Saturday, December 31, 2011

Moving right along...



We have a house!  Well, at least a basement, floor, and exterior walls!  The basement went in on a rainy Thursday.  It was a lot of fun to watch the crane set the walls.  It took the truck more time to get up our road than it did for the crew to set the walls.  The basement floor was poured the following week.

This past week, Dad came down to help Dan frame up as much as they could.  They were able to get the floor on and frame up all the exterior walls.  This was quite a feat for two guys in one week - especially with some weather issues.  We had a contractor out today to see about setting the trusses for us.  That would be impossible for just two guys! 

Sorry for the lack of updates lately!  We have been super busy with all this house stuff :-)  I hope to start blogging on a more regular basis in the new year - expanding the blog into homesteading topics.  It will be fun for me to use this as a creative outlet until we are moved in to the new house - which we are aiming for the end of May! 

We wish you all a very happy and healthy 2012!

Sunday, December 11, 2011

One big hole!

Yep, that's the hole for our foundation!  Such a great surprise on Saturday - we had to meet our foundation man (FM) at 8 AM (although he didn't show up until 8:45) to discuss moving our house.  Due to the variance in the grade, the walls for the garage wouldn't be below grade.  Sooo, we ended up moving the house 30 feet to make it work out better.  We asked FM what the plans were and he indicated his guys were on their way with the excavator.  Much to our delight, we got to watch most of the hole being dug.  Kole was in H E A V E N!  He had so much fun!  The plan is to install the walls this week, plumbing this weekend, pouring concrete next week, and hopefully framing things up the week after Christmas!

We have water, too!  And Kole gave up his binky without a fight!  What a wonderful week it has been for us :-)

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Where, oh where, could our water be?

Water - it's what has been on our mind all week.  The rain and drilling our well.  On Monday, things worked out better than planned, as the dozer was delivered for starting on the foundation.  The foundation contractor told our well guy to use it as he needed it.   They got the rig into place and the drilling commenced.  He hit water at 100 feet and 200 feet.   There was a problem, though.  Apparently there was some sort of horizontal crevice that the water was just leaking out of.  Ugh.  And unfortunately, we still had to pay for the drilling although there was no water to show for it.

Dan and the well guy got the truck moved out.  The well guy and his wife came back out to look for water.  They use an old method called dowsing, or divining.  , or water witching.  A y-shaped piece of wood (in their case, a piece of wild cherry) is held while the holder walks across where there is suspected water.  The rod, or stick, will "bend" towards the water.  They found a vein of water running across a lower meadow.  This is approximately 200 feet below where he drilled before, so we are hoping we avoid the crevice issue.  The dozer was utilized to build a road so that the drilling rig could easily get into position.  The well guy needed to fix a piece on his rig and plans to be out there tomorrow afternoon.  Keep your fingers crossed we find water!

Kole and I visited the Winter Farmer's Market today.  We got some meat for the month - we have committed to buying only local meat.  I even put in an order for a local ham for Christmas.  We think Kole just went through a growth spurt, on top of cutting his canines.  He all of a sudden seems taller and is much more pleasant to be around.  He was a bear this week (hence my lack of blogging!).  We are going to go to a local Christmas tree farm next weekend to get a real tree for our little apartment.  Kole's final Christmas present was ordered tonight and everyone else is done.  Christmas cards will go out tomorrow.  Cookies will be baked soon.  Oh, yea, and hopefully a house will be under roof!