to this wooden plate).
Alexis carefully stacked the "slices" in the bed of her pickup. We also cut the 2" X 4" AAC trim for the windows and door on the front of the house. With the sliced blocks (approx 1000 lbs.) and ten 55# bags of adhesive on the tailgate (it was a full load for an F-150 pick-em-up-truck!) we drove back to Sewanee having turned a rainy lemon day into lemonade.

Our roof trusses arrived this morning

Silas Nolt, our truss-guy, had a "Mini Me-type" helper (I guess it would be more appropriate to call him a "Mini Mennonite" helper?)... this little guy will be three on Saturday... cute.
The trusses coming off Silas's trailer:It'll REALLY be a milestone when we get these up and covered with tin!Here's a panorama of the building and our load of trusses:Back to laying block with my ice chest dunked wash cloth to keep me cool. The front (north) wall is almost finished... just three more courses and the bond beam (our red "mortgage FREE" front door will go in the opening to the right after I build the door frame and saw the blocks off even vertically):Watering Alexis' square foot garden is a lot easier than laying block.Our billionaire "neighbor," Sir John Templeton died yesterday at 95 (Templeton Growth Fund)... our people were never able to get with his people so Alexis and I never did get to "do" tea with Sir John at his library which is just down the road (St Mary's Lane) a piece from our land. May Sir John rest in peace.

Just 4 more courses...

I suspect you're tiring of reading about my painfully slow block laying. I'm tired of reporting about my painfully slow block laying! I can hardly wait to be done with the frustration and back breaking work. In this picture you can see I'm 2/3s finished with the north wall (I'll trim the jagged end of this wall when I put the door frame in). The main thing left to do is pour the bond beam and tie it to the bored cores I drilled 4' on center. Deferring to my Jr. High best friend, Louis Camerio, who has built hundreds if not thousands of houses as a developer in Atlanta, I rebuilt my window frames out of 2 X 6s as he suggested. I can see that the bigger lumber will make the trimming much easier both inside and outside. I'm still having fits with plumb/level issues but it's "gonna be alright" to quote one of my favorites from the 60s Gerry and the Pacemakers.
Here is Alexis leaning out her kitchen window like Molly Goldberg, circa 1949 - 1956. "Oy! Get some makeup on that woman!" (That's my comment! - Alexis)

Here is the job site's BIG DOG... my 90 pound, 87 year old mother-in-law, Ruth ... she loves to watch me work... it's such a novel concept.I spoke with my Mennonite truss maker this morning (Silas Nolt... doesn't that sound like the name of a Mennonite truss builder!?)... he's delivering the roof trusses tomorrow morning at 9 AM. I'll be in need of my own truss by the time I get this block laid!

A visit from an old (OLD!) dear friend...

Alexis and I had a nice surprise this afternoon as we were breaking out the block laying tools. Jack Wilson (my classmate from St Andrews School, 1964) and his wife, Linda, drove down from Gainesboro, Tennessee to visit. They have been following our blog and wanted to see our building progress first hand. Jack and Linda just built their own home so their nice - "we've been there... done that" - comments were greatly appreciated. We visited for a couple of hours and since Sir John Templeton hadn't invited us down for tea we crashed his party and drove up to his library... Alexis and Linda were in the front of the pickup truck while Jack and I lounged in lawn chairs in the truck bed. A limo would probably have been more appropriate just in case Sir John would have recognized us and sent his man servant out with an engraved invitation... sorry... I get delusional in the hot sun.
After Jack and Linda left we got busy laying another course of block on the north wall. I am having fits keeping the wall straight and plumb and get VERY frustrated trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. Thank God for sheet rock and stucco to cover my mistakes. Nothing I've done will compromise the structural integrity of the house but in the meantime it's driving me NUTS! Here's a shot just before the sun went down at 8:00 PM:

Happy 4th... I celebrated by laying more block

We didn't get over to the land until 2:00PM today but I was able to get a course of blocks laid while I ran between rain drops. As you can see (the front door is behind the tree) I'm on the home stretch with getting the AAC block walls up although the bond beam (13th course... aka the "Joseph Mansfield" course... Joseph talked me into going 8' 8" high on my walls) is going to be a challenge because I'll be up and down my scaffolding with buckets of concrete. There won't be enough concrete to justify ready-mix and a pump truck.

Jumping the gun with our red door?

We are probably jumping the gun by painting our front door when all the walls aren't even up yet... but Alexis & I wanted to celebrate the prospect of being debt free. As you may know having a red door symbolically means the house has no mortgage... we're getting in the spirit of not being in debt even before the roof is on the house... hallelujah! Today's block laying was challenging like yesterday's was. I finally decided to just lay my blocks to the string and "que sera, sera." Thank the Lord for sheet rock (inside) and stucco (outside) to hide my "block laying sins!" It's all going to be okay but I have discovered that block laying is NOT my calling in life... especially at 61! Here is a picture that was taken late this afternoon showing the final run of block going up on the front wall (note the buck for the kitchen window). It's going to feel SOOOOO good to finally get this block laying over with. I like doing it but I would like to get on with drying the house in and getting it livable... ASAP... hopefully by early fall.
Here's a picture of Alexis' square foot garden... most everything seems to be doing well (tomatoes, squash, bell peppers, canalope, herbs, strawberries):

I had a VERY bad hair (block) day

Today just wasn't my day. Yesterday I had cut to size and bored 8 courses of block to fit between the closet window and the utility room window... I thought I'd get 'em glued lickity split... but NOOOOOOO! I had to tear out what I had done THREE times before I was happy with it... even then I'm fighting a plumb problem again like I did down at the west end of this wall near the front door. To say the least I didn't get as much done as I had hoped. Here's the end result of 6+ hours of work... pitiful... but I'm learning to "dance in the rain" so the good news is that I'm on the home stretch with laying the block... and it's still going to be a VERY, VERY fine house: I like you to meet Alexis' yellow squash plant... complete with blossoms... how I love yellow squash!... the white specks are the perlite/vermiculite in the "dirt" she mixed up yesterday in the bed of her pickup. It makes the dirt mixture "fluffy" and able to hold moisture better:
This is a shot of one of our "earth boxes" with the first ripening tomato (bell peppers in the background):
I REALLY am loving building this house but physically it's "KILLING" me. I'm beginning to think that being 61 years old is too old to build a house by yourself. Every afternoon after work Alexis puts me in the bed of her pickup (in a heap) and drives me back across the road to our duplex and deposits me (keer-plunk) in the bath tub. Then it's supper and to bed and repeat... because it's necessary (well, it happens something like that anyway... grin!).