Cold Cat Falling Off the Hot Tin Roof

OUCH!

This morning WWII, the legendary, lionized, calico cat, decided to break her tail. Decided to walk on our stapled up vapor barrier, which appeared to be a cat floor. It broke, it was only temporarily stapled up. She fell. Her tail suffered. We think it's broken. We don't know what we're doing yet. Pray for the poor tail and it's cat.

On another note: same as always: I haven't updated because we've been insanely busy and we've gotten a lot done. Etc. Etc. Here goes.

We got half our roof up. It's the roof over the kitchen. We're moving out of the room we're in, and into the kitchen in a FEW DAYS. Then we will start working on the next roof, over the other room we were in: GOOD BYE PLASTIC ROOF FOREVER.

We are finished closing in the wall to this room. These pictures are taken over the last few weeks. The brick is where the sink will be on the other side, and the planter on this (greenhouse) side. The glass with stuff in it is bathroom wall. There is minimal visibility into it, but it still gets some sunlight.

All hail ET. From the "Bathroom" looking in. From the "Kitchen" looking out.

This is the back of our house, Dain standing in the attic. We'll put that door up tomorrow (and the insulation in, and than MOVE IN (this room is much bigger))!

Two days ago, I woke up to an early snow fall. It's all melted now. It was pretty. If we had our cistern hooked up we would have got at least 100 gallons of water from this 1/2 in and this 1/4 of a roof we have! \

More to come, after we move in. Wish my cat well.

God bless this mess.

The Sangre De Cristo Mountains have been capped with snow! It seems early to me, but I don't think it is. It's getting chilly, which is putting us into warp speed for building and construction.

As we wait for our wood order to come in from the local saw mill, we are putting together the front wall of our kitchen. Only half of this will be glass. The other half is going to be the sink, and some of our bathroom wall. These pictures may be a little confusing. Bear with me, I'll try to explain.

This is from early in the week. We started framing the door and windows on the left side of the room.

From Kitchen, Greenhouse & Roof (Late Summer/Fall 2011)

Our roof showed up on Wednesday. But, like I said, the lumber from the sawmill hasn't. We have our horse, but no carriage. So, on with wall building! We need to build this wall to enclose this room anyway. But man! Not having a plastic roof right about now sure sounds like a grand idea to me. So, here is more wall. The can wall will be plastered over, and hold the beginning of our planter. The other side of it will be our kitchen sink. Notice the white PVC pipe in the middle of it. That will drain our gray water into the planter. We're going make the top of this wall out of bricks or stones, we're still deciding. That will be merely for aesthetics. The rest of it will be covered in dirt, because, like I said it's a planter. I want to put citrus trees in front of the kitchen. Lemon and Limes! That wont be for at least a year, though. Above this wall is the beautiful triangle window frames that Dain built yesterday while I was tending to the wild herds of teenagers at work.

From Kitchen, Greenhouse & Roof (Late Summer/Fall 2011)

Before work we hung the kitchen door! (before work, work) The blue is not our choice, that will be painted over. It's a recycled door, as always. We even have got some glass in! This is getting exciting/close to enclosed.

From Kitchen, Greenhouse & Roof (Late Summer/Fall 2011)

God bless this mess. This is a view from the inside. That can wall needs to be extended up. Then our kitchen sink and some counter will be put in front of it. There will also be counters on the right and left of the room. I can't wait. I'm a little nervous though, because we don't know how to make counter tops. We will find out, as we always do.

From Kitchen, Greenhouse & Roof (Late Summer/Fall 2011)

I pray that the next post is of our roof.

Taking shape.

World War Two thinks she's a mountain lion. We can't brake the news to her: she's an ordinary, lowly house cat.

