Just in time

I'm not sure how one smells it in the air or feels it in the bones, but, there it was, that feeling: Snow coming. Big snow coming.

I was pushing hard to get the windows in. Windows that, by rights, I shouldn't have been trying to lift solo, let alone hoist up a 30 ft tower and then out on a cat walk and heft and nail into place. But, there was that feeling about the snow, so seven four ft. by five ft. thermopane windows in custom, just-made casings got lifted up the tower by block and tackle. After squaring them and making certain of plumb, I nailed them off with wedges and 10 penny galvanized finish nails.

Three hours later the snow began. Overnight we got 14" and the tempature dropped to single digits. Autumn is over and Winter has begun.

The race is on

"Snow in the upper elevations" caught my ear on the morning radio.

Dang. I am so close. Trying to get the roof done, I have one more day cutting boards and then still need to get 30# roofing felt down to keep things dry thru the winter. We'll see.

Millie, the crane is shut down for the season, but she doesn't mind me using her boom to set up an old-fashioned block and tackle to hoist building materials up top.

Setting the principal rafters--eight of them coming to a point at a 12/12 (45 degree angle) pitch took quite a bit of head scratching. The rafters themselves are 2 1/2" by 5", 10 ft. long, sawn old-growth dough fir and are heavy as all get out. And to make matters worse, they all come up to a center metal bracket that I fashioned out of a 3 ft long chunk of 12" well casing. I welded sixteen 1/4 steel brackets with double thru holes for 1/2" grade 5 bolts around the circumference of the pipe to hold the rafter ends securely. The goal here was not to have to have any collar ties messing with the upwards view of the roof in my room.

But, how to get all this heavy stuff 12 ft. up in the air? I decided to use a 16 ft. long piece of 2" pipe with a pulley up top and a rope coming back down. My buddy Terry (all dicey projects of mine must involve Terry) and I pulled the 70 lb bracket assembly up the pipe like raising a flag on a flag pole. Once we got it up and suspended, then we began lifting up the rafters and bolting them into place.

As all of this is happening, the welding, the hammering and sawing, the figuring, and chance-taking and dreaming, I realize that this project is what I am supposed to be doing right now. There's this dead-on rightness that I can feel if I stop and become aware of it. This feeling that I am doing just what I am supposed to be doing.

simple pleasures

Pine has a smell all its own. And old-board pine even more so. That's one of the simple pleasures that comes from using hand tools. No screaming powered saw, no ear plugs, no safety glasses. Just the smooth even cuts of a 12 point Disston cross-cut with a sharp blade. Thumb guides the first few strokes and then long even pulls, letting the saw do the work--your arm just guides.

I am putting the roof boards on top of the newly-set rafters. These tongue-and-groove boards were rescued from the Park View Motel right before they tore it down. Beautiful knotty pine milled up in Twisp, Washington in the 1950's. A deep amber color made that way by time, varnish and sunlight.

As I measure and saw boards, I think about all of what these boards have seen over the years in the motel...families on vacation, lonely business men trying to be less so with a bottle, kids jumping from bed to bed, late-night rendesvous. And now it is my roof. Hopefully, the boards will look down at an equal amount of living in their new location.

Ears to Hear

Today I was downtown Wenatchee walking along the railroad tracks and I came upon a nice looking old Mack tractor with a flatbed trailer behind it. Getting closer to the rig, I saw that a homeless person or people had built a shelter of sorts underneath. A mattress or two, a jumble of dirty clothes, cooking pots. I didn't want to intrude, so I kept walking.
Twenty feet away, I realized that I needed to go back. Go back and leave some money there. I grabbed a rock from the railroad ballast and a twenty out of my wallet and stooped down into the opening of the shelter. Nobody home. Amidst the beer cans and the other debris, I left that 20 under that rock.

And later today, I saw a family that I know was just returning from a cancer consult in Seattle. After battling it several years ago, her cancer has returned. I could feel the heaviness in the air.

"This time it looks particularly bad," she simply said, as if talking about tonight's weather forecast. "And chemo is no longer an option--only surgery."

So, this evening I'm thinking. Praying, actually, before my meal. "So, why, God, do I get to be golden boy with so much going for me and so many cool things happening in my life, and she, (my friend) has a very sucky day. And the homelss person a very sucky life?"

This wasn't a rhetorical question--I really wanted to know. I mean I raised the tower yesterday successfully. I get to go to London tomorrow for a week. I've never gone hungry. I have two incredible kids...the list could go on for pages.

