Just Hanging...

First - congratulations to my cousin Amy and her new husband Joe!  They married on Saturday in Montana, and Thomas and I reluctantly stayed home and worked.  Our time at home paid off, though I know we would have enjoyed the festivities and family, if not the drive to and fro.

Friday evening and Saturday afternoon we prepared to hang trusses.  The lines on the top sill were drawn in, and the hurricane ties were attached - this would make lining up our trusses easier.  The trusses are no bag of feathers, so Tom and I can only prepare to hang them.  Gratefully, Pop came over on Saturday afternoon to help lift the trusses.  He's so strong that he can do it practically by himself.  I did help secure the loop on the end of the tractor to the truss.  (That's right - by himself with the aid of the tractor.)

The first one wasn't easy.  Once the truss was affixed to the scaffolding on wheels, Thomas held onto it, while we wheeled him into place.  Then on either side, Pop and I muscled it into the hurricane ties, and Thomas held onto it for dear life as the wind tried to push it over.  We secured it with a couple boards, and then hurriedly got up a second truss to help stabilize it, and then another and another until there were five!  And then it was time to call it quits!

 Five trusses hanging - only 16 more to go!

Sunday after church, we donned our grubbies and got to work on the next trusses.  Pop and Tom decided we could probably only get another four using the same method before we would run out of room for spinning the scaffolding around with the trusses.  We made another seven, granted the spinning of the scaffolding looked a little different for the last few.  Next method was to approach the length of the truss perpendicular to the wall instead of parallel, and we got three more up that way.  

 My strong husband giving hand signals to the tractor operator.  Standing on the scaffolding, he would grab onto the truss and secure it on the wooden board angled off the top.  (Note: the storm blew in and rained on us a little bit.  We had to take a break now and again, and I was keeping lookout for lightning.)

Pop on the tractor handing the truss up with a crane he built and attached to the bucket.  From the shape of the truss, you can see that we will have a "cathedral" ceiling inside the house, which hopefully will help it feel nice and open.

Fifteen trusses hanging, 6 more to go!