Real Tonka Toys

It's hard to describe that primordial feeling we males get in the presence of big trucks, huge cranes and large pieces of noisy machinery. It stirs something in the male psyche which is probably why our boys just loved to push around those big yellow Tonka toys in the back yard. And so it was last week when the concrete was poured for the foundations and a train of concrete trucks rumbled up our rutted driveway to pour concrete into the skip of a huge concrete pump. Up on the foundation forms, a large bearded guy quietly stood to one side holding a radio-controlled remote in his hand, casually directing the pump around the foundation as it spewed out thousands of pounds of the wet, gray material, while a gang of workers fussed, filled and flattened the concrete until it was level with the top of the forms. And while some sort of controlled chaos might have been expected, this was a well orchestrated performance. Everyone knew their job and their place and simply got on with it.     

As I watched all this action unfold I suddenly started to worry about the cost. (You know me and if you don't then you need to read my earlier blogs on this subject!). I mean, it's one thing to buy a Tonka truck at the local toy store and imagine it digging, lifting, hauling and tipping; but it's quite another thing to have a whole fleet of real Tonkas performing on your account! I guess I need to trust our builder who has after all budgeted the project and who, I hope, has a lot more experience in these matters than me.

The foundation is what is called an engineered foundation, meaning it's like a waffle with deeply formed and reinforced concrete beams criss-crossing the pad, with a concrete slab being poured into the space in between and to a depth of four inches or so over the entire area. The workshop sits on a slope so the foundation at the lower end is elevated about five feet. We will eventually build a wall with field stone that will hide the concrete and give the effect of having the building standing on a field stone foundation. Framing will start this week and our first priority will be to finalize the window locations and select the windows.  

My overall mood was not helped last week when I stupidly tripped on the stairs at home and ended up breaking some tiny bone in my wrist that necessitated the wearing of a soft cast. My right wrist! We had arranged a U-Haul truck to pick up some milled boards from our sawmill in Houston. Unfortunately, the sawmill owner had his own problems and instead of being there to help us load the wood was at the hospital having surgery after a tree trunk rolled on to his finger. So there we were, me with my wrist in a brace and my partner decked out in her work gloves, facing a stack of 26 boards, each one about eight feet long, two feet wide and 2" thick. So we set to and after some maneuvering managed to lift the first board into the back of the truck. It was surprisingly heavy. We looked at each other and realized in some despair that we had, to coin a phrase, a problem! We were never going to be able to move this pile of wood on our own. My partner, who is never afraid of asking for what she wants, spied a couple of road construction workers, walked over to them and politely asked if they would help.

I stood there looking helpless, cradling my damaged wrist and feeling fairly sure that their supervisor would not allow them such a distraction (My partner would argue that I still haven't lost that British reserve). Surprisingly, for me at least, they took pity on us and our problem was solved. Except that we still had to figure out how to unload the wood at the other end. This particular issue was sorted by a phone call to our good friends over at Miracle Farm who turned out in force to help. So all's well that ends well and we now have 500 board feet of pecan, saved from the city dump, air drying. I should add that the wood drying saga is not over as we have another five logs at the mill waiting to be milled.








                          
             



                   

Live oaks and a lively dog!

Fall has enabled me to work without the oppressive heat and humidity that has given me the "Mad Englishman" nickname gained in certain circles! The weather has been so perfect here. We have picnicked at lunch and dinner and have enjoyed the fabulous sunsets and a glass or two of wine with our very special neighbors with whom we are growing increasingly fond. The site is cleared up. The majority of the fences have been removed. Work is progressing on pruning out the live oak trees. We have settled on a workshop design and location. We agree our floor plan is good to go. And now we have a builder in whom we have confidence to bring our dreams to fruition. We'll call him Bob (as in the Builder) and he has already started building the forms for the workshop and garage foundations. Seeing the action, our friends across the road at Miracle Farms brought over a couple of picnic tables for the workers to use, thoughtfully placing them in the shade of a nearby live oak.

