Ok, well, that's about all the "stuff" that has to be brought in.  Click here to see the beginning of REAL construction!
And things start arriving!
12/23/02

Hubby and I got up early today to be at the farm around 8:00 to be prepared to wait for the logs (between 8 and 10). We ran a little late, and got a call from the WONDERFUL woman who bailed us out for today (and MAY be our new builder, don't know yet) at 8:20 saying "I just got here, the trucks have been here for a few minute" ACK!    So we get there and YUP, 3 trucks with our house on them were there.  They tried to get in the same way the shed delivery guys did, and the first truck, the one with the majority of the logs on it, got stuck, and the 2nd truck had to pull him out.  Sooooo, we met our back door neighbor REAL fast - SUPER nice guy, he's got a loonnngggg gravel drive that backs up to our property, which he uses as a turnaround for his 18-wheeler which he drives for a living. OMG what a nice guy - "Sure you can have them come in my drive and get up there, noooo problem!" Thank you Lord! So they all get up there (one getting stuck once, but he was able to back all the way back down and get a good running start again (do you KNOW what it's like to see an 18-wheeler get stuck not once but twice?    )

The rented-in-a-hurry forklift gets there just as the last truck is being unwrapped and ready for off-loading. Wonder Woman (WW) starts unloading. And of course, THIS can't go right either  One of the tires, the BIG tractor-type tires, is low.  She gets quite a bit done, but then one really heavy bundle just does the tire in - nearly flat.   Yep, you guessed it, Mr Trucker to the rescue again, with his heavy duty air compressor     And that is all we need to get the rest of the trucks unloaded and sent on their merry way. WW helps us inventory things, as we had NO idea what some things were. Do YOU know what 23/32nd OSB is?   We do now!

Our shed that was delivered Friday is the storage for the windows and doors. Mind you, these are prehung w and d, and by GAWD a 6'0" x 6'8" twin window is HEAVY!!!!   A 6'0"x6'8" french door isn't much lighter. And there about 100 packages of shingles, each weighing something like 80lb that have to be put in there - fortunately WW was able to put them into the shed by the pallet so Brian only had to restack them from there, not from outside.

By this time it's 2:00, and Brian and I are FAMISHED. So we take an hour for lunch, head to Lowe's to get more plastic sheeting and duct tape for wrapping all these bundles, some NO TRESPASSING ( ) signs, nails, etc to post, and back we go at about 4:15 or so. We worked until 7:00, mostly in the dark, wrapping and taping all these bundles. There are 20 log bundles alone! We didn't get 6 of them wrapped. I think we wrapped around 25 bundles. Went through about 180 yards of duct tape and maybe 300 feet of plastic sheeting. We still have 6 log bundles and maybe 6 other bundles to wrap tomorrow before it starts raining 

I have a HUGE headache from being in the wind and sun all day, my feet are KILLING me, even my fingertips are sore  Gee, can't wait to see what I feel like tomorrow!!!

You know they say things happen for a reason - thank GOD I didn't get any pasture planted in Oct/Nov. To have done that, and in the last 3 days seen trucks coming and going and digging huge ruts, I would have just sat down and cried 

It's all so real now, we are SO excited!
12/25/02

This afternoon as we headed to my Dad's for Xmas there and dinner, we decided to stop by and see how things fared overnight. It was REALLY REALLY REALLY windy here all day, gusts to 50 mph, regular in the 25+ range  We walk towards the crest of the hill and about 3/4 of the bundles we'd wrapped Monday were unwrapped, their plastic wrap (duct tape still intact) were plastered against the line of trees a couple hundred yards away.    *sigh* what can you do. It wasn't raining, it was nice and windy, drying out any of the bundles that got wet before we could cover them in the rain Tuesday morning, so we just went on to Dad's. We went back out there today and spent about 2.5 hours RE-covering them, hopefully better this time. Are things going to start getting better???
12/20/02

We purchased a 12x20 Dutch Barn from Dutch Barns (duh) to use as our hay storage shed.  In the meantime though it's being used for other sorts of storage. 

