#5 Update Late Sept and October 2013
Dig a little deeper
In September, cinder block walls were going up and the pallets kept coming and coming off the block truck. I think we had a little over 4000 of the big 12 inch cinder block delivered.
October crept up on us quickly.
I had the sinking feeling that we had begun to build too late in the year.
Let me repeat myself...I had a feeling we had begun building too late in the year.
Remember back in school when we learned about the pioneers? I remember learning that many pioneers left the civilization in the East too late in the year and ended up suffering greatly. The met snowstorms and blinding blizzards on the Oregon Trail. Thousands of souls never made it to the great American West.
I told Perry that I felt like we were on the Oregon Trail and we had left too late.
He just stared at me.
The crew at the work site were having some good weather to work in but I knew it wouldn't last too long. The leaves were beginning to change their colors here in central West Virginia and there was a slight nip in the evening air.
October is also my busy season. My occupation as a ghost tour owner takes me on the road alot and October is my "Christmas retails season" if you know what I mean. I would be gone alot and progress would continue while I was away. Perry had warned me if I was gone too often, a wall may go up where Sherri did want a wall to go up at so I knew things may change in the design in my absence.
I was off to hold a overnight ghosthunt in this building in Ohio as work on the house would continue. I hated being away but was always thrilled to get back and see the progress!
James injury to his leg last month was nasty. His lower leg was basically split open and bone was exposed in last months accident. He was staying home for awhile which meant Andy would be solo unless he could bring in some help, which he did.
The 4000 plus blocks were going in one at a time. And what a job that was1 12 inch blocks get pretty heavy.
Dig a little deeper
In September, cinder block walls were going up and the pallets kept coming and coming off the block truck. I think we had a little over 4000 of the big 12 inch cinder block delivered.
There were pallets of the blocks sitting at our "staging area" and a few of them were taken up to the house site as these were.
My son Mason helped out when he could. It was always great to see him work outside and not be on his Xbox or laptop. :-)
We had a truck loaded with 13 pallets and another truck loaded with 14 pallets deliver in the month of September. We were busy. Not as busy as the block layers though! I did not envy them one bit.
The footers had been poured and the outline of my new home was starting to become a reality! What you see here is the outline of the root cellar that is located in the basement.
The first corner of the home had gone in and we were making progress.
We suffered breakdowns of equipment and other events. (Such as Mother Nature)
Mr Engineer Husband proceeded on and on through it all.
This was one issue. The excavator needed new batteries.
Problem solved!
Then something else happened. Not sure....but it didn't look good from my end. LOL I learned that sometimes it is best to not ask questions.
Whatever it was, it got fixed and we started at it again.
Then another issues happened and I thought "OH NO!" when my son was called in to the scene. Using modified and well thought out "redneck" engineering, they used my sons jeep battery to jump a fuel dispenser to pump gas into the excavator which was running low. Problem solved again!
THINGS WERE GOING WELL AGAIN UNTIL MR. ENGINEER HUSBAND SAID WE WERE GOING TO DO SOME DIGGING AND PUT IN OUR OWN WATER LINE.
Say what?
Now remember something here...we are not dealing with a simple 25 ft ditch dug with a trenching machine or anything like that.
We had about 1600 feet to dig to connect our water lines together.
Yep...1600 feet.
This photo helps illustrate what I knew would be pure hell.
Sure, Perry would use some equipment to dig that big old trench, but you-know-who was to get in the ditch and connect stuff together. Oh yeah, I couldn't wait.
(can you hear the sarcasm?)
There was no snow- it didn't look like this photo at all. Temp were in the 80s and it was a warm, muggy few days that we had to dig and get that water line in.
Fun Fun Fun
So we laid out the water line and this black drainage pipe that the water line was going to be put into. Ok.
Something had to be put in here and pulled through? Are you kidding me?
That was a new detail for me. Great!
Perry proceeded to have the hard back breaking job of sitting in an excavator and digging through rocks and hard soil.
He dug and dug.
Of course we didn't use a simple little trench digger. Go big or go home, I always say and that's what he did. (sarcasm again) Why dig a little 12 inch wide ditch when you can go 3 feet wide?
We were close to getting it all dug up and I was overjoyed. My job was to run along side the ditch (gracefully i my hot pink rubber boots) and pull back big rocks. (remember I love rocks?) Well, these pretty much sucked. They weren't pretty or nice and were muddy and awkward.
Until.....the earth began to shake.
Yep. We were digging into darkness. I pulled my trusty Jon Deere Gator into position and aimed my headlights so Mr. Engineer Husband could dig .
He got a hold of something that made me yell "Save that rock!"
It was a big one.
And he did save it for me, to answer your question. It was so large that we could only lay it along the driveway about 5 feet from where it came from.
