Pole Barn 7: Uber-productive seniors

My Mom and Dad came to visit us for 9 days and guess what happened? A lot.

It's taken a while to get this post up because (1) see the next blog post, and (2) my computer and phone are not communicating well and uploading pictures to share.

First things first! Since Mom and Dad arrived on a Saturday 

afternoon, we visited the work site before supper (because 

they were itching to see it in real life) but then we took Sunday 

to rest (as Randy and I had decided to be intentional about 

during this season of life; to work as needed for 6 days, but set 

aside Sundays for resting). SO we had s'mores by the fire, 

and Andrew was bringing lots of little apples from the tree to Oma.

 On our first work day with Oma and Opa, my dad 

and I took the "truck" (our poor minivan) to Menards and loaded 

it with lumber for the next day's work. Here, Oma and Andrew 

are taking a little ride down the "driveway" on an electric trike. So 

here's the view from just inside our lot line out to the street.

Sept 10

 Sept 11: For our 8th anniversary, Randy and I got to see big 

changes on the inside- interior walls! The first little wall 

is between the bathroom and utility room, built with 2x6s 

for plumbing galore. That's my dad on the left and Randy's 

uncle Henry on the right, who visited for a couple days from 

Nebraska and not only helped a lot but brought a sheetrock 

hoist to be used... soon! Yay!

By the end of the day (Tuesday), the bathroom and "store" walls 

are up, joists were installed above the rooms and a plywood 

floor was added. There is now a LOT of storage space up 

there. And it's nice to have a genuine smile captured from my dad. He's 

notorious for making silly faces when cameras are around.

You can also see the beginnings of storage from the house happening in the 

back right corner, thanks to Oma's help!!

Before the spray-foam insulation guy comes to give us 3" of 

closed-cell foam under the roof tin and on the gable ends, the 

gable ends both needed to be enclosed! So that was another area 

in which my dad quickly excelled. Now the wall between 

heated area and cold-storage area is enclosed except for the door.

After a couple days of intense physical labor, Randy and the kids 

and I gave Oma and Opa an extended, peaceful breakfast time

 and headed out to the yard to dismantle the port-a-shed that 

had been storing a ton of bikes and bike parts and parts of 

bikes and more bike things. Oma and the kids and I had 

emptied it the day before. We had eager helpers... AGAIN!

And this is what cold storage looked like after 

we had emptied the port-a-shed.

Here, the last wall of cold storage is getting enclosed, with an 

insulated garage door from Habitat Restore! Yay again!

And Dad faithfully working on putsy wutsy tin.

Dad AGAIN faithfully working, even when Randy was 

dragging from a headcold and not working so much 

himself. Adding support to the "deck". Not pictured: 

Dad also finished screwing the plywood down to the joists. 

Randy had only tacked them in place beforehand.

And when Mom was unsure of what else to do, she played with her 

grandkids or found something to clean! And if she hadn't helped me

(and the kids) pack and move so much stuff from the house, we would

NOT have been able to accomplish... what we did in the next post.