Last weekend, we had the pleasure of going to a house-raising. Our friend, who designs and builds traditional timber-framed homes, had taken several months to design and pre-cut the entire frame for their new house. They invited all their friends to come for one day to help "raise" the frame. Imagine 25 people working in tandem lifting, pulling on ropes, pounding sledgehammers and levering prybars to move huge wooden posts and beams - a job for which they usually hire cranes! And to top it off, the frame itself is held together with not a single nail. It all fits together like a highly-elaborate Tinkertoy, secured with wooded pegs that are pounded in with hammers.
