Weekend and more welding

Another Monday flies round at high speed, almost before you realised the weekend had begun, and so here I am again after just putting Rosie to bed and I'm going to write some more up and put some more pictures in here. Onwards

Olden Beat kicking off the evening

How tall is Rosie?

Colourful trees on the back bank

Looking down and across from the bench

Everyone in Rosie's play tent

SpaceX make history

So, the weekend. The pattern of the weather continued with heavy rain at times and at other times lovely sunshine. It was a busy day on Saturday with a lovely extended family Zoom call and various other things going on like cleaning the lounge and in the evening I got to go out and see Venko and his band, Olden Beat, playing in a local bar. It was nice to get to see them all again. I got home in time to just miss the SpaceX launch but got to watch the first manual flying test. Very exciting. Sunday was another mixed day of weather, though it stayed nice most of the day and I was able to get to the back bank with Rosie for a stroll and to look at the views which was lovely. We also remembered to mark how tall Rosie was on her lion height thing which she has started to notice and enjoy bashing. The other major notable thing was being able to watch the Crew Dragon docking with the ISS while holding Rosie - it was an amazing thing and prompted me to watch the whole livestream, then go to the virtual Feis Ile (we should be on Islay now) and then some other videos from whisky friends. It was a much needed wind down after quite a stressful week.

My idea

Their idea (or my understanding of it)

Grinding for the day begins

Three lengths, not just one, for better strength and support

And so to today. The men were slightly more on time today, which was good, and I grabbed Bekir immediately to talk through the plans for the steel. I was worrying that they way they were doing it wouldn't be as strong as my idea however after some tooing and froing, and a few mind-changes, we came to a total understanding and a better idea than either had had up to then. So they started grinding away and putting the long cross piece in place. I got another quick video of them lifting up, this time using a rope to help which was sensible.

The full 10m span in place

Central column positioned carefully

Bekir welding, and wearing a mask

Sally fixing the intermediate upright

Safe welding practices

I was watching Rosie while Angela went to try and finally sort her vaccines out (which she did - YAY!) and so I missed seeing how the three men managed to lift, on their own, the 10m length of 10x10 box section steel, but lift it they did. The way we are doing this front span is to have the welding joins over the top of the columns, to give support underneath, and they did the welding on the floor before lifting it all. With this up the next step was the middle column and from there they used a line to work out the pitch of the roof correctly and put the two intermediate, shorter, top columns in place as well. The biggest thing for me was seeing both Sally and Bekir voluntarily using the welding mask. Wonders never cease.

Bekir drilling for the return beam

Accidentally perfectly positioned

Using the tall scaffold

Arty shot for the end of the day

With the metal work done they moved to the next task which was drilling into the main wall so they can insert and secure the next huge steel elements, the beams going from the intermediate uprights across to the main building. Totally against all the odds, and a surprise to everyone, was the fact that when they broke through they found that pretty nearly the beam would sit flush with the attic floor, which is a 30cm thick concrete slab and very strong. We couldn't have planned it better. Before the end of the day they had drilled to satisfaction the first hole, and were just making a start on the second. The ridgeline will go into the existing roof which will be another interesting challenge.

Rosie on the run with the puppies

Watching two lambs and a sheep

Angela's first lettuce successes

And so the time was for me to run around the garden after Rosie and we had a lovely time, she's becoming more and more of a cheeky madam and a fun character to have around. She still loves the sheep, however, and stood or crouched watching these two lambs and their mother for a fair while before the sheep decided to move on. She also climbed up her slide steps on her own a few times to slide down, and had a swing. Angela was also amazed at being able to grow lettuce, as you can see. We need to eat it all now!

So there you are; hopefully more to come tomorrow as we push forwards on this project. I'm hoping to have work so we can keep the men on (and get solar and a borehole so we can disconnect from the mains utilities as soon as possible.)