all tucked in ...

Yesterday we headed over to Lowe's to get some plywood to enclose our 9' X 17' carport where the Galaxie now lives and make it a weatherproof shelter from the elements. Along with the materials needed for the carport we got some fertilizer for my hops.

Upon getting home, I set about getting the boards screwed onto the carport. I figured I would enlist Melissa's help to hold the boards while I secured them into the galvanized steel beams with self-tapping screws.

I removed the bottom row of the screws holding the aluminum roof sheeting with the intent of stuffing the top of the plywood under the sheeting to prevent rain from seeping in between the plys and eventually warping or rotting them. The space between the ground and the "roof" of the carport was about 56", so this entailed supporting the board off the ground while trying to get it anchored in.

This was no easy task. I really could only use my foot to help "lever" it in place as both of my hands were needed to screw the board in. However, Melissa had both hands and her feet, but still was mostly unable to keep it steady long enough to get the screw started in the steel. The board was dropped, lowered, moved, etc. waaayy too many times but eventually we got two boards in (luckily only four were needed) so were halfway done.

We moved to the other side of the carport and the board was dropped squarely on my toes. That was it! It was 85*+ outside and I am dripping sweat from every pore on my body and I just ... blew ... my .... top. I very unpolitely told Melissa to go back inside and that I would just do it myself.

Me and my big mouth and piss-poor attitude! I had NO idea *how* I was going to do it alone, we had enough trouble when both of us was working on it -- HTF am I going to do this?

I got a jack out of the garage that has a little indention in it which was about perfect for the edge of plywood to rest in. I brought the jack up to the right height and was able to hold it steady, once aligned, just long enough to get a screw in it. Then level it up and secure it. I repeated the process for the last board and it was finally done.

I still had to put up a tarp on each end, but figured I was spent enough and would tackle that today instead. I put all the tools up, spread some fertilizer on the hops and watered them, took a well-needed shower, and finished the night off with a few beers. One of which, was a Three Floyd's Brewery Alpha King clone.

I had never had this before but the recipe looked really good and the balance between hops and malt was about dead center. Upon tasting, it was every bit as balanced as I could expect. It is the most balanced beer I have brewed to date, and it was mighty tasty too.

I WILL be brewing this again and changing ... *nothing*! Man, it was good! I immediately put a case of it in the fridge to stop it from aging anymore.

Today, I decided to "finish" the carport. All I needed to do was to secure the ends of the plywood sheets as they were a bit wobbly at the ends since the plywood was 16' long and the carport was 17' so the plywood wouldn't go from end to end and was secured about 3' from the end of the sheet. So I screwed a "nailer" in between the posts and screwed the plywood to it.

About halfway through this process, the sky opened up and it rained ... HARD. It was a solid sheet of rain for most of this storm and dropped a LOT of rain in a short time. I just stood in the garage and watched it. The cars got washed, my hops got some rain and the fertilizer probably got worked into the soil really well as a result. YAAAAYYY!

The rain finally quit and I finished up the work on the carport. The Galaxie is now safely tucked away as you can see ...