`A Word on Rain

Rain for Christmas

Rain has become a word to respect, at least until one becomes adjusted to the amount and frequencies thereof. We left winter behind, I thought. This rain that has seemingly come to stay gets pretty intense from time to time and we wonder if it were snow how much there would be....... For now though we acclimatize and learn how destructive it can be. Down here close to the ground, in our tents, the worst place we could be is slowly becoming harder to keep dry and mold at bay. Rain and the rainy season is also a time of a great gift here. We catch our water but unfortunately the tents/tarps are not so gutter friendly that they can provide enough supply for us to get ahead right now. Once the roof is complete, on the house we'll have some 80 feet of gutter to feed the water tank, and water will likely never be an issue again. Beginning Christmas night and still lingering was a 7" plus little shower. It is so amazing that the sky can hold that kind of water. Just a few miles north they received 12 plus inches in a 24 hr period. The road into our subdivision was closed Friday 26Th Peggy had to come home from an entirely different and longer way. The rain also helps make this area one of the very best for fruit trees, bananas in particular love the abundance of water, ours are thriving. As a matter of fact fruit trees are fruiting everywhere. The tangerines here are to die for as are all the fruits in their own way. The rain also cleanses the earth and everything it hits. The really big rain cleans everything off and takes it to the dump for you too, so how can you beat that. Rain is basically a good thing in more ways than not.

Hey well how about some house stuff eh? Can't live in a tent forever. Yeah OK we got some stuff to show you, here in the first photo is where we pretty much left off the last you were here.

Here you find us all floored over and the ridge beam sitting there. I stressed over the coming of this beam for a couple days still not sure even on delivery day how it would really play out. The beam came and the plan materialized and before long it was on the floor in place like it was picked up and placed there.

I decided from this point if I was going up and down all the time I ought to have something better than a step ladder so I built the stairs, oh yeah good plan .... Of course it sounded easy enough but getting decent material for stairs was not so easy. We did finally end up with some nice material for stair stringers here they are without railings for now.

Stairs with a landing, Peggy's thought, lots of steps as you get older might not be a good thing. The landing gives you a place to stop and rest.

Here is a look along the front of the lanai with the stairs

lots of post bracing, this with the extra heavy post brackets and five, shear walls double sided give us a pretty solid and secure floor system. The ground level area of this home will be kind of nice especially along this stretch I think.

Everything that goes together now is finish work. All the studs and headers, windows and door framing will all be exposed no Sheetrock no paneling. Studs 4 foot apart with wood siding on the exterior side ....wall done So everything must stay as dry as possible for sanding and all material must be sand worthy not something that should be regrown and believe me I've seen stuff they try to pass off as good that should be thrown to the ground for reclaiming. Well the posts that came and the headers were not what I'd hoped for so I planed all the posts and sent all the headers back. The posts look good now and the headers well, in time. Here we are wall posts attached to a bottom plate and temporarily braced waiting for headers.

Here is where we stall for a while can't readily find the beams we need for the headers around the room. The current supplier has told me they can't come up with stock to meet my specifications of ( select / straight) so we wait, I take a mini vacation which amounts to garden work fruit tree planting, more brush clearing. I ordered two loads of mulch to spread around the yard and make soil with. The greatest thing about this place is planting things or transplanting or simply breaking a branch off of something sticking it the ground and not even soil just whatever and stand back and watch it grow. Heck just throw it on the ground it will grow it is amazing and I love it!!!!! It's near January and we are picking swisschard from the garden .....wow

While we are on hold we also are waiting to see if Peggy makes it past her 90 day probation at work, upon completion and supervisor approval she becomes regular full time owner/employee and gets a respectable discount on material.......aaaaahhh the joys of fringe benefits We'll get to take advantage of two orders of up to 2000$ each one this year one next and so on. This gives us two right off Dec 08/Jan 09. First Order with HPM saved us well over one thousand dollars from regular contractor pricing. This order which we received Dec 22ND was for 42 beams which will make up the roof framing. The material although not all completely straight is the best we've seen to date so as soon as the weather breaks the roof goes together. Lets not get to excited here because there is an enormous amount of finish work that needs to go into all these beams before they go anywhere.

To begin we must first get them up to the floor area, 2 days into the project and 28 pieces hauled upstairs it has begun to rain without end, still raining 5 days later. Oh well we knew the good weather wouldn't last forever and we've been blessed with so many above average days since we have been here.

So this brings you up to date on our progress for 2008 I think this year has been a personal best of mine and I'm pleased and very proud that we have near completed this great adventure. so we would like to say thanks for checking in on our progress and especially for all the comments It is almost as much work to keep up this blog as it is to build this house.

Ok Ok one little hair raising story to tell before we go

Dec 25th Christmas 2008, we enjoyed a wonderful roast with friends here at out campsite yep prime rib on the grille let me tell you it was to perfection if I do say so myself. Julie brought tater salad and pumpkin pie. We had a good time celebrating this giving season. Later we all spoke on the phone with our daughter and sent some pictures of us together with our little hibiscus xmas tree. We turned in rather early and finished those visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads. It must of been near 3 am when I was awoken by the sound of rain so hard I thought the tarp was coming down. This can't be good I thought so I got up got dressed and told Peggy to do the same while dressing I could hear the sound of crashing lumber and flapping tarp material. The house is coming apart all my tools are up there and all exposed. I rushed stumbling about expecting Peg to be right behind me I made it upstairs into the house to find that some of the temp framing for then tarp had been ripped down by a wind gust. There I was in the dark with a mag light trying to make up new bracing and get things stapled back down Please understand I don't see in the dark, I have to have light and of course getting the light to shine where I needed it became increasingly more impossible, where is Peggy ? I spent an hour or more getting things back in order as the wind gusted and the sky thundered and lightening. The rain had let up some but all the while there was thunder and lightening off in the distance and back in the tent Peggy is curled up in her bed under the covers........Ok sure yeah thanks alot...........I guess you could say I was a little p o'd however things turned out ok and we got back to ............

Living Happily Ever after !!

This concludes Dave and Peggy's Great Hawaii Adventure for 2008 we hope you come back next year to see how things turn out for Dave & Peggy .

Hau' oli Makahiki Hou