This was the main project for the weekend. Early in the planning we realized there was no way we could camp out the entire time we were building the cabin and transport our tools back and forth all the time. So the solution was to quickly build a tool shed/temporary bunk house to be a base of operations for the main construction project. Dad, Evan, and Jesse put up most of this shed last fall, except for a small part of the siding, which we finshed on Thursday. As you can see, the ground is sloped enough that the front of the shed was about 4 feet off the ground, so this weekend's project was to build a small porch and steps, as well as enclosing the remainder of the walls.

Evan climbed on the roof to hammer down the tarpaper and tin. That is Mrs. Veerman, his mother-in-law, holding the ladder.

Mr. Veerman was holding the other ladder. Actually, we had enough help this weekend that we were able to run two crews most of the time. Once the deck was in place, Evan and Mr. Veerman built the steps while Dad and I built the roof. Dave rotated back and forth between whoever needed an extra set of hands or another few inches of reach.

Anna helped out too, mostly by cheering us on.

Here's how the final product turned out from a couple of angles. I'm calling it the "general store" because it looks like a building straight out of a speghetti western. I think there are plans to eventually finsh it off by painting it, adding some facia and molding, and building some railing around the porch and steps.

This is a view of the inside of the finished product. Those bunkbeds are the ones Evan and I shared growing up. There are also some carpet scraps on the floor to make it a little nicer for rolling out sleeping bags when there are harsh storms in the future and we need to pile up inside. Last night, Dad tried sleeping under the stars, but he was glad to have a place in the shed when it started raining at about 2am.

Another big goal was to get some grass seed spread on the banks of where the driveway was cut. I think there is a law that says you have to do this within a certain amount of time (to prevent erosion), so we were pretty much doing this to comply with the law. If grass comes up, we will be really happy and we will be glad we did it regardless of the law. But I'm not so sure that grass planted this late in the season has any chance of survival. We decided to experiment, though, with a straw mat that claims to increase growth by 80%. We'll see.

Dave and I had a friendly shooting match once the roof was on. I wasn't expecting to hit anything because I've never been a good shot, but the sight was pretty much dead-on, so it was just a matter of who had the steadiest hand. this time I got the better of Dave 13-11.

This was the woodpile at the end of three days of non-stop burning. We also had about ten large stumps that we were using to support a make-shift food prep table. So though the pile was originally quite a bit bigger, this gives you an idea of how little actual cutting we got done before the chainsaw quit and refused to start again. We're hoping its just the sparkplug.

What else do you do on one of these work weekends? You eat food cooked on an open fire. Evan was in charge of the food. Saturday night we had a creamy chicken pasta. Not exactly what you might expect when you're roughing it! Evan has agreed to post his recipe here later. By the way, check out the awesome fire pit we built too.