Reminded of our Wedding Year

September 28th, 2001. A glorious Friday in fall. The temperatures hit 28º and, between noon and 4 p.m., we had a memorable wedding and reception. We left the following morning on a two-week motorcycle camping honeymoon, with the destination being Moab, Utah. For those of you not immediately conversant with Biblical allusions, Ruth married a Moabite, so I took my Ruth home for her honeymoon.

Anyway, our neighbour, Ian Soroka, stopped by last evening to say they'd never had this kind of September until we decided to build and shingle our home. We have been blessed with phenomenal weather throughout this build, the record-setting moisture in Manitoba for the past umpteen months notwithstanding.

All of us on the construction crew have been grateful for the benevolent weather, but frustrated by our rate of progress. Seems the owner keeps adding "little" changes that add a day here or there. For example, everyone has been aware of our intention to install a woodstove, but today was the day to incorporate that intention into the actual structure. Delaeno, having intended to shingle the great room today, spent it building a chimney box instead, while Davis continued the arduous task of shingling the 9/12 pitch roof of the garage.

I, on the other hand, spent most of the morning chasing ghosts. First, I arrived at our HVAC supplier's offices around 7:40 for a 7:30 meeting. Unfortunately, I was early. At about 8:25 the manager found my file, we sorted out options, I left a deposit, and departed just before 9 a.m. A 30 minute stop at Rona managed to generate the paperwork necessary to purchase two bundles of reject shingles for "starters" on Ruth's Ridge. I finally got to the house around 10:25, well over 90 minutes after I'd expected to arrive and carry on with the plumbing project.

By day's end, we had a chimney chase constructed and I'd managed to drill most of a vent pipe hole through a floor plate/sub-floor and two LVLs laminated together.

Tomorrow, I'll drive to Winkler; have breakfast with the folks; pick up the garage doors/openers/cladding and, maybe, chimney covering; drive to Ruth's Ridge; unload; clean up the site; do some plumbing; go home to have an anniversary celebration with Ruth; miss church; go to Ruth's Ridge to do more plumbing.

We've called for inspection of a number of things on Tuesday and, as of Wednesday, we want DND to be installing doors & windows. I'll continue with plumbing through Tuesday, then switch immediately to electrical when that's done.

I leave me breathless. Oh, the joys of C.I. ( conscious incompetence).

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