It now sits there proudly and I have almost driven into it on 2 occasion so far.
So far....
And then there was this one.
This one fit in my gator. Barely.
Remind me to put more air in my tires next time.
So now started the big process of getting down in the ditch and snaking the water line (nice pretty blue water lines I might add) into this black drainage pipe.
1600 feet of it.
After that, the pretty blue water line didn't look so pretty to me anymore!
The Evil Blue Water Line being unrolled and ready for me to snake it thru the black pipe. Again.
Probably the worst section I had to do was this spot. Yep. Straight up hill. That's Perry walking with a tape measure to see how many more feet we had to buy of that nasty, evil, blue water line.
Here's a shot of Perry as he dug that section of hillside. It made me nervous when he actually seat belted himself into the equipment.
THAT makes me nervous cuz I know it's gonna be steep. I watched from on top of the house site.
Just an hour or two later...he was almost done!
But my son and I...well our work continued on in that hot, dusty trench. I remember commenting to Mason that I know understood how soldiers felt who had to stay in foxholes. UGH! We cleaned rocks, twigs and bugs out of our socks and underwear that night.
Mason worked hard.
He was going to be leaving for Navy boot camp so we thought that might help him bulk up. (aren't we considerate?!)
One terrible casualty is that my new french manicure took the heat that weekend and my thumb got squashed between two rocks. Phew! What a girl does to help out!
We finally finished and Perry got to put all of the dirt back and we now had a water line up to the house site and electrical conduit in the same ditch. Woohoo!
Meanwhile, back at the house site, work was progressing.
The basement was taking shape. I could actually start to see how marge (or small) the rooms would be. The basement was to have a media room, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a small darkroom for me to develop B&W in, a combination kitchen/dining/living area, a root cellar and a 3 bay garage.
I told Perry once again how it seemed...well...kinda small.
Once again, he glared at me and rolled his eyes.
October crept up on us quickly.
I had the sinking feeling that we had begun to build too late in the year.
Let me repeat myself...I had a feeling we had begun building too late in the year.
Remember back in school when we learned about the pioneers? I remember learning that many pioneers left the civilization in the East too late in the year and ended up suffering greatly. The met snowstorms and blinding blizzards on the Oregon Trail. Thousands of souls never made it to the great American West.
I told Perry that I felt like we were on the Oregon Trail and we had left too late.
He just stared at me.
The crew at the work site were having some good weather to work in but I knew it wouldn't last too long. The leaves were beginning to change their colors here in central West Virginia and there was a slight nip in the evening air.
October is also my busy season. My occupation as a ghost tour owner takes me on the road alot and October is my "Christmas retails season" if you know what I mean. I would be gone alot and progress would continue while I was away. Perry had warned me if I was gone too often, a wall may go up where Sherri did want a wall to go up at so I knew things may change in the design in my absence.
I was off to hold a overnight ghosthunt in this building in Ohio as work on the house would continue. I hated being away but was always thrilled to get back and see the progress!
The Ohio State Reformatory
James injury to his leg last month was nasty. His lower leg was basically split open and bone was exposed in last months accident. He was staying home for awhile which meant Andy would be solo unless he could bring in some help, which he did.
The 4000 plus blocks were going in one at a time. And what a job that was1 12 inch blocks get pretty heavy.
Perry and Sherri
October's weather was great. But it's my busy time of year with haunted tours.
I was home for 2 days and back off on the road again for another ghosthunt.
When I got back home this time, oh wow, what a difference at the house site!
Most of the media floor had been poured. We had decided on 3 different levels of floor so that we could have theater type seats. What fun! I guess at the rate we were going we could watch movies with our grand kids. (we don't have any yet)
Here I am in the root cellar. I wanted lots of headroom so we decided to make the basement 10 feet high.
This is the progress made in mid October. Leaves were off the trees and I was afraid we would see an early snow. It just didn't seem like we could move fast enough.
The bathroom in the apartment area downstairs had been plumbed and water was hooked up and running. We had some pressure issues since the town water tower is pretty much at the same elevation that our house sits at. They bumped up the pressure and we had water!
Concrete continued to be poured in October. We just had to watch the temperatures.
We decided that since this house would have 3 levels, it would be wise to plan for a small elevator. Andy is standing in the bottom of the shaft. It had to be 1 foot deeper than the basement floor.
It was interesting to watch a loaded concrete truck climb that driveway.
I never envied his job!
The craziness of October was almost over. I had about 30 haunted events planned in OH and WV and was so very glad when it all came to an end.
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| Looking at the garage side in |
It seemed like we had hit a smooth patch for once.
James' leg had healed up from that nasty accident. Thank God! We had plenty of money set aside for materials and labor. The water and electric line had been put in and the weather had been good.
What else could happen? The Gods were smiling down upon us.
Or were they???
