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Day 3 Report

Another brilliant morning, with the ground spiders building webs, ensuring good weather for the rest of the day. July 4th is a holiday for the rest of America, but our crew continued apace.

We unwound the long summers, a process involving all the framing squares we could find, and eyeballing the length of the summers to ensure that all of the gains or housings for the stable posts are in the same plane and elevation. This is more difficult to narrate than to demonstrate, so take a look at the photos.

A long day of back and forth and up an down culminated in some peg driving with our local cadre of dignitaries and volunteers. We elected to fit up the stable posts to their summers and raise the assemblies entirely over the foundation wall and then down onto the appropriate plinths. This was accomplished with a minimum of fuss by the Terex.

And just in time. The rains came at 2 p.m., proving the spiders wrong and giving us only just enough time to do tool roll up before it really started coming down. We had the traditional western Ohio ("X marks the spot in Xenia") tornado warnings to go with. We left the Terex far away from the circus tent to confuse the lightning, which fortunately passed us by entirely.

The day ended impressively (but not peacefully) with a simultaneous display of fireworks (over Enon) and lightning (over Ohio) that could not be beat, but unfortunately, could not be photographed, either.

Our crew is coming together quite nicely, the strident disputes about proper technique for this or that having moderated to mild teasing. Tomorrow we tackle the very large truckload of salvaged barn parts from the Chamberlin Barn, which will form the core of this project.

Captions: Carol, mother of Park Commissioner Tim DeVore, drives the final peg home. Tom Cundiff provides supervision. Caleb, grandson of Park Ranger Bud Jividen, swinging away at a Northcott-donated peg, to fit up one of the stable posts. Here's what we have to show for ourselves at the end of the workday on July 4th.