February 14th began just as any other cold and damp morning in Newbern, Al, but as the day went on it progressively got better (as is to be expected with John and I at the jobsite). We had most of our office crew out at the site to detail the heavy timber frame and to finalize the foundation measurements. Christine even waddled out to the site, gimp knee and all to recount the scaffolding for a third time to make sure that we ordered the correct number for the Church’s new location in Cahawba. It turns out that Cameron CAN count and had the right number the first time. But it was nice to see her out there spending time with the rest of us. The Nicks climbed up on the shoring to measure the arches on the sanctuary so that we could design and build a jig to attach to all of the arches for when the crane comes to lift them out of place. One of the most difficult challenges about lifting out the arches is that the shoring gets in the way of building just a simple jig. We have to get our structural engineer, Joe Farruggia, to check our design so that it doesn’t fail when lifting the heavy arches. Our group of ‘LADIES!!’ (aka ‘Ground Crew’) tagged dovetails, removed the nails from their ‘customers’ (that would be their term for the boards that we remove from the church and take to them). Erin’s parents dropped by the site since they had left the great state of Texas (all Texans will inform you of how great their state is) to visit Birmingham. Surprisingly enough, Jim and Judy didn’t feel the need to discuss the greatness of Texas. I let Judy wear my construction helmet while she ventured around the site and Jim and I talked about construction, our summer plans, making a living in Canada, and how his ranch creations are similar to the hay bale art that we saw last week on Dick’s field trip to St. John’s on the Prairie Episcopal Church. Great times were had by all… I always have a good time. At some point in there we all went to go eat a five star meal at Mutt’s Pizza, “It’s some more pizza!” Cameron hit a bird with her car and it was intentional. The bird did not survive. Johnny Parker came out to help us today and went up with John in the boom lift to remove the dovetails from the alter arches. With all of the crazy antics that went on today you would think that I didn’t do a thing. Not true. John and I went up in the boom lift to remove the ridge beam from the alter area. After we had removed all of the nails from one end of the ridge beam everyone wanted to break for lunch. Reluctantly we complied, but as the lift ran out of gas and shut down right as we got to the ground we realized that this was a blessing. This is where I should have mentioned that we ate lunch at Mutt’s. During lunch the sky cleared and the sun offered some relief from the cold air. Soon after returning from lunch John and I got back into the lift and removed all of the nails from the other end of the beam and delivered another ‘customer’ to the ‘LADIES!!’ After that the next step was for Johnny to rig up a method to attach half of an alter arch to the lift bucket without anyone inside. The half arch is much larger than any of the beams that we had attempted to move up to that point so we wanted to keep things safe. I would just like to say that it was a success. Fuller and Jamie worked in the office today. They say they ordered equipment… I don’t really know. They talked on the phone a lot. Fuller claims that she is keeping the whole operation going. No one believes her. I guess we’ll see next week if the crane comes.

Finally, what would Valentine’s day be without a Rural Studio secret Valentine’s gag gift swap? As for what the gifts were, well sometimes you just have to say, “What happens at Rural Studio, stays at Rural Studio.”