A Good Butt Kickin'

Tonight I'm feeling all of my 46 years, plus about 15 of somebody else's. The plan this weekend was to dig a simple trench from the garage to the house to bury the electrical feed. No big deal, right?

Well . . ummmm, BEE-EYE-GEE DEE-YALL, as it turns out. I hit lotsa rock and my suspicion that our 1929 house sits so high out of the ground because nobody wanted to dig any deeper into the rocky soil is hereby confirmed. I understand the concept of "breaking rocks" so much better tonight. Because in many cases it is literally easier to break them, than to dig them out. And believe me when I tell you that it takes some force to break them. Flat, nasty bastards that are all interlocked and seem to have the will to stay put and discourage any attempts otherwise. I have a little will of my own, though. And a bunch of rock trash talk, apparently.

And even though I can no longer lift my lead arms past about shoulder height and the trench is not complete and my back will be locked up in the morning, I feel a sense of satisfaction about swinging a pick all weekend. Serious hard work, man. We've become so mechanized, but hard-core labor is what built our country and all the great infrastructure we enjoy (think railroads, for e.g.), and there are so many people that still bust ass on that level every day.

The progress is what it is and it will all work out.

Here's this weekend's pictures, then.

All progress ground to a serious halt over the holiday week. Something had to happen tonight.

There was some extra concrete left over after pouring the garage skirt and so the contactor offered to replace some decaying sections of the dilapidated driveway. I dislocated my shoulder as I raised my arms in celebration. Tonight it was time to haul off the old, broken chunks of concrete and put the driveway back in order.

There. All better. (Are these some great night-time pictures, or what?)

I'm feeling gloriously white trash. I have no 'concrete' plans for this pile. Get it? Seriously funny stuff. I crack myself up sometimes.

Inheritance

We're on a pretty tight budget so we're rolling up our sleeves. The contractor's done. From here on out this baby is ours. Yikes.

Contractor Home Stretch

"woof woof, woof woof woof, woof woof"

A dog walks into the post office and asks how much a telegram costs. The guy says "7 words, $1.50."
So the dog says "o.k. send this - woof woof, woof woof woof, woof woof"
the guy says, "you know, for an extra 20 cents you can send 3 more woofs."
The dog says "but that wouldn't make any sense."

A cat walks into the post office and asks how much a telegram costs. The guy says "7 words, $1.50."
So the cat says "OK, send this - meow meow, meow, meow meow, meow meow."
The guy says, "you know, for an extra 20 cents you can send 3 more meows."
The cat stares at him and says, "the dog warned me about you."

Hey! That Looks A Lot Like a Garage!

Patty loves creature comforts and has been pretty excited about the prospect of not having to scrape her windshield this winter. I don't think she knew that she could actually pull into the garage tonight. After she went to bed, I parked her car in there for the first time. She will be a happy camper at 6:30 tomorrow. This construction stuff can be kind of grueling, so you have to have a little fun along the way.

I'm Kinda Wired

Yesterday I shirked all responsibility and went for a bike ride. So when the meeting on today's schedule was cancelled, it was pretty hard to justify any more goofing off. (Dang! Goofing off keeps you young :-) Okay then. The wiring in the furnace room needed to be straightened out and some outlets added in preparation for the new work bench. It's done and I'm a dull boy on this Sunday.

The Construction Food Chain

Progress this week has been wery wery slow. Our contractor has been diverted to his legitimate big time project that is behind schedule, which leaves scarce little time for our peon project. Patience truly is a virtue. Tonight we are celebrating the installation of siding with great enthusiasm.

Everything'll Be OK . . . Truss Me

The Makings of A Garage

Floorage

Before:

After:

Major Progress, Major Fatigue

Mike, Dan and Jake ( . . . at least I think all 3 were here . . . ) totally jammed today. The first pour was yesterday and they stripped the forms, backfilled and brought in and levelled the sand today. The reason for all the rush is that tomorrow looks like the last decent weather for quite a while, and they want to pour the rest of the concrete. Sounds good to me. I couldn't have been more happy with the progress . . . things are really starting to take shape now.

But there was one side effect - today's work exposed some wire that needed to be dealt with, and that meant a long night outside for me.

There, that should do it for the time being.

You have to roll with it, but the super long days are starting to wear me down and I sure could use a rest and a bike ride. Not that I'm complaining - I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity to do what we are doing. I did get to walk through the new doorway, which was

cool.

As a result of the unexpected task, I wasn't able to follow the election coverage, but it seems clear that we have a new Pres! I have great hope for our great country and look forward to the change that has been promised during the campaign and the continued passionate involvement and participation of the citizens who helped make it happen.

Not sure what has happend with blogger tonight. Looks like they have changed the formatting rules and I'm way too tired to figure it out so I guess you get what you get.

Gate-O-Mania

After the tree masacre, we restored the fence pretty quickly, but we put the gates on the back burner. The only reason we would even worry about them would be to keep the dog in the yard, and she's been policing herself just fine. Until lately. We knew it was time to get serious about the gates when we found this in the yard:

The thing is, I don't golf. What this means is that Brandy has been cruising the neighborhood and "borrowing" stuff. She likes toys and dolls the best, so I guess they were in short supply and she settled for sporting goods. Anything round is cool, even if it is hard as rocks.

We can't have her running around, 'cause she'll get shmushed. So it was time to do the gates today.

Patty is becoming quite the carpentress. I'm a little worried that she will start demaning union wages and benefits. I can't afford either.

Got Mud???

Good News, Bad News

Good news is, we are toasty.


Bad news is, our heat bills are about to triple over last year's, since we can't figure out how to turn the damn thing off.

Lotsa Stuff Going On

This bad yellow dude showed up this morning before I left for work. Gnarly diesel ground-shaking noise and smell is a good way to start the day. You know shit is happening.




The scrap pile was toast by the time I got home.

Mike and Dan slammed it on the forms. The depth is due to the fact that you have to get down below the frost line, plus we have some elevation gain to deal with, so that's why the walls look kinda high. Nothing is ever simple.

Since the whole garage construction thing isn't quite doing it for us, we decided we need to install a new furnace. We think we need to update in order to help sell the house, and we decided to do it now so that we can enjoy it (and save a little money!) this winter. If you're like us, you've been through the situation where your house is the best it's ever been right before you sell it. We'd like to enjoy the improvements for a little while this time. As a little incentive, Avista offers $1500 for converting from electric (our current source) to gas - I was pretty amazed. The contractor ran the gas line last week and will finish the install tomorrow. Patty and I spent the evening ripping out the workbench and clearing the furnace room.

Apparently These Guys Work Fast

7:30 am . . .

12:30 pm . . .