Sunday, June 21, 2009

Spouses working together

People always tell you you shouldn't work with your spouse. You know, things like painting or building, etc. I understand why they say that because we're usually less patient with the ones we love. Fortunately for me, James and I work pretty well together. Don't get me wrong, we have our moments, but on the whole things go pretty smoothly. For instance, building this barn has presented some pretty stressful moments, but we both know when to shut our mouths and move on, knowing that we both need each other's help and we both have about the same amount of building experience. Also, we've built so many things together that we know how the other one works to some extent. It's really good to have 2 brains working on the same project.

Last week we spent 3 days building the rafters. This was new to both of us. We both had our jobs and let the other do theirs. I can't remember how many rafters there are but somewhere around 12. You would have thought that by the time we reached number 6 we'd have it down pat. Well, on our last day I was working on rafter number 9 or 10 and I completely forgot how to draw the angles for the birdsmouth cut. I stood there for probably 5 or 10 minutes staring and my carpenter's square and 2X6, moving things this way and that. Finally James brought me my coffee and after a few swallows I figured it out again. It was a little crazy.

Today we got the last of the hard stuff done I think. Maybe the metal roof will be difficult, I don't know. I'm looking forward to laying the floor, hanging siding and building doors and windows. The most fun, I think, will be designing the floor plan for the goats, ie. pens, milking and feeding stations. There's no way I could have done this by myself.

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