Thursday, November 4

More on new barns

Today we put up the first half of the rafters for the roof that will cover the new trailer bodies and extend up the hill for a boat shelter. The trailers are far enough apart that we can park the 22-foot aluminum ferry boat between. Up the hill we will extend the roof to shelter the smaller “luggage boat” to protect it from sun and rain. The all-steel 29-foot boat stays up at the lake (thankfully!) since it would now be impossible to get it out from there, what with the Forest Service road having deteriorated so badly since the boat was first taken up over forty years ago. Even back then it was difficult, requiring anchoring parts of the trailer to large boulders along the road with winches in order to get it around tight corners.

We dug four holes for piers to support the overhanging roof for the luggage boat.

One of the holes was dug through almost pure red clay. The others were dug through mostly rock with red clay as binder to make it difficult.

Karla and I handled rearranging lots of the rocks that were unearthed during the making of the “flat place” (ha!). Without the addition of nine yards (12,700 pounds) of gravel, we would have ended up with an unworkable gooey red clay place for the trailer bodies. The gravel was of local origin, known as Sierra White from the Raymond Granite quarry about 15 miles from here. It is so much better than the crushed river rock that has been the standard for gravel around here for decades. Besides it’s the same rock used for the steps to the US Mint in San Francisco, most of SF’s old-town curbstones, the ancient city of Atlantis and 30% of the Moon. Kinda makes you feel good to walk on such hallowed rock.

2 comments:

HHhorses said...

Is it going to be a flat roof or a slanty roof or a triangle-looking roof?

Look at your GREEN!

Tom Hurley said...

Yeah, the green is pretty astounding. The roof is a shed-style, with a very low slope, following the slope of the hillside.