More Mud!

The rain keeps coming and so does the mud. The weather held us up for a few days,but Larry was back in action today. He is pretty much finished with his part of the job. The basement excavation is essentially finished. The septic tanks are in and they just finished laying out the water line, despite being chased around by a black snake. The driveway now has gravel, but we need a few heavy trucks to drive on it before it is ready for the van. He has a bit of finish work to complete on the culvert, but soon I will be cruising up my very own driveway!

The family is still enjoying exploring the site, especially the hounds. Check out Jack in the dozer. The other photo is Becky (Larry's wife) working the backhoe. She jumps right in and works with him, which is pretty funny (can't you just see me ?). They have been an excellent team. I would recommend them to anyone.

Cross your fingers and we may have a footer poured by next week!

Basement

They are making progress on the basement. Larry has dug about 5 of the 8 feet down that is needed. Jack loves it because it is his own personal rock wall. He loves to go to the property and climb. What could be more fun for an 8 year old boy than being surrounded by rocks and dirt? Chloe, the basset, also got in the action by literally jumping off the top edge which is almost 6 ft high. She had to have flown 10 feet out before landing and rolling. She came out without even a scrape. That dog is wild. The long rectangular hole is the finished product for the septic tanks. The other photo is the view from what will be our front porch.

Mud Wrestling

The rain came, but that didn't hold up Larry too much. The pile of #2 gravel was delivered and is ready to be spread. He started digging out the basement (dozer photo) and the hole to drop the septic tank (see backhoe photo) . There is mud EVERYWHERE. The good news is that there is not very much rock coming up (yet:) ). The weather will be clearing tomorrow, so things should continue to move along. On a non-digging note, we dropped off the picture of the pileated woodpecker to the local wood artisan today, so he can start our first 'commissioned' piece.

Movin' Earth

Larry has been busy these last few days. We now have a driveway cut with minimal tree loss. Gravel is on the way. We're not able to drive up it yet, but at least we can walk to the top of the property without hiking gear. The lagoon pit is much larger than I expected, but the driveway is a lot less steep than I feared. When we pulled up the entrance this evening, our friend the doe was standing in the driveway waiting for us. Guess she knows our floor plan is called the 'Doe Run'.

Let the Games Begin!

We are ready to get started! Today we met with our builder, Terry Wise and the excavator, Larry Caudill to stake out the house and plan for the driveway, basement, and lagoon. These pictures show the property 'pre-dozer', with views from the road, the top of the ridge looking out (where the house will sit), and toward the back. It is beautiful land, but I admit I will be happy to see some piles of dirt soon.