It's getting so big! We've ordered our metal roof and we'll be putting it up next week, hopefully. A bull snake crawled into the tires! It was a few feet long. Cute, for a snake. These snakes are good, they eat mice like crazy, and eat rattle snakes too. Yum. Maybe this will be the last pie I bake in our temporary kitchen... I doubt it though. This is what 1000 feet of string looks like when you drop the spool off the top of your house. We got our sink!! Our SINK! OUR SINK! It's HUGE too!! Almost as big as the encyclopedia I picked up! We also (drum roll please) got our front door! And attic door! They are beautiful! Solid, carved wood! Cedar. They smell amazing! Front door: Attic door: If anyone wants to send me money to get my camera fixed, go for it.

From Kitchen, Greenhouse & Roof (Late Summer/Fall 2011)

Plastic Roof: Totally Unrecommended

I know it's New Mexico and all: but I do not recommend a plastic roof. Anywhere. It rains here, did you know that? It does. We get about 11 inches a year in our beautiful northern location. All 11 are greatly appreciated. It took a while this year, but they are a-comin'.

Fortunately our plastic roof is somehow still holding up. We had few intentions of having this improvised roof for such a long period. It's working, in an intricate maze like way. Keeping us dry. Thank you plastic sheeting?

A funny thing that I wouldn't believe you if you told me: Plastic sheeting is extremely expensive. If we find 12 feet X 100 feet for $60.00, we're excited! What a joke. I never thought I'd spend so much money on plastic.

Plastic: Not lovely. Waking up to this, very lovely.

From Kitchen, Greenhouse & Roof (Late Summer/Fall 2011)

Sometimes I feel like I live in Jurasic Park. Thank you mother earth, I love that movie.

A kitchen with a roof and greenhouse, OH BOY.

I haven't updated in a over a month. This is not because I have given up. It is not because I have been sitting around. Quite the contrary. Besides the fact that we've been super busy pretending to be carpenters, raising roof beams, etc. I have also been knee deep in work at my "real" job, or rather, the job that pays the bills. (Work at home, work at work, work at home, work at work. I outta retire in five years due to exhaustion, but for now: work at home, work at work, repeat.) Work at work is where I get my internet and try to post a blog. I am currently the assistant director of a Teen Center. And yes, we have fun, almost too much fun, usually. High school lunch doesn't get out for another forty five minutes, so I don't yet have 40 high school kids to hang out with at this moment. That said, Voila! Here is my long overdue, action packed blog post.

A month ago we started working on the greenhouse! We were finishing up the trusses for our roof. These "trusses" are being made out of scrap wood that we get from our local saw mill. They are free, free! FREE! Except for the price of screws. We've put over 50 pounds of screws into our house so far.

This is from about a month ago:

And we built on! Collecting enough wood for these trusses is a little bit of a challenge. Driving to the saw mill takes time, and when you get there, you have to hope the scraps are good. Eventually we collected enough. The pickings have been a little more slim compared to last year, but we're not yet complaining. It is free.

After this, we finished our greenhouse bond beam which allowed us to attach wood to the tire wall. As well as the rest of the kitchen roof trusses.

And then we were able to start the greenhouse construction! It took us over a year to build the outer three walls (the tire walls), and only four days to frame the front face (the greenhouse wall). Phew. I hadn't been that tired in a long long time. But we did it! It was such a great relief, too! Here's a nerdy photo of two very accomplished feeling individuals from my camera's self timer. We lifted that huge thing up all by ourselves, only dropping it (and completely breaking it) once, while raising it.

Our greenhouse is made out of redwood: which means $$$. The wood is supposed to last in the humid environment that we'll be creating in the future.

And: Ta-da! We finished over half of it! You are looking at our greenhouse, minus the glass that's going in there!!

And, I leveled the kitchen floor! Soon we'll be able to tile with the tiles we scored from the Habitat Re-Store. Well, "soon" as in: we need a roof first. But that's around the corner! This will be the view from our bathroom! And speaking of roof, we'll be putting one onto our house in the near future!

Alright. You are now UP TO DATE. I will make you a promise: I will update more than once every five weeks for now on. Promise. Wish us luck!