Rough-sawn Timbers

Today I delivered the front door lintel to Terry Wolff, a wood carver who will inscribe it with the year built and initials of the principals: DWH - architect, SUP - interior design, EDS - builder, JRL - owner. Three of us are from the Pacific coast - thus the salmon symbol. The other is the Zio Pueblo logo, used by the state of New Mexico. Eli Sanchez is a native.The lintel is a 4” x 10” slab of Douglas Fir, 5’ long. Before I delivered it I cut it from a longer piece and sanded away the fuzz while leaving the saw marks. Terry lives and works in Carson, NM, which is on the west rim of the Rio Grande and about 30 miles from my house. There will be twelve lintels in this little house - only one carved, though.

A ten-foot long 4x10 is about as much as I can easily carry, and I have six or eight more of these to sand. I also sanded all the (32) boards that will become the ceiling of my front porch. When all this is done, I have eleven more 2 x 10 boards to sand for the sunshade trellises over the south-facing windows plus the rest of the lintels and the two huge beams that support the front porch.

It looks like my belt sander and I will become bonded the rest of this week. All that sander dust will become organic material in the soil. I’ll probably have to add at least one more dump truck load from the sawmill, delivered at $125/load.

Since I mentioned soil, two people have now asked me if they could have some of the rocks I have picked out of the soil here. I think I have about the right amount of silt, clay, and sand to make good loam, I just need to remove the rock and add organic material. The clay and sand are separated on my lot, so I’ll need to mix them, but sifting out the rock helps mix things.

The roof is now completely sheathed, so I cut a hole where the roof drain will be. It would be a shame to have an afternoon deluge collapse the roof simply because we forgot to make a hole in the roof!

Gabriel and Ulisses finished the walls of the mechanical room. It is ready for the sloping rafters and the parapets. Isaac has taped the joints between sheathing panels to make the house airtight. I gave him a ride home this afternoon. He lives in an old single-wide mobile home out beyond the sawmill next to the old gravel pit. He is about as poor as he can get and still have some sort of roof over his head.

This is a poor state, with not many work opportunities and many poor people.

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