Raising the walls

Two walls are up! I am not entirely sure how Michel did the first one alone. He explained something about how he used a technique he saw on a documentary about Easter Island, some rolling, tipping, balancing.

He asked JJ to help with the second one. It is very large and heavy as the siding needed to be put up in advance due to the fences all around. I offered to help but was told it would be devastating if I was injured as my cooking is so vital to the project. Fine, fine, I can take that. I have no feminist qualms about being told my recipes are epic. In fact, I have been very busy trying to truly understand sourdough starter and Szechuan pork bone noodle soup, so it's not as if I have all kinds of time to lift large walls.


They began with a similar pitching, rolling technique. Then apparently at one stage something went wrong and the post holding the wall fell, another blocked it leaving JJ holding the full weight while Michel had to rush around to free the other side. Much swearing later they just tossed the entire thing into place. At this point JJ was happy to go back inside and rub his arms, saying he was really happy he had done 100 push ups yesterday to prepare him for such a challenge.




Studying the matter, Michel found the wall was about an inch out of place so he considered calling some strong men over, but then got some shims and round bits of wood and somehow managed to roll it into place.

Then he solidified it all. Now he is ready to make the frames for the next two walls which contain two windows and a door. This morning he showed me where the door would be according to our plans. It meant entering at a sharp angle near the eavestrough and fence and an open door has a view on our old and battered spiral staircase from the balcony. Hmm. That doesn't seem very auspicious.

Taking a moment to think about Feng Shui plus the fact that we want to paint the door bright yellow, we are moving it to an entirely different spot. Next we discuss the window height.  This is confusing as all the windows in our house are very large and low. I sit on a chair on the platform and try to imagine.

For the next wall we are in luck as JJ's pal Carl is here before they head out for a run. They worked on my aunt's farm together last summer and so are used to doing physical work together. It takes them no time at all to raise the third wall.

The cheerful blue colour of the high wall doesn't look too bad from our neighbour's yard and luckily they have no complaints. 

View from our neighbour's yard