Elly Loftin of the 24K Club introduced me to Clyde Thomason, who grew up on Rich Hill. Here he is in front of the ruin that used to be his house.
Here's Clyde with Elly, at Clyde's house.
This is Clyde with his new bride, Jaqui. They got married in August.
On Sunday, after cowboy church, Gerald painted the weathervanes that will go on top of the cupolas.
Meanwhile, I got a lesson in gold prospecting on Rich Hill. Gordon and Teressa Zahara, who are experienced prospectors, took me up to the 24K Club's mining claim for a lesson.
Manny, the caretaker, demonstrated drywashing.
Here's Gordon, showing me how to metal detect. We wore headphones hoping to hear the "zip, zip" sound of a good target.
That night, I think we watched the best sunset we've ever seen at the land.
The big action of the day was the raising of the cupolas. The crew put them together, then brought them out from the second floor window.
To get the cupolas up to the rooftop, the crew had to nail some boards to the roof and roll the cupolas up from board to board, then carry them to the top.
When we arrived the following weekend, the crew had finished the roof supports for the porch.
We had hoped J.C. Campbell would have finished the APS trench, but he hit some granite and had to resort to using a jackhammer.
While work was underway, we spent some time at the Yarnell-Peeples Valley Historical Society's Ranching and Mining Festival, the organization's biggest fundraiser of the year.
We were glad we came prepared for the cold. When we woke up on Sunday, it was 32 degrees. I decided it was time to turn on the heat in "the casita." Even Jason, who swears he never wears long pants showed up in jeans.
With the cross beams in place, the crew started placing the joists that would support the porch roof.
Other workers finished the dormers.
By the end of the day, they had made progress, but not enough to wrap up. Jason wasn't working the following week, so he planned to come back on Monday and Tuesday. Unfortunately, we had to go home, so we hoped for the best.
Meanwhile, J.C. Campbell had started work on the APS trench. He'd be back during the next week, too.
With the dormers in place, work progressed on the stairs from the garage into the house.
The roofing crew installed the exterior sheeting.
And finish work began on the widow's peak.
It was starting to look like something from the road.
While some of the crew worked on the dormers, others worked on the deck. Here's Jason and some others were setting in place the logs that would support the porch roof.
When the logs were in place, they had to be leveled, and a temporary structure was put in place to support them.
They used the backhoe to help lift the cross beams into place.
But the backhoe only raised them so far. Then it took plain old muscle to set them in place.
As with the gable ends, it was fascinating to watch the dormers go up. They brought out the dormer face through this opening.
Then they slid the dormer face along the roof.
When they had it in position, they raised it.
Here's how the house looked on Friday morning as the framing crew stated work for the third weekend.
The main task was getting the dormers up. I love this photo because you really get a sense of how big this thing is. Here are the guys putting in place for 24-foot glulam beams that didn't get ordered, which delayed construction of the dormers until now.
A few from the inside.
I continued to be amazed that these guys don't fall.
On Sunday, the crew laid the beams that would support the porch. They were huge heavy things and it took all 10 guys on the crew to move them. They supported the beams with wood and carried them in twos, grunting and straining the whole way.
Then they set them on the piers.
By afternoon, the porch was coming along nicely.
And they had finished the interior walls and most of the exterior siding. Here's how it looked by the time they quit work on Sunday.
While the framing crew did its work, Gerald did his. Here he is debarking the logs that we plan to use as porch supports.
He was visited by this rare creature who we called log-headed man. I thought log-headed man dressed suspiciously like my husband.
Meanwhile, J.C. Campbell went to work sawing a slot in the block work where the support beam for the porch would fit.
Gerald called when I was taking a stroll in the afternoon to say that we had company. When I got back, our neighbors Tom and Linda were there.
They left just in time for us to catch another beautiful sunset.
It was cold on Saturday. Just the week before, the temperatures were in the mid-80s. On Saturday, it was cloudy and about 60 for most of the day.
The crane also set in place a log we're using as a post upstairs.
The crew built a temporary structure to support it. That's Jason, the crew foreman.
Next, went the beams to support the roof.