When the shed arrived, it had rained the night before. It was THEIR decision to bring it anyway, and THEIR decision on which route to use to get the truck/shed onto the property. Anyway, they get this running start to go up a little incline that also is around little curve. I'm standing there watching and out comes a few unintentional explitives as I SWEAR I thought the entire truck/shed was going to tip over onto its side    Yep, it's stuck but good. These guys apparently aren't all that concerned ("We've gotten stuck worse before")  and set about getting themselves unstuck. This entails aluminum runners put under the truck, in front of and behind the tires, them getting under the back of the bed of the truck where I again SWEAR that thing was going to tip back and squash them  I can't watch, so I go see what the ex-builder is doing marking out the house corners. All of a sudden (many many MANY minutes later) I hear a cheer and here the truck comes across the field and before I could say boo, they stop  But wait, you're facing the wrong direction for the shed!   So of course, yes, they are stuck again, so many MANY more minutes go by with them again using the alum runners and getting UNDER the truck - runners in front, move truck 8', put runners in front of truck, 8' more, you get the picture  Finally they get unstuck enough to round the corner and make a return pass. We didn't get the shed facing exactly the way I wanted, but I figure it's close enough.

They get the shed off, sitting on the blocks, when CRRRAASSHHHHH!!!! Huh? The stack of cinder blocks, tied down at the front of the bed, untied to put blocks under the shed, come crashing down as the bed is tilted the last bit to unload the shed. I swear to God I thought that stack was going to take off someone's hand  Fortunately nobody got hurt "Wow, that's the first time THAT'S happened to us!"  The 2 guys then work to jack up sides and ends to level the thing and stack the cinder blocks under it. One guy is a little skinny thing, and he's hanging out there on the end of the jack trying for all his little weight to get the thing to crank down it was SO freakin' funny! I hope I got a picture of that.  (update, nope, the stupid little camera we had that day took NO pictures so :( :( :( )



1/13/03

Well poo, the pictures I thought I'd have for the above synopsis don't exist :(  We used a stupid freebie camera as I'd forgotten my good one grrrrr and none of the pictures came out.  *sigh* par for the course!

Anyway, here are some recent updates.  Our basement has been dug and most of the gravel put in.  There is a HUGE mound of dirt out there now, would be perfect for some movie producer to come film cars taking a jump off it!  You'll see what I mean.
Here's that mondo mound of dirt.  Can you see how red the soil is?  It's nearly blinding in the sunlight!
Here's a view looking up our driveway towards the above mound.  The basement is to the right, the barn will be to the left.
Here is looking out the driveway the other way.  The field across the "road", which is actually our neighbor's driveway, belongs to our neighbor and will likely never sell.  The light gray house whose top you can see is further down our street, and supposedly belongs to a vet.  They have several horses.
I stood at the top  of the mound of dirt and took these next 3 pictures.  The first one is our basement.  The second is to the right of that, showing where the barn will go (to the right of where the last little cedar tree is). The third, taken to the right of the 2nd one, is of Brian and his mom taking measurements to see how far it is from the back of the septic field to the woods. 
2/3/2003

Yes indeedy folks, progress is being made, the basement walls are going up! After one truck breaking down last Wednesday, one truck getting stuck, being too wet Thursday, and using the crane truck to pull the stuck truck out today, progress was finally made!

We watched them check all the measurements and hook up the first wall, bring it over, put it down, and secure it - very cool. We were a little surprised at how far out of the ground it stood - probably a good 12" or 18" more than we'd imagined. Means we'll have just a few more steps out the back than we'd envisioned! At 400lb a foot of wall, we have 66,000 pounds of basement wall being put in today   

But of course, just like EVERYthing else in this project, this couldn't go quite right either. The 2 windows on the back wall were supposed to be 4'0" x 2'0". That's width x height. Well, we watched this wall being swung over and down, and sure enough, the window is 2'0" x 4'0"    *SIGH* Our rep makes a quick call to the plant to discuss why this is so  HE knew they were supposed to be horizontal and not vertical windows. Turns out he'd written the measurements backwards  Soooooo.....

