I don't think I had committed to a mid-week trip to the mountains until halfway through the day yesterday. It came as a surprise, but I am usually game for a trip up there to take more supplies up for the tiny cabin. Last autumn I was thrilled just to see the foundation in place before winter snows cut off access to the property. This year progress is racing along so quickly, I have every expectation that the Shed With A View will be enclosed, roofed, and possibly insulated by the time the serious snows hit. Whether I will have achieved an overnight trip -- my first -- by then or not remains to be seen. I'd like to do that, at least once before the year is over.
We had intended to bring up more lumber and another course of oriented strand board to form the basis for the walls. As the Mr was loading the first three boards on the truck, he realized that the spot where the roof rack attaches was almost completely collapsing. Two winters ago, when he was coming home from a winter drive up to the property, he slid off an icy road, and crashed down an embankment. I had to go up to Idaho Springs to collect him. The top of the car smacked into a tree, preventing him from actually rolling down into the 15-20' ravine. He had patched up the cracked fiberglass as well as he could, and it held up for dozens of loads of lumber to the hill until now. Today it was too far gone to carry any more wood. It's too soon to know whether he will be able to find a different mounting surface for the roof rack, or will he have to obtain a replacement topper for the 4Runner. Until then, we had to alter our plans. We brought up tar paper for the roof deck, and house wrap for the walls. He had cut pentagonal brackets out of the OSB, and I over-filled two tote bags with those. (For the record, these things plus my water bottle and snacks ended up weighing about 40-45 pounds, which turns out to be more than my shoulders and spine can tolerate over that distance and incline. I'm fairly certain I'm two inches shorter this evening than I was this morning.)
Mr S-P made three trips up and down the mountain to carry up supplies. The house wrap came up, as well as a couple of trips with the modified bike trailer to get the rest of the west wall frame, the upper section for the loft. Since I wore myself out carrying the OSB, I stayed at the top while he did his second and third shuttles. I cut a few small segment of foam insulation to go in the corners, and then I forced myself back to one of my jobs I've dreaded: digging the rest of the french drain. I couldn't find the rock hammer to do it like I had been, but I found a hardcore chisel that was almost as useful. I had made it through about two feet when it seemed like it was suddenly just big rocks piled on big rocks piled on more big rocks. I worked to get maybe three big ones freed, and I commented to the Mr that maybe I was trying to dig a french drain through an existing one from the last century. He countered with maybe it was actually a foundation from a house from the century before that. I laughed at first, and then within minutes realized he was probably right. Where I was digging was a flattened out area, not all that far from the original mine entrance from the late 1800s. Then suddenly I was horrified with what I was doing, and realized that my archaeologist daughter would kill me if I dug this all up before she had a chance to be a part of it, in a professional capacity. I tested the theory by widening the curve of the drain, and the number of rocks decreased. Crap. I was probably digging up a foundation wall, just as he suggested.
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