We're Not in Kansas Anymore

It's a little difficult to see in the photo on the left, but this is a wall cloud produced by a mesoscale thunderstorm that passed to the North last Thursday. This same storm spawned an F2 tornado in Lewiston, MN that caused extensive damage to homes there. Luckily, the storm passed just to the North and didn't cause anything more than a scare. La Crosse, WI is only 15 miles from us and they had wind gusts to 72 Mph and almost 3" of rain. We got quite a bit of wind and only .2" of rain. I was very happy when that mean old thunderstorm passed and the sky filled with fire for a late sunset. 

In the mean time, work on the house is coming along slowly but surely. This week I was able to finish constructing and raising the last four girders. It was nice to finally say that they were all up. There still will be some work left to do on these girders due to the fact that not all of the 2 x 10's were not exactly 9.5" in height. Before I start raising the posts for the second floor, I'll will have to do some sanding of the girders to make them flat and level. On Thursday and Friday I began building the walk-around 3' deck. The photo on the left was the first picture taken from the second floor. The photo shows the sixteen girders bolted to the center support ring.

The posts seen in the picture below are the posts to support the railing for the walk-around deck. The next week will be spent building the rest of the deck. This deck will be the permanent deck for the house, but will also serve as scaffolding as I build the second floor and eventually the roof.