Another tenant has moved in.

Paul prepares to climb the rear lifting pole we stood up last week to remove the guy ropes that we'll need to lift the front pole.

Paul hooks the upper pulley block from the lifting pole to his harness for a little added safety...

...while Matt rigs up a safety brake on his fall line.

Paul begins his ascent while Matt keeps his fall line tight.

Approaching the ropes tied around the pole.

Paul keeps a tight grip on the pole with his legs.

Untying the guy ropes.

Paul maneuvers over to the RPSL...

...where he taps a nail in the front center of the pole...

...and wraps one end of a string around it. This string will be stretched across to the front RPSL to find the center line for the ridge pole to follow.

Coming back down.

Earlier in the morning, Jeff had brought over a fairly straight log off the racks and set it here in front of the house to be stood up as our second ridge pole lifting pole. Here, we've got the block and tackle rigged up.

At the top of the front wall, the lower block gets chained to the RPSL.

Looking down from the wall next to the lower block. Paul is tying the left and right guy ropes - this time a little lower so they're easier to take back off.

Out front, looking back up at the lower block and RPSL.

The guys ropes go up to the top corners of the walls, through single pulleys, and back down to the lowest overdangles. Here, Matt is wrapping the end of the west guy rope around the overdangle for a brake.

Paul is tightening up the east guy rope. Jeff is on the tractor, ready to start backing up and lift the pole.

Before they began, the dirt under the butt end needed to be dug as a small channel and act as a guide for the bottom.

The lifting started off very well except for one thing...

...because of the way the upper block was oriented, the pole kept wanting to pitch toward the west.

Paul and Matt together were not able to keep enough pull on the guy rope to get it to swing back toward the east, so we hooked up one end of a chain come-along to the other bottom overdangle...

...and the other end to the guy rope.

Matt works the come-along to pull the log east.

They pulled the log past center on purpose, so the log's tendency to pitch west will bring it back to where we want it.

It worked! The pole is pretty much back to where we want it. It is basically vertical in this picture, but the entire pole needs to move closer to the RPSL so that it appears to be beside it.

Looking north from inside the house. The lifting pole is almost tight to the wall.

At the south RPSL, Paul ties off the center guy rope. Using this center rope, we were able to pull the pole the rest of the way up by hand. We strapped it to the wall and called it a day.

Here's much of the process on video.
(click the image to play video)

Stephen joined his daddy and grampa for a lesson in hammering.

"You gotta choke up on it a little."