Snow Surprise

 

Snow surprise! The view outside my trailer February 21, 2022.

I sleep lightly.

I sleep especially light occupying my trailer as 24 hour armed guard and building consultant on the house construction site. 

I consult the weather app often, usually I see a range of high percentage chances of rain for Western Washington. 

After checking the weather app, I bed down in my sleeping bag, expecting temperatures in the low to mid-20's. Cold and dry for February 21st is the forecast, rain chances negligible my app tells me. My fingers hurt when it is cold, I dislike the cold, but it is February and February is a cold season. I am quite tired of the rainfall from the atmospheric river that has been flowing and flushing Western Washington these past five months. A dry cold is preferable to a rainy cold.

I sleep light, but not so light as to be awakened by the cat-foot sound of falling snow. Yet awaken I do, and by the light of my exterior trailer lamp, I see what looks like lumpy porridge drifting down from the dark sky. It is 2:30 AM and an unexpected inch of snow has collected on the hood of my SUV. I was not expecting this.

The plan was to have the metal roof finished by Tuesday. I think, like so many of my plans on this project, the plan is kaput - certainly delayed.

Roofers do not show up in the morning, I am not surprised. Climbing about on a pitched slope covered in snow and ice is an unwelcome risk to neck and noggin, even for half-mountain goat roof installers. They will wait for warmer weather.

Even if the roofers do not show, the sun does show on Monday morning, melting away the 2" that fell overnight.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. I check the weather app, the forecast is for no more precipitation under clear, hard freezing conditions, but dry conditions. I tuck in for the night, my electric heater is set on high inside my trailer. 

I wake to a new inch-and-a-half of snow on Tuesday morning. Like last night, I was not expecting this. It is February 22, Washington's Birthday. A white Christmas is one thing to wish for, but a white Washington's birthday? - c'mon, give me a break.

White Christmas extends to Washington's Birthday

This next snow keeps the roofers off the job and on ground level. Tuesday's snow sits on the ground under overcast clouds; it does not melt. It lingers in shady spots until the weekend.

 

 

Roofing Co. owner brooms snow off

 

Roofer applies propane torch flame to melt stubborn icy patches

 

 

 

 

 

 

The forecast is for no snow on Wednesday, and this time it is accurate. Thursday has no precipitation predicted - until late in the afternoon, when the forecast changes to chances of snow on Thursday night. It snows again late Thursday through early Friday.

I need a roof. The roofers want to finish up my weather-delayed job and get paid. The roofing company owner comes out to my house with a broom to sweep the snow off the pitch and get it ready for work. He fires up a propane torch on the roof to melt off the icy patches that can not be swept off with a broom. I cringe at the sight of an open flame, envisioning another fire burning down my house and having to start over again.

The snow has stopped falling, and with a propane prod to speed along the natural process, the roof snow is gone and the roofers return in the rain to add that hunter green barrier between me and the elements above.

The house under 3 days of late February snowfall.

 

Little House in the Big Woods - Window of Opportunity

 

My window of opportunity is set into an empty socket. The house is beginning to look alive.

I suppose it is difficult in the best of times to build a home. These are not the best of times in many ways, and I am discovering it is difficult to build a home.

I lead with an example: I was at home in Texas in September, 2021 when I answered a phone call from Phil, our general contractor, who is getting ready to build our home in Washington. On the other end of the phone, Phil is with the supplier of windows and they want to go over what size, location and quality of windows I want to install on my home. We all realize that under these weird, dislocated societal pandemic patterns that these are not the best of times.

These not the best of times to discuss such matters, but discuss them we must as best we can. My long-distance window preferences are noted by contractor and supplier and another element of the home building process is checked off the schedule.

The windows are ordered in October. I am told they won't be ready until late December - after all, these are not the best of times to be building a home. I am told later that the needed window material for my home is locked up in a 'supply chain' issue. The material for the window frames and possibly the glass is stranded in a tanker floating offshore, the proverbial slow boat from China. I'm not sure if this is true, but the up-shot is that my windows are not scheduled to arrive on site until March 15. Beware the Ides if March! I think to myself, am I to be betrayed?

Window and Doors arrive for installation 4 months after ordered

 

 

Octagonal Kitchen Skylight

Having ordered the window in October, and told they will arrive five months later, I must concede that these are not the best of times. I will wait, what else can I do in these times?

I revel in a perverse joy when I am told, my windows will arrive in mid-February; only four months after the order was placed - not five. I've been down so long, down looks like up. I'll take it. A window of opportunity has opened a month ahead of schedule. Don't let that window of opportunity slam shut.

