Of Sheathing and The Growing of a Green Roof……

I feel…..thin. Sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.

Bilbo speaking to Gandalf on the way he’s been feeling.

 

Yes people, butter scraped over too much bread. ‘Tis the way I feel as of late. So much to do and so little time.

Once again I welcome you all to the Hobbit Hollow Construction Blog! I’m so thankful that you all are still hanging in there  with me. Work has been busy but the commute home from Manhattan this past week was absolutely dreadful. Just about every day, too. I forgot to mention that son Jude is working on the job with me as a wire lather. He’s doing pretty good as far as I can tell. Starting to get the hang of it. The wire lathers local has an apprentice program for students which is really a great idea. He’s definitely getting an education out of this one. Early to bed and early to rise as the saying goes. Well it is nice having him as company on the way to work and back.

Jude's company makes the commute go by quickly.
Jude’s company makes the commute go by quickly.

Conversation is something I’m not used to on the drive to and from work!

A couple of things before we get going.

When you tell someone to follow you in a car what does that mean? (You know when you’re going to a place where the other person doesn’t know how to get there kind of thing.) To me it means that you watch and follow the lead car and never let them out of your sight. Because if you don’t you don’t know how to get there and then you might get lost. Right? Right. So we were going to a party for my niece’s graduation Saturday and we stopped by and picked up a dessert at the local bakery. We took two cars  because Ethan was going out later that evening. So it was me and the Editor in the “lead” car and Ethan and Terence in the other. They were going to “follow” because they didn’t know the way.

Simple enough.

I get out of the bakery tell Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum to “follow us” and then the Editor proceeds to pull away from the curb. Now I’m not kidding here people. We made the first right and lost them within about 15 seconds. It was weird. Cause the Editor went around the first bend in the road and says, “Where’s Ethan???” Of course I’m thinking maybe somehow he got stuck behind some little old lady going slow. Is that even possible???? I mean they were pulling out the same time as we did! What’s going on? Hmmm. You better slow down so they can catch up to us. So we keep going but they never catch up to us. Of course I try to phone Terence who is the navigator but in this area there’s no cell phone service for a few miles. We get to the end of Old 55 which intersects with New 55 and we see Ethan and Terence whiz past us on New 55. (The Editor and I took Old 55.)

All I’m gonna say is why would you take a different route if you were “Following us.” What is up with that? Does anyone listen to instructions anymore? Solution: Put the Falcon into hyperdrive and overtake them. Geez. Kids!

So the grass is really coming in now on the roof for anyone who is interested. Pretty awesome. The good thing is that I’m not going to have to reseed the roof at all. It’s going to reseed itself. It’s hard to see but the grass is going to seed as we speak.  Check out these pictures.

Grass coming in on the roof.
Grass coming in on the roof.

Now that’s a green roof for you!

The roof is really starting to thicken up!
The roof is really starting to thicken up!

Hobbits love their green roofs!

If you remember from last week I told you about the bird’s nest inside the house by the skylight. Sally H. spoke of the cow bird laying a single egg in the nest of our friendly neighborhood kingbird. The cow bird’s egg would hatch and then this youngster will grow faster than the rest and eat the food the parents bring to the nest, starving the kingbird’s own chicks. Check this out.

Nest built by Eastern kingbird into skylight well.
Nest built by Eastern kingbird into skylight well.
Eggs in the nest.
Eggs in the nest.

Back to Hobbit House building shall we?

I was able to finish the sheathing on the North side Saturday. It wasn’t easy but I got it done. There are a bunch of odds and ends we have to do now before moving forward but now I can finally use some hired help. Hopefully Terence can give me a hand next week. Check out the back.

North side sheathing in place.
North side sheathing in place.

Boy, those are big windows aren’t they?

So now we have a series of different things we have to do before window installation that I’ll be setting up over the next week or two hopefully. We’ll get into the nuts and bolts when the time comes.

Ethan stopped by and cut the front lawn for me and gave me a hand cleaning up. That was a huge help. I am going to reseed the lawn though. Unfortunately we had some erosion on the lawn area so the grass isn’t coming up as well as it is on the roof. We’ll fix that next week.

Had to finish putting a crane up on 30th street Sunday morning so I’m going to cut this one short. Take it easy and I’ll see you next week!

Hobbit Hollow Jim

Lawn cut for the first time!
Lawn cut for the first time!

2 thoughts on “Of Sheathing and The Growing of a Green Roof……”

  1. Now you need to decide whether to remove the cow bird egg or leave it. You will not chase the kingbirds away if you do decide to remove the egg.

    The grass on the roof is really pretty.

    Reply
    • Hi Sally! Responding late again but better late than never as the saying goes. Yes. I removed the egg the day I took this picture and the babies are doing fine. I’m hoping that they are out of the nest come this weekend. I took a picture of them sleeping there but it just looked like a ball of fluff. So I left it out of the blog.

      If they’re there this coming weekend I’ll put it in there.

      Thanks for writing!

      Jim

      Reply

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