More roofing

We had very nice weather over the weekend, which helps a lot when trying to build a house. We've made some more progress, so here are some updated pictures.

Here, Dana and Leonard are working on the blocking for the north side of the roof. The dormer in the picture will be the master bedroom window.

They got the facia board up and the blocking completed on that section. You can see in this picture a big tarp on that south side dormer. Dana and I got that up last weekend before the rains hit. There is one spot on that dormer where water keeps leaking in somehow and running down one of the logs in the living room. It's driving me crazy! We also covered all of the door and window openings with some plywood to help keep the rains out this winter, remember it rains sideways here! We've still got so much work to do there's no way we'll get the windows in before the real winter weather hits.
Here, Dana and Harvey are up on the roof on the south side of the house. Getting ready to put up the facia board and start the blocking on the back side of the house.
Since Harvey was up on the roof all day, I got to baby-sit his little ones. They are very easily entertained and we had a fun day. Much easier than being up on the roof!
Poor Hagen...both girls have been a little shy with him, I think because he's so big. But today they had no problems crawling on him and posing for pictures with him!
Here's the guys putting the 2X8's up. My dining room is directly below this section of the roof they're working on. Harvey's up on the peak and Dana is working from the bucket on the manlift.

Ok, the peak of the roof is 27' in the air. That's my husband way up there in the manlift bucket. Crazy man!
Dana and I spent all day Sunday puting up A35 brackets. The entire back side of the house has now been completed (just as far as brackets go) and we started working on the front. We had to quit last night about 5:45 because it was too dark to see anymore. I hate winter time!

Tractor Work

Earlier this summer, we fell some trees behind the house that were much too close to where our deck will be. In between working on the roof, we've started digging out the stumps from those trees.

Here is a picture of some of those stumps before we started digging too much.

Frank helped out doing some tractor work while the guys were working on the roof. He must really like running that tractor, because on the day in question I came home from work to find him already digging with that backhoe. Before Dana even made it home from work, Frank already had the tractor stuck in the hole that we'd been digging!
Granted, it was a very deep hole!
Luckily, I have some four-wheeling experience, so we put some logs under the tires and were able to get it un-stuck before Dana even got home. My dad showed up and ran the "Heavy Chevy" to help pull the stump out. Here's my dad and Frank celebrating after getting the stump out of the ground.
One last trouble-some stump to go. Dana kept having to dig the hole deeper and deeper. No Frank's not kneeling in that hole-he's standing!
We finally got the stump loose in the hole, but it was heavier than the tractor, so we had a really hard time getting it out of the ground. Frank and Dana worked on getting all of the dirt possible out of the roots and then Dana took the chain saw to it and cut off as much as he could.
There are no pictures of the stump coming out of the ground, because by that time I was driving the Heavy Chevy with a rope and chain attached to the stump. The ground was pretty slippery since it's been raining, so it was really hard to get traction. After quite a few hard runs with the truck and Dana using the tractor bucket to help lift the stump, we finally got it out of the hole. And now there it sits, right next to the hole it came out of. We did fill in the hole with the now muddy dirt piled up next to it, but funny thing, there's just not quite enough. We've been getting a bit of rain the last few days, so it is getting very muddy.