With a few minor revisions, the building plans are moving forward at a pretty good clip. I’ve already installed most of the strips around the outside, which will soon hold the metal siding, if I have my way about it.

I finished installing all of my windows and roughed-in the door opening for the side entrance, which will give me access to the building from the house side.

I hope to install a large ramp and a set of double doors at the other entrance to help make driving in the lawnmower and other things easier.

While I can see progress has been made, especially on the two days I spent working on the building last week, I still would like to get the project finished. Then again, when I do get it finished, I know there are at least 47 other things that need to be done.

It seems like many of the tasks I take on take much longer than I had thought they would when I orchestrated them in the theater of my mind. It could be that I am working too slowly or it could be the fact that I always tend to underestimate how long everything takes. That fact alone lead to my no longer having an interest in being a small-time contractor after working for some time doing home repairs as a young man. I would bid a job and then end up working for nearly nothing after I paid the help and expenses. I have to admit that I did quickly improve at that time at making better estimates—two or three weeks with no money helps—but years of carpentry work for me with no time clock has left me working at a completely different pace and with a different set of rules.

Most legitimate contractors would laugh at the idea of a job like the one I am doing taking three months to complete. I admit that it seems like a long time to me, too. Even though I’m only working on the job in my spare time, it really doesn’t seem like it should take so long. Anyway, now that I have most of the framing work done and I am getting ready to move forward with the doors, final stripping and then the metal, I know it will all come together more quickly. The metal siding is one of those things, like roofing, that seems to move faster as the work goes along.

I guess much of construction is that way. I always break the job up into bite-sized pieces and then eat one mouthful at a time. My next task is installing the double doors on the front and the ramp that will lead up to them.

When I start a task, planning and lay out always takes longer than building. The second to the last step, siding or capping a floor or deck, gives fast visual results and tends to appear to go the quickest.

However, once that’s done, that leaves the trim work, which I consider the exception to the rules. I’ve never been a big fan of trim work to start with. Now that I have a chop saw, it certainly is much easier now than it was in the days of handsaws and miter boxes. I took a break a couple weeks ago to head to my sister’s house and work on some much-needed home repairs.

Among items on the agenda were building a closet, fabricating a bedroom door, replacing a set of steps and installing a handrail and doing a few other minor tasks there around the house.

I cut just a few pieces of trim with my handsaw and I was huffing and puffing like a three pack-a-day smoker on a nature hike up the side of a mountain. Machinery is good, but it tends to spoil a man from doing real work.

As for the work at my sister’s house, it really didn’t fit into my schedule, but sometimes things come up that need doing now. Much of it could have been handled as time went by, but was neglected until it was nearly too late. Maintenance is a lot like housework, no one really notices until you stop doing it.

In this case, I’m not sure if my sister knows which end of a hammer to hold on to.

The steps I replaced could have fallen and injured someone at any moment, and the waist-high climb had no hand rail to work with.

Even though she and her family lack what I consider basic skills—you know, carpentry, tools and machinery and plumbing—they still manage to get by with a hand now and then.

An offshoot of their sewer main ruptured a few weeks ago and some more than kind friends helped repair the problem after throwing a few mothballs under the house to run out any snakes or other critters that might have been there. I was glad I missed that call. I have an aversion to small, dark and smelly areas under houses.

Not to mention my obvious problem with ruptured sewer lines, sewage, and basically any word that starts with or consists of the letters s- e-w. Look it up yourself in the dictionary, it’s not a very pleasant way to start a word.

Realizing that this weekend marks the Labor Day holiday, I’m hoping to work all weekend on the building and get it all finished up before my upcoming September harvest responsibilities.

Then again, given that the garden is turning to dust, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem if the rain doesn’t kick in soon. The corn is already brown and stunted, the beans are gone and the tomatoes just aren’t amounting to much.

At least the potatoes appear to have produced a reasonable crop. While that isn’t exactly what I was hoping for earlier this year as I worked and toiled to plant the seeds and plants that I am now watching burn to death in the August sun, it’s still better than nothing. Maybe I’ll have better luck next year, if there isn’t a late freeze and a drought with which to contend.

As I've said before, my own inattentiveness is enough.