A Blustery Week at The Bungalow

The news this past week was the wind.
It was
BIG.
It started early Thursday.
By about 4:30 in the afternoon I became concerned about the trailer awning.
I was anxious for Dean to get home  from work and retract it.
It's sad to admit, but I don't feel confident that I can properly retract and secure it myself.
It was being yanked around pretty hard, but stayed attached and intact until
Dean got home to take care of it.
We lost the protective cover for the sunlight bubble in our shower;
it flew off and shattered into several pieces on the garage floor.
 My hen house door blew off...

and all night that night, in addition to the violent wind keeping us awake,
I fretted and prayed that the whole hen house wouldn't blow over with my little girls inside.
It was still standing the next morning, which was a miracle.
I have no doubt it was an answer to my prayer.
It's nice to know Heavenly Father cares that I care about my chickens.
The old thing was

 blown off its blocking, moved 2 feet westward and teetering back and forth, though.

We lost 15 feet off the tops of two cedar trees...

one landing at the NE corner of the house

and the other getting lodged in the walnut tree.

Needless to say, there was a lot of  cutting and clean up to be done.

In addition, power went in and out several times and our hot water heater would not stay lit.
It's a good thing Dean took Friday off work because he'd have had an icy early-morning shower.
At one point during the night I actually thought I might need some Dramamine because
our little trailer was feeling much like an amusement park ride that just wouldn't quit.

In addition to the hen house not toppling over, here's the other GOOD news...
we were so very grateful to be in the garage and much closer to the ground
instead of directly under the old walnut tree and up high on the blocks
like we were a couple of weeks ago.
What a blessing!
We were also feeling extremely blessed that the trusses were not up
or they'd have surely all been blown down and damaged.
And...

we'd wondered how we could harvest the rest of the walnuts that were so far up in the tree.
The windstorms took care of that for us.
We gathered them off the ground and filled this 5 gallon bucket in no time!

Although we are disappointed that our progress was held up
because of these terrific wind storms that lasted through late Saturday night,
we are very grateful to have weathered them without serous incident.
As we've driven around town we've seen that there has been extensive damage to many homes,
fences, trees and even RV's like ours.
Our hearts go out to these people.

And now, other than all that, here's what happened at the Bungalow.

Monday

Our exterior doors were delivered.

Dean spent the evening double checking, fixing, and putting more nails
into the sheathing that was already up.
I swept and cleaned up construction debris and held the flashlight so
Dean could nail.
I'm basically awesome at sweeping, cleaning up and flashlight holding.
Yep.

Tuesday

Our trusses were delivered!
And it was very cold and very rainy.
When he got home from his 9 to 5, Dean looked over the trusses and
then sat down and studied the engineering booklet that came
with them for quite a long while.

Wednesday

Since it was still very cold and very rainy, Dean worked on the framing in the basement.

Thursday

I already told ya about Thursday, the first day of the big windstorms.
Didn't get any work done.

Friday

Dean got the bottom courses of the sheeting completed and cut all the openings
for all the doors and windows.
The top course cannot be done until the trusses are set.

Saturday

Dean began prepping for trusses.
We had several men show up to help, but the wind picked up again
and it wasn't looking like it was going to let up anytime soon.
Saturday was a bit of a bust.

That's it.
We are enjoying this big, crazy, wonderful project despite the setbacks.
The coming week's forecast is looking really promising.
Life is good.
And
A HAPPY THANKSGIVING 
to you and yours.