So, I got the answer. Really. It was God talking to me. It's kinda hard for me to write this. Kind hard to share about this, but truly. God talked and I heard the whisper. Not out loud, not Charlton Heston's voice, but there, there back somewhere in my head or heart or somewhere.

"You got the life I gave you so you can help others." That's what God said.
And I think I get it more than I ever have before. It's not that I am supposed to be Mother Theresa. That was her job. My job is to be Martin. A rather peculiar guy who makes a difference in his own quirky way. Working as a counselor as I did for many, many years--certainly. Giving workshops to help other social workers and counselors develop good kid skills--of course. Inspiring Americorps members to be sin boldly--yep.

But also in other subtle ways, ways that don't allow one to draw a fat magic marker line from cause to effect. Ways that just are part of the big picture and God's incredible rich and funny and preposterous plan. Even tank towers, even 20 dollar bills under rocks for a homeless alcoholic who might just spend it on booze.

The Tower is Up!

Yesterday afternoon was my day. I had to work until 3, and then we were to try to lift the tower after that. A last-minute call cancelled my work day so we could start the lift after lunch. A blessing because, since the project required 5 hours, we never would have made it had we started at 3.

Only Terry could come, all my other helpers were busy. Terry and I thought we could do it alone, but turned out there was no way we could. We needed help and, what do you know, Mark and his son Sam showed up.

As I crawled the crane over to the foundation, I could have easily been off to the right or left by inches or even feet, but things were lined up perfectly.

And, lastly, the myriad things that could have gone wrong that I wasn't even aware of...didn't.

Well, most everything didn't. We had one false start: After getting everything hooked up, looked over and ready to go, I proceeded to begin lifting the tower. I got it up halfway, about 45 degrees, and, all of a sudden, the end of the tower on the ground began rolling. Being round, and there being just enough of a slope, it took off, cartwheeling downhill. And the top chain connection between crane boom and tower has a pivot in it, so it merely spun 'round and 'round, letting the big long cylinder of a tower do whatever the heck it wanted to do. I sat there in the crane, jaw agape watching the unimaginable take place before my eyes.

Then things go exciting. Since the tower end was now rolling downhill, the momentum of the whole thing was swinging my crane boom over sideways. This put my weight out over the side of the tracks rather than in the front. Now I was too heavy and began to tip--not over completely, but enough to really get my attention.

Well, after we began breathing again and took a break to assess the situation, we lowered the tower top end until it was just barely off the ground, and then used the backhoe to push the tower base back up to where it was supposed to be. And you can bet that we also made sure the base would not do the big roll again.

After that it was pretty straightforward. A little iffy traveling the crane with the tower suspended in the air. But, slowly, slowly, we got it there, in place and down on the bolt stubs.

Here we are using the back hoe to hold the back end of the crane down because, as we needed to boom out a bit more, the tower was too heavy for the crane and, without the extra weight of the backhoe, we were getting pretty darn tippy!

Much cheering, back-slapping, and time for dinner.

Soren and I went back out and climbed the tower by flashlight to watch the stars come poking out. A perfect finish to the day.

Oh, so close

All the welding is done. All the boards cut. All the screws placed. It's time to get the tower up in the air. We were scheduled for 3 this afternoon. And then I woke up to wind. It blew hard all day long. Terry came up and we faced the facts: you just don't want a 9,000 lb steel can swinging in the breeze like some big wind chime. Especially if you're going to try to set it down easy on 8 bolts sticking up from the concrete slab.

Still not sure how it's going to go getting all those holes lined up....

I hope to find out tomorrow when we give it another try.

killer hill

Welding. Welding. Welding. Welding. Welding. Welding. Welding. Welding. Welding.

I never thought I could get tired of welding...but I am. There's been so much to weld and there's still so much to get done. It's tempting to just slam it all together, but I can't--lives are at stake if my welds were to fail and people fall from way up high atop the tower. This adds tension to the work and an intensity that makes for exhaustion at day's end.

Still, it's really good and satisfying work, this making stuff is. As I've mentioned early in this project, I've had this dream of a tower fortress, and here it is becoming real right before my eyes. Today, when I was breaking for lunch, I stopped and looked back behind me at this thing I am creating and was struck by how so very cool this thing is and how fortunate--how blessed--I am. Crane, welder, hundreds of dollars of free steel, the skills, the time, the guts...all this is gift, all this was given to me so that I can be who I am.

Soon, it will be time to lift this dang thing upright. Soon.