It was my job to sweep the snow off the build, while he hauled lumber down and up the ditch. Two by fours and sixes, teetering on his shoulder. The sag of the Toyota lessened with each load.
I remember getting pulled over at one point, for going to slow on that climb out of Bayfield. The cop thought we were stoned. We were, but that wasn't the reason for the speed--it was the new-used washing machine in the bed! Got off Craigslist, as things went then. Or maybe even before then, we weren't necessarily up with the times.
The snow was dry, light. The kind you can shovel with a broom. I could have swept the whole yard clear.
Come spring, I would braid a path into the tall grass we continued to walk through, because it tickled the back of my knees.
We would build my first garden in the yard, cover the store-bought soil with thick black plastic. To retain moisture, he said. Leave it to a pot farmer to stretch the bounds of the term "organic" and "outside--" with a roof and a fan and big plywood boxes fixed into the earth. Leeching.
The hardest part of building the tiny house (which we finished well after that first fall and winter. Which he finished well after we finished) was the 14 foot wall.
We built it all in once piece, and planned to erect it by hand. If it toppled and broke, if we sent it too far toward the other side, and it landed topside down in the grass. If we didn't push quite hard or high enough, rather than settling in it's 4-inch wide 12-foot long foot, neatly between each 7-foot side wall. Rather than wedging into place, to make the first two corners of our home, well, we'd have been out hundreds of dollars and headed back to the lumberyard.
I don't think heavy machinery was an option. Pot farmers make more than I do, but when you make such a living under the table like that, you're likely not one to subscribe to the way things ought to be done. Some sort of crane I'd imagine, if the neighbors would allow yet another piece of heavy equipment shred their driveway on our behalf.
Things shake out that way in Aspen Springs. People take care of each other when they're both building home down miles of mag-chlor dirt road. Past leech-fields and plywood yurts. When their new neighbors haven't quite made their way into a savvy vehicle for mud season.
When they're trying to take the short way around to Home. The route sans mortgage, skip inspection, mitigation, plumbing and electricity. Maybe you sigh and roll your eyes, but you pull them out of the ditch. And if they've got an oven, or after a trip to town, you've greeted them with beer or cookies or help chopping firewood, and plain grungy gratitude. Because we couldn't do it without you.
So the 14-foot wall was successful. Two tries if I remember correctly. I was poised with a two by four, and instructions to wedge it under the cross-brace. After he lifted with a run, sliding his hands down the lumber up overhead. And then a moment to breathe. Under this temporary soapbox structure, one half on the elevated "slab foundation," as in, skids and cement blocks: an impermanent structure. We joked about bolting old wheels and tires into the skids, a stationary wooden six by six axle. You never said I had to prove it could move!
Then I pushed with my unwieldy crutch, and he pushed by hand. We held our breath and the butterflies leapt from stomach to throat and it just worked! And the butterflies subsided in our hearts.
