And…Action

When we saw the price of a single plywood board drop $50 within two weeks at the big box stores we knew the deflated lumber prices had finally showed up and it was time to build. The weather forecast was unseasonably warm and perfect for concrete to set so we cancelled our plans to visit Galiano and Vancouver Island and Matt drove to the city to buy 28 sheets of plywood instead.

At home, we gathered around Matt expectantly as he got ready to “rip” the first board. Two wavy cuts later we were off to a shaky start. It’s funny now but it was sobering to find we couldn’t even cut plywood straight in the face of building an entire house! Matt was on the phone to his brother right away came back from his house the armed with a game plan from Russ, as well as his much nicer circular saw. The next cut went much smoother.

In two weeks we are a day away from meeting our goals of finishing the foundation and a functional outhouse. Some nights we've fallen into bed exhausted with sore muscles and found our brains working on problems through the night but we’ve found so much satisfaction in working as a unified whole and learning alongside each other. Personally I’ve been surprised to find how much I enjoy off-roading in an old truck and operating power tools. 

We’ve had golden days of sunlight and changing fall colors. When the boys haven’t been shovelling, hauling, measuring, cutting, or drilling, they’ve been playing on hay bales, dirt and gravel piles, hiding in trenches, leaping over dugouts, playing war with pickets, and making earth homes with topsoil and plywood boxes. Today I turned around to the see Jess and Beau giggling as they played on a teeter totter they’d made out of a 2x4 and a large rock. When they’re not outside the boys are in the truck or van reading, writing, and playing card games. They have been quite a contented lot these boys! 

I’ve loved working shoulder to shoulder with Matt as we labor together- like playing at being Adam and Eve. I’ve got to see his engineer mind in action as he periodically pauses to appraise situations and do some “figurin”. His patience was magnificent as he set all fourteen concrete forms for the piers, sometimes in gusting winds.

We’ve experienced other blessings these weeks in the form of advice and help from friends and family members. On Wednesday I was just thinking we were going to being working until the sun dropped behind the mountains again when I heard Dad’s voice right behind me, and when I turned there was Mom too! Their help couldn’t have come at a more opportune time and it’s been uncanny how they’ve stopped in at the site to offer help right when it is most needed in various forms including Mom with hot corndogs for the boys and Dad with his tractor to scoop gravel. 

Our nine year old summed up our last two weeks: “It’s hard but fun.”