 

 

Skylight over the kitchen ceiling

Mike Mulligan's framing crew comes up my muddy driveway on February 18, methodically picking up 18 of the 19 needed windows for installation. Window 19 was not delivered, this is how things go when dealing with 'not the best of times'. Window 19 will be special ordered and will be here two weeks later.

I watched the long awaited glass windows being set in the empty sockets of a framed house, bring the look of life, transforming the house under construction closer to the look of a life-filled home. Having sat idle since December, the these  bare bones of a house are being transformed from the skeletal structure to a home before my eyes.

 

Nineteen windows are set in place in February

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Studio/Loft Sun Room gets glassed-in

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are not the best of times to be building a home. The building progress has been 'pane-fully' slow. I am looking at a window of opportunity opening and I see real progress; glass and doors cover the bare bones like flesh and blood on a living body.

Roof, Windows and Doors flesh-out the bare bones structure of my house

A Good Old Birthday Celebration

The whole family celebrates dad's 91st birthday!

On my side of the family (all raised in California); I have a father, two sisters, a nephew and his wife and their grand niece all now living in Washington. I am officially a resident of Texas, have been for over half my life, but my time and focus recently is on Washington as I have settled in to build a homestead north of Seattle to which to retire someday. Since fate has dealt us Sunesons a full house, I play my hand and can join the rest of the family in Washington, driving 106 miles south to join in the celebration.

Dad, living well at a senior residence in Tumwater, Washington, is doing a great job at pushing the extremes of the bell curve. He turned a healthy 91 on February 10! It is worth a good old celebration.

Fortunately for all involved, he can freely leave the oft-quarantined facility where he lives and gather off-site with family for frolicking and fun. It is decided by the all in the family that we will gather a sister Sheri's new home on Saturday the 12th, about 6 miles from Dad's place. Sister Wendy scooped him up and brought him to his birthday celebration lunch on their way down from Anacortes. I volunteered to cook a salmon party dinner, with rice pilaf. Sheri made the birthday cake and a couple of sides. Now It's A Party!

Salmon dinner served to celebrate 91 good years

I am excited to get to cook real food in a real kitchen after months of microwave meals in my travel trailer on the construction site. 

We had a party, everybody came and most sang Happy Birthday to YOU! We talked, reminisced and then it was time to let them eat cake.

Happy Birthday Dad!

You are doing great - here's to many more.

Dad chats up son-in-law Tony, Barth and Wendy listen in

 

Our hosts: Sheri and Tony in their new home

Grandson Brian delivers 4 mo Ellie to Great Grandpa

Ellie and Great Grandpa Al bond as Grandma Wendy and son Brian hang on the sidelines

 

   

Little House in the Big Woods - What was Once in the Abstract is Now in the Concrete

Was it a dream? 

A vision? 

A fantasy?

I can say, "Yes, it was." 

I can't say when or how it came to be; nor do I recall if it was a flash of sudden insight, or more likely, a slow metamorphosis of an abstract idea. 

I wanted duality, contrast, balance. I wanted it to feel sensual, a uniting of the feminine and the masculine. A wedding of soft curves and clean, hard lines. I wanted it to be a place that captured my interests and stroked my curiosity. I wanted it to drawn in friend, family and visitors with an inviting sense of whimsy and a hint of mystery.

It was intentional in many ways, but its form has been modified by required building codes and practical construction advice. The process has been fluid.

The home that was once dreamed of in the abstract is now in the concrete

 

 

It takes 6 Cubic Yards to cement a dream

What was once in my mind held only in the abstract of loose-knit concepts has now taken on form in the concrete.

 

Basement slab is repaired after plumbing is installed

 

Finishing crew fills support post holes

 

 

Pouring the basement patio

I think this is not the way most men build a house. I feel this is the way that I end up building a house. What fun to slip from dream and fantasy in the abstract to the concrete form of cement, wood, nails and glass. 

It has been an enjoyable journey.

Morning Mist

Morning Mist

February 6, 2022

I have shared some complaints borne of living in isolation in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. There is plenty of rain this winter, which begets plenty of mud. I grow weary of the rain and mud. My residence is a small travel trailer that provides cover and heat for a basic existence.

By nature, I am not a unduly burdened by hardships. In the midst of my irregular living circumstances, I also find pleasures in living in isolation in the woods of the Pacific Northwest.

I choose to share not a complaint, but the pleasure of a winter's late sunrise above the morning mist rising above Pilchuck Creek as it cuts my land beyond these cottonwood trees.