Live oaks are revered in the southern United States. People down here have a special respect for their age and their grandeur and the unique shade that an old live oak offers with its leafy, drooping branches that welcome and then envelope you in a green-domed, sun-dappled sanctum. To stand next to one of these huge organisms and to touch its rough bark is to feel the history that is encapsulated in its twisted trunk and branches and realize that this beautiful creation will likely still be around long after we're gone. How can you not be overawed by such beauty and majesty?                           

We had a crane lift a live oak trunk that had broken off one of the trees. Live oak is one of the densest woods in North America and we estimated the weight of this trunk to be six tons or more. Although most of the trunk was hollowed by decay, we did manage to cut two straight pieces about eight feet long and 36" round and have sent these to a sawmill in Houston where it will be cut into boards. I hope to give this old wood a second life and longevity as a piece of furniture. A small concreted and covered area that we had been wondering what to do with, has now been designated as a wood drying shed and I spent most of the week fabricating the shed walls and drying racks. It's a lot of fun rough cutting wood with a chain saw and makes a welcome change from the precision of furniture building. But it didn't help when a neighbor's puppy dog, a border collie mix, who we think is called Mandy, created a pile of confetti from my chainsaw manual that she quietly and expertly stole from right under my nose. I say expertly because she has similarly taken work gloves, water bottles, and socks - you name it. In short she's an out and out thief. But I admit that I have developed a bit of a soft spot for this puppy and enjoy having her around. Every man should have a dog but I need my sister to come out here and train it!

                                   

     

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

There is so much happening that I have found it difficult finding time to keep up with my blog. So we'll start with Labor Day when met up with our 24-year old son and his girlfriend in Sturgeon Bay WI. I hadn't seen him since March so it was good to see him again. He gave us a book called "A Place of My Own" by Michael Pollan. It's basically the story of how Pollan designs and builds a one-room cabin behind his house in northern Connecticut. Sounds simple? Not the way he does it. Pollan approaches this seemingly simple task with the same thoroughness and attention to detail as one would building something 100 times the size. I haven't finished the book yet but found a resonance in his struggles with getting the building in the exact right spot. He samples Feng Shui, studies the great architects of the past and present, consults with his own architect and of course wisely gets his wife's counsel. Inspired, I went back to our site plan.

One of the guiding ideas suggested by Pollan's architect is to think of where you might pitch a tent. You need protection from the elements and thus surround yourself by terrain if possible. You don't want to be under any trees, but trees offer shade and a barrier to wind, so a closeness is desirable. Everywhere we've experimented with so far -- and we have tried five different locations -- just didn't seem right. So we tried to think of where we would pitch a tent, bearing in mind that we had to be away from the oak tree roots, one foot for every one inch of trunk diameter. We eventually decided to place the workshop closer to the house and in the middle of the existing driveway (which is in fact more like a rutted cart path than an actual drive), creating a tight group of buildings with a sort of courtyard at the center. (Note that it's no longer a "barn", having given up on the idea of re-creating the old barn and succumbing to my partner's desire to keep the existing structure intact. Well a fella can change his mind can't he?) Removing many of the fences helped our decision as now, instead of several separate pastures, we have one contiguous piece of land without barriers. So here is an image from Google Earth showing our site plan with the new driveway looping through a covered drive-through in the workshop building and into the "courtyard".  

Pulling fence posts was hard, hot and sweaty work in the Texas summer sun. But it has made a huge difference. Despite protesting that she would never drive the tractor, I couldn't get my partner off the thing once she got the hang of rolling posts out of the ground, leaving me to cut wire and drag them out. You know, the real cowboy stuff. Our neighbor commented on the fact that not many locals are out there working past midday, which brought to mind that lovely song by Noel Coward, the chorus of which goes:             
Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
The Japanese don't care to, the Chinese wouldn't dare to,
Hindus and Argentines sleep firmly from twelve to one,
But Englishmen detest a siesta,
In the Philippines there are lovely screens, to protect you from the glare,
In the Malay states there are hats like plates, which the Britishers won't wear,
At twelve noon the natives swoon, and no further work is done -
But Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

But the cooler weather this past week has been a joy to behold. We set-up a picnic table and chairs under the trees and had several dinners and lunches outside, our $24 Walmart table, adorned with a single rose, placed there by my partner, matching anything from the spiffiest of restaurants.