Some serious heavy lifting- of the physical and intellectual varieties

Sam pointed out to me that despite my efforts at digging up all of the calla lily bulbs (to be replanted later), and despite all of the trench digging, foundation-laying, and other hoopla, a single hardy calla lily sprouted and is growing on the side of the house. I find something so delightfully, gloriously improbable and inspiring about nature finding a way for life to succeed under difficult circumstances...



On the house front, every day brings new challenges and different kinds of success. While things do change inside the house...



... the biggest changes are occurring on the outside. On Monday, I arrived home to find Michelle and Sam on the roof plotting how to get some of the joists up.



These "I-beams" are relatively light, but very strong. Sam cut each one to size...



... and lifted one up to Michelle...





... and then, still holding his end, climbed the ladder.



Then they flipped it on its side. Michelle got her side perfectly aligned with the markings Sam had made...



... then Sam nailed it in place, over the new structure, and the old.





Pretty soon, they had a rhythm down, and they were putting in place the third beam...



... and they did it again,





and again...



... while Sioux relaxed.



By the time they stopped, we really had a sense of how high the ceiling in the garage will be!



The next day (yesterday) Dixieline stopped by with another delivery of wood. This driver had never been to our house before, but had heard of the 'wall' that Sam and Dan had built to protect the still-green concrete from the crash of the wood delivery. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, see this post). Apparently the driver who had witnessed that had been quite impressed, and told his colleagues all about it!
Anyway, in addition to a bunch of plywood, this delivery contained some seriously big and heavy beams, which are parallel strand lumber. (I had to call Sam to be reminded of what that stuff is called. Per Sam: "parallel strand lumber is when they take a bunch of small pieces of wood, mix 'em with a bunch of glue, orient them all in the same direction, and squeeze the [heck] out of it. It's very strong. And very heavy.")







In particular, there is one beam (which will eventually span the living room) which is ridiculously large and heavy...



So Sam and Dan got some more I-beams up...



... and then tackled lifting one of the 400-or-so-pound beams into place. They had to get it up there somehow, and place it inside these supports:





Their method was ingenious. First, they built a kind of scaffolding out of ladders and lumber, giving them two 'steps' to get the beam onto.



Then they lifted the beam onto the first step.



I was responsible for placing blocks between the beam and the house so that it wouldn't slip backwards off the scaffolding.



After they lifted it up onto the second step, they paused to consider how to proceed.





They ended up nailing a board into the wall to serve as a third step, and lifted the beam onto that:



Then they got ready to lift it all the way to the top of the wall:



Which they did:


(By the way, the reason there are only 'after' shots here, as opposed to 'action' shots, is that during the process I was busy filling up the gap behind the beam with more blocks so that it wouldn't slip backwards!) While Sam did the final lifting, Dan helped me with blocks:



So, phew! They were halfway there!



To lift on the other side, they built two "steps" out of shorter pieces of parallel strand lumber, and then lifted it up onto the first step...







... and then onto the second:







Then, we had to build a third step:



The three of us worked together to force the third step under and up, Sam lifting the beam, Dan and me pushing the 'step' in. Which worked beautifully.





Then, however, they had to get it up to the roof!



We got one last long piece of lumber to help us support the beam...



And I was responsible for pushing that in and under the beam while Sam and Dan lifted it. We got it up to the roof!







The job wasn't done yet, though. Sam and Dan conferred about how to get the beam into the Simpson supports:



Sam climbed a ladder on the outside of the garage,



they stood the beam on end, and Sam hammered nails into it.



After it was hammered into place, Sam finally relaxed a little bit. Given how heavy the beam was, he had been extremely aware of the possibility of someone getting hurt, and insisted on 'safety first' throughout the process. But when it was finally done, we celebrated!

And we really had cause for celebration: the heavy lifting of the physical sort had gone well... but more importantly, Dan had gotten all 5 signatures on his dissertation! So some serious heavy lifting of the intellectual variety had been successfully completed as well. I am so proud of, and happy for, Dan. Yay, Dan! We celebrated with a risotto dinner (Dr. Dan grated the parmesan for me) and plenty of champagne!