We’ve spent the past two days scrambing up ladders and climbing rolling scaffolding and kneeling in the crow’s nest and dancing on canted top plates – as we haul the beams up and against the center ring and onto the top of the walls. Once the beams were in place, there were many other tasks to take care of : nailing them off the to the hardware on the top plates, running the rafter cable thru the beams at the wall line, cutting and nailing the back-blocks, and a myriad of other tasks that Jonas was able to convey in a cheerful and patient way that allowed each of us to feel like we were contributing something important to the project. And then there were the frustrations of removing hardware (on the top plate: which means everything is done from a ladder- times 32)) and replacing it 1″ from it’s original position, the occasional head wounds ( Sophie and Sarah are both OK), trying to get the walls of a round structure plumb (you push one wall out, and the others come in), looking for nails and hardware beneath the sheets of black plastic everywhere, covering and uncovering the piles of nails and hardware depending on the precipitation…. The truly amazing aspect of this project is that no one has totally lost it yet – everyone is gracious and polite – and the air is full of laughter and jokes and wisecracks… however every once in a while I slip back into my construction worker mentality and yell something- like when the power kept going out due to the rain- and in my frustration at picking up the saw, and not having any juice, I yelled POWER!!! And Jonas turned to me and said ‘Wow, really old school’ and I had to laugh at myself and take a step back from the brink of being a total asshole. We’ve been helped this week by Terry Kelley – who showed up and threw himself into the project with great skill and grace and humor. Dave Leslie worked with us on Saturday and stayed the whole day despite the rain. Kendra and Mia have provided amazing and delicious lunches each day and have pampered us with snacks and mid-morning coffee and tea!! The crew is awesome – so many talented and willing and wonderful folk putting their hands and hearts into creating this great home!! more pics here