This might have turned out for the best, FOR ONCE!!!!! Since the walls are sitting higher than we'd thought, vertical actually will work a bit better, and for no charge they will cut up to about another 8" on either side of the opening so we could have a more square window for even more light. LIght is important, as there will be a deck over that wall too. We will probably end up with 3'0' x 4'6" windows there, which should let in lots of light, even under the deck.

So,  progress has been made!   Pictures follow:
In the following pictures, the top left is looking across the street at one of the trucks carrying our basement walls.  It is sitting at the edge of that field, stuck in the mud.  The crane truck had to pull it out.   The top right picture is the one truck with the walls and the crane truck - biiiiigggg crane.  Bottom left is a picture from the top of our "Red Launch Ramp" that you saw above.  Great for taking aerial shots!  Bottom right is Brian and our Superior Walls sales rep getting out 2x4s to help in proping up the walls while they were being set.
It was a beautiful day for setting the walls.  Here's looking up at the top of the crane, with the hooks all ready to go get the first panel!
In the above 3 pictures, the top left shows the crane and the braces that come out to support the vehicle.  Not sure if you can see well, but the wheels aren't touching the ground anymore!  The top right shows one of the guys measuring to make sure everything is exact.  Bottom left is the crane operator cleaning his windshield - guess he figured he'd better be able to see where everything and everyone was!
In these 3 pictures, the top right is the crane going and getting the first panel.  How exciting!  Bottom right is the first panel swinging across to the site.  Bottom left is that first panel being set into place.  These guys were very accurate, it was amazing!
Here's the 2nd panel being set in.  The time between the first panel being picked up and the 2nd being set in was probably 3-4 minutes.  Told you they were fast!
For the 4 pictures below, the top left is on the other side of the first few panels.  The blue stuff is 1" Dow styrofoam which is glued to the concrete walls.  This gives the walls a default R5 rating.  The wall footing is built in, so no need to pour an extra footing, just set it on prepared gravel.  The footing is 10" wide.  The wall itself is 6" wide - pretty darn thick.  The wall studs are already there, as you can see.  All we have to do (yeah, right, "all we have to do") is staple in the fiberglass insulation and lay the drywall on top, and the walls are good to go for finishing.  The dropped ceiling will complate the basement.  The top right picture is again taken from our Red Launch Ramp, looking down at the completed wall set.  Looks pretty small from way up there...  Bottom left is from the garage side, looking in (obviously).  Bottom right is looking more directly inside from the garage area.  The far bump-out will be our breakfast nook on the 1st floor.
Top left, in the pictures below, is looking up the driveway.  I know the lighting is terrible, but that was looking into the sun and I need to figure out how to get the light better that way.  Top right, we have Brian "driving" in to the garage and putting on the brake :)    Bottom left is a picture Brian took while standing on the far wall, looking down at me.  This finally, I think, gives you a sense of how big the basement seems, all empty and unfinished.
Next step - the builder will send in her framer and we'll get started on the rest of the house! 
2/14/2003

Our well got dug today, yay!  They got 10 gallons a minute at 200', which the guy said was excellent and in his opinion would never dry up, even with droughts like we've been having, or worse.  Seeing as how he could have said "I'd recommend you go to 15 gal/minute, or to 300'" or something, which would be extra $$, I guess I trust his judgment since he's one of the best around!  They'll come back next week after this weekend of weather which has been described as going to be rain, hard rain, rain and sleet, rain and snow, hard freezing rain, rain :\ :\ :\ from now (Friday) through Monday.  Wonderful.  We really need some more rain.  I just love walking around the red clay above with 15lb of it stuck to the bottom of my boots.  *sigh*
Ok, well, that's about all the "stuff" that has to be brought in.  Click here to see the beginning of REAL construction!