"Woe is me if I cover the truth in silence."
- Pope St. Agatho
In late summer of 2005 we began putting together the timber frame roof of the church. The timbers are white oak, twelve inches square, with six inch square purlins connecting the trusses together, and four inch by six inch rafters laid over the purlins.
The main trusses were assembled on the ground, with the braces and top chords affixed to the bottom chord entirely by oak pegs. The trusses were then lifted by crane and placed on the walls of the church, and braced until the purlins could be installed to attach the trusses one to another. Then the rafters were attached to the purlins, and the whole thing covered by tongue-and-groove white oak boards. The insulation is provided by six inches of polyisocyanurate foam, covered by three-quarter inch plywood and slate roof tiles.
The slate on the roof is actually a man-made product, designed to look like natural slate, and is completely made of recycled rubber. 
Unlike natural slate it will never crack, and has very high impact and wind resistance.
All the while we were working on the roofs and exterior stone work, we were taking advantage of rainy days to install the heating system in the monastery. All of the rooms have PEX piping buried in the slabs which when filled with warm water turns the entire floor into a heating panel, radiating warmth evenly throughout the room.
The system uses warm water (averaging 115 degrees F) rather than very hot water, so after the water heats the floor, and returns to the boiler room, the boiler need only inject a small amount of very hot water into the loop to bring it back up to temperature, so it can return to heat the floor again.
Among the many advantages of this system is that it needs only a relatively small boiler to efficiently reheat the water returning from a large number of rooms. The rooms have no drafts or cold spots, 
the air in the house does not become excessively dry during the winter, and there is no ductwork to harbor dust or allergens. Also, we found it is the only way to economically heat rooms with very high ceilings, as in the church, since we are warming people and objects, rather than air.
In 2006 we began to lay the stone for the cloister columns and arches. There are seven arches on each of the four sides of the cloister, with a stone bench in between the columns in all but the middle bay, which opens onto the cloister garden. Gravel paths will cut across the cloister in the shape of a cross, meeting in the middle at a fountain. The garden will be planted with aromatic herbs and flowers whose fragrance can be enjoyed throughout the building, since nearly every room looks out upon the cloister.
The origins of the monastic cloister can be traced to the peristylium of the Roman house, which was the kitchen garden, incorporated within the house itself. The cloister plays such a central role in the life of a monastery, that its very name has been taken to describe the entire monastic complex. Its basic function is to provide an open garden within the protection of the monastery walls, and to connect the different common rooms on the main floor.
When the weather is fine the cloister garden is an ideal place for reading and recreation, for private contemplation and liturgical processions, as well as for classes in the monastery school. When the weather is not agreeable, the covered cloister walk still allows us to take our exercise and enjoy the fresh air.