Building Gypsy Rose

Two months ago (mid-October) I began wrapping up my work at Local Motion in order to focus on the rapidly expanding list of things that had to be done before winter arrives at the Tunbridge homestead. There were all the usual tasks like tilling the garden (which we’ve expanded to twice the size of last summer’s), stacking and covering the woodpile, etc. There was also the annual ritual of hauling Raven and getting her winterized on her cradle at Shelburne Shipyard (nearly a week’s worth of work in itself, beginning on November 6th this year). The big project for the fall, however, was making preparations for the building of the 20’x30’ equipment shed (the first of two barns we have planned).

The first order of business was hauling the timber 80 miles from the mill in North Hyde Park, Vermont. That was no small feat. Nearly 3,000 board feet of green eastern hemlock weighs in at, well, a lot! (by my estimate, around 8 tons!)

Compounding the transport, which involved 3 loads of 5000-plus pounds apiece on a borrowed trailer, was the fact that heavy wet snow was falling when I awoke on that mid-October day at my sister’s house (home of the borrowed trailer) and headed off to the mill. When I arrived at the land in Tunbridge with the first bundle aboard, there were two inches of sloppy, slick snow atop the equally slick layer of wet leaves on the meadows. With all that weight, I nearly ended up with the entire load – truck and all – inside the greenhouse after I lost traction and slid the final 10 feet (forward and sideways at the same time) to where I’d ultimately unload.

Unloading the heavy timbers alone was a test of my aging body and applied physics. Utilizing fulcrums to their fullest, I off-loaded and stacked timbers that weighed a few hundred pounds apiece before returning for another load.

It’s been a tough couple of years for the building materials trades. Sawmills are no exception. While looking for a source of timber for this project it seemed as if the mills were going out of business faster than I could get to them with an order. Eventually, I found Dennis Heath at M.B. Heath & Sons in North Hyde Park, Vermont. The mill has been in business for nearly seventy years. Dennis and his entire crew are terrific folks to do business with, but he, too, is worried about the future. Going heavily into debt to try and ride out the downturn, he told me that if they can get through the coming winter he thinks they can make it. I wish them well and hope to see them when I return for more wood in the spring.

Next came the cement – over five thousand pounds of it (two trips with the trailer). I moved each 80-pound bag of cement mix four times on its way to the mixer.

Let’s see. That totals 20,000 pounds of lifting before adding water to it. Then came the shoveling of the whole lot into the forms! Combine that with the 30,000 pounds of hefting timbers (each one lifted twice) and I was pretty well spent by the time the foundation was complete. Thankfully, Marion had the foresight to stock up on Vitamin I (ibuprofen) before I tackled the work.

As I raced against the clock, the early taste of winter we’d experienced while I hauled the timbers gave way to a glorious November. We had plenty of warm (relative), dry weather during which our neighbor, Rich, was able to haul in the seven loads of fill we needed to backfill and level the site.

Winter finally arrived with a powerful storm last week. In addition to the snow, we had three days of powerful winds, gusting to hurricane force in many locations. A tree limb narrowly missed going through the roof of the greenhouse, instead glancing off the back wall and tearing an eight-inch hole in the skin.

As I write this entry, the snow is falling again, adding to the 10 inches we received last week. The timbers have all been sorted, stickered, stacked, and covered. During the next three months, I’ll take each piece, one at a time, into the greenhouse (workshop) where I’ll cut the various mortises, tenons, scarf joints and rafter pockets that will hold the frame together when we raise the barn next spring.