Lateral bracing and made ya look

 
The sky was blue and I couldnt help myself. I love the way the light looks coming through the skeleton roof. 
   
Frank was putting in lateral bracing, we were at swim lessons. As usual. The kids start swim club (team for kids under 14) Monday morning. We have to be there at 8 a.m. I am ok with that, the kids are a little alarmed! They are glad that once school starts they will go to 4:30. Swim team will be between 1 hr and 1.5 hrs depending on skill level. While we were gone, Frank got most of this bracing done. 

   
Then Tad went out to help him while I cooked dinner and Nathalie did chores. This was last wk sometime, I cant post the Friday pictures of putting up the overhang until I post the laterals. You see our tarp? This is for the goats and turkeys when it rains. The goat feeder is under there, it rains a lot here. Turkeys are not water proof, but they are also not smart enough to go under cover unless it is easy. Apparently the tarp is not as they stand out in the rain huddled. I will be glad when the roof is done, we will run them in and lock them up for a day or so to help them get used to the shelter idea. 
   
Last lateral brace here. I was not sure how this worked, the bracing between trusses. We did trusses on a small barn in Ks, but we did the bracing differently. Eric and Frank came up with a plan and it worked great but would have been time consuming on a larger project so I am glad that Frank consulted the book on this one. The lateral bracing went much faster than individual bracing between each truss, all the way up. 
   
"Daddy can you stand up top?" 
   
"Sure baby girl."
:   
"See, it isnt hard. You could do this." ("Mama... he be so strong!")
   
"Daddy can you show me your muscles?"

   
"Hey baby, what is that in the tree? Haha made ya look... Such a boy!"
   
Tad and his goaties. They like the tools, the saw, nail gun. They lick the salt off of the part where your hand goes. I find that nail gun particularly heavy but Tad does not seem to mind standing around holding it. I do not think our lifestyle would be easy without our punk kids as help. I mean we total couldnt do most of our jobs without their helpful hands, they are big enough to complete some adult tasks even alone. They have been doing the house cleaning, much of the cooking and even preserving things for winter over the last couple of months. They help on the jobsite, can do all of the chores alone, even making decisions about problems without coming to us. They put their minds together on problems, and they solve them for the animals. Sometimes they tell us and other times we just find the fruits of their labors, and see how much they cared for their animals. Friday they built a compost together by lashing 3 pallets in a square shape, standing up, and then using some stakes outside of it, and then shoveled any extra compost into it. We had just dumped it in an area behind the greenhouse but it will build up/break down better if inside of a semi-closed area.

They are great kids. I wouldnt trade them for the world, though I wish we had a few more. Somehow (this is not super nice so x out now if you will mind) it seems unfair to NOT have had more, because they are so nice. They will be a positive example of leadership and hard work as adults. There are not enough kids right now in our society who will grow up to be that. I have a friend who once said it is almost our duty as good parents, to have more children and train them up in the way they should go. If only 20 others who were not as well raised follow their lead, we have created a triangle of success. This friend happens to have amazing kids, and they are wonderful parents.