The big day - August 8

 So, Wednesday night at church Matt was talking with some friends about the accelerated schedule of the concrete, and they offered their 12 year old son, K, to come help for a few hours. Were we ever glad to have him!

Here we are at the beginning of the day. Matt and I had gotten all of the shingles, sheathing, and 2x4 rafters of the roof apart and down onto the ground. This was about 10am. I love how there's such a draw to be up on that roof! My neice, G, Evania, Ebenezer, Gloria, even Owen and his buddy, Breck are up there! 

An hour later, work is progressing on taking the 1x board sheathing off the side walls of the garage. Please note, too, how the garage is STILL FULL OF STUFF!! Well, maybe not quite full, but certainly not empty!

Here's Owen hauling some of his stuff out of the garage. K is helping, as that green box is HEAVY - full of old tools that belonged to Owen's great-grandfather

Sheathing on the back of the garage is continuing to progress...

Interesting discovery at the back, and part of why it's neat living on property that has a family history...notice anything about that particular 2x4 stud? Yup. Some serious scorching on there. Matt says he remembers his dad talking about an outbuilding that burned down when he was pretty young - bet this one was deemed good enough to go into the new garage.

Time to start taking up the last of the attic floor boards.

And obviously that starts making things just a little rickety, so Matt sent K down and finished the last few by himself. It's about 3pm at this point.

Meanwhile, down below, the last few bits of wall sheathing are coming down. You can see K, G, and Leah racing to get their small segment done. K won. By a long shot.

Ebenezer is hard at work here pulling nails.

It's now 7pm. As you'll notice, it's not QUITE ready for excavation equipment to show up in the morning! K has gone home, but the rest of us are working away....

Pulling nails...stacking lumber...

Reuben's coming out to check on the progress...

Another friend from church came over to help. Usually he and Matt get together on Thursdays for Bible study, but Matt didn't have time to stop working, so S just came to help!

Leah stopped to hold a chicken. :)

And, finally, at 9:45pm. It's ready! We did it! What a day!