Tuesday's Framing

On Sunday night, I noticed that the baby had shifted away from the ideal, head down position that had been the norm for the last month. Now free floating, I have a baby lying across my midsection. Ouch. I'm guessing that was what woke me before 3am on Tuesday morning: a lot of random kicks and elbows in some new places. Four hours later I finally dropped off again.

Waking at 9am, Phil was long gone, moving the cows from the south pasture to the north. That's usually a four hour task or so, but he finished eventually. Belle gets awfully grumpy when she watches her friends walk by; I don't even try to milk until she's settled down. She isn't giving much any more. Phil even tried about a pound of grain to see if she just needs some additional food. She isn't quite as skinny, but we saw no increase in production.

He did bring her the mineral box. She stood there for an hour. Poor girl—how starved for nutrients she must have been.

Cows moved and watered, Phil was ready to move into the task of the day: framing. He had started framing the northwest room the night before, but hadn't finished. Basically, you get it measured and screwed together flat on the ground, then raise the configuration up.

Then he did the south west room, after Jadon screwed down the plywood floor. (Isaiah had already scraped up the parge coat that had slopped all over. Phil said it was interesting to see how they each have tasks that they gravitate to. Isaiah was not a fan of screwing down plywood, but he started scraping without being asked.)

Late in the day, in fact, long after the sun went down, he did one final step: putting in the framing for the two pocket doors. With the interior just a bit over 1000 square feet, we are looking to save space every way we can. For these two rooms, that we anticipate being open to the rest of the space most of the time, pocket doors make a lot of sense.