Hot! Hot! Hot! Hot! Hot!

Dad made it safely back out here from B.C if you didn't gather that already. That is the facia for the house and all the cedar trimins - yes, it's going to look like ALL the other houses we do :)

I don't know if you can read it or not but the sign in the back of his truck does say "Saskatoon Or Bust".

So the trick I have figured out is that the shirts that I work in have to cover the exact same patches of skin (or less) than the ones that I go to work in! That way my way to obvious tan lines might be the slightest bit hidden.

So dad's been working.. notice the beer in one hand and the shovel in the other!

Or maybe it was this guy doing all the work and dad was just holding up the shovel.

I have come to not enjoy the mornings.

So we have most of the back filling done. The excavator could not reach the sides of the foundation so we have to push the dirt in by hand. After two long, hot days of working on that I posted an ad on kijiji (craig'slist but better) and now we have a lacky to do it for us!

Dad and I built window wells! we then realized that the wells are so large that it leaves no place to walk beside the house when it is all said and done - back to the drawing board!

I just found out that my neighbour wants to build a new house in the next two years - looks like it is contagious! It will be great! He won't build a house anywhere as beautiful as ours is going to be which means it will still increase property value without outshining our house!

Busy Busy Beaver

So yes, I have been neglecting the blog once again; however, this time because I was too busy WORKING ON THE HOSUE. Yes, you did read all those words in that order all together in once sentence - me... work... house. It's a miracle!

So who is the genious who left that way up there. Bet it's cold before you can get it down.

We also did some backfilling and shoveling so this pictures should be up here tomorrow. We are pouring our slab and Thursday and the framer is lined up for the Friday or Monday after that.

Our Bomb Shelter

What is that bright shiny thing in the sky you ask? Rumor has it that it is this mysterious ball of burning gases affectionately called "the sun". Rumor has it that is mystery orb comes out for a few months during the 'summer' but is easily scared away by wind, clouds, cold, or sudden movements. It is predicted that this orb may stay visible for a few days so long as people do not stare at it and make it shy away.





I know that this has not been updated in a while; that is because there was not much to update. We got the forms up as you could see in the last pictures. Then it sat for a few days as the rain poured down. The guys came and were able to pour the form - a process that, much to my dismay, takes hours rather than minutes as I hoped.





At this point I was tempted to take many pictures and make all my blog readers sit and watch concrete dry with me. But, I figured you'd all stop reading this if I did that.








They then came to strip the forms. Rather, he, not they. The entire crew abandoned the one young kid to remove ALL the plywood from around the walls by himself.










The plumber was supposed to come today but decided he didn't want to... well, I don't want to get up in the mornings but I still do. He should be here on Monday, then I will have some pictures of plumbing to post. I know, my pictures are not very exciting yet - but I promise it will one day look like a house instead of a bomb shelter!

Welcome to B.C!



You see those boards down there; they are 2x8s on edge, that means that there is about six inches of water built up in the bottom of our hole. Dad went into the hole first thing this morning and uncapped our sewer line to let some of the water drain out of it. This is starting to get ridiculous.



We have had to create a walkway of plywood to get from dad's house to the trailer and the trailer to the allyway (where the car is parked in the neighbours yard).





If you slip off the plywood or happen to need to deviate from the path your foot will sink into the mud over 2"






You literally do get taller as you walk across the mud.







I'm sending my dad home tomorrow in hopes that the rain will follow him!
To all my friends and family in B.C: "Take this crap back!" ... please.

Footing Pictures

Does anyone notice a re-occurring theme with Dan?



There is a giant pile of dirt in front of Dad's house; also note
the slope made of nothing but mud and then take time to
consider the torrential down poor we had last night!



No, that is not my father working down in the hole!
We hired that guy...



Took the pump truck over 30 minutes to set up.
We all drank beer and encouraged him!



Again, no dad in the picture with the working people.
Wonder where he is?



So our footings are all poured! Dad and I stripped the forms by ourselves while the crew was finishing up another job. They were going to come back today and start putting up the forms for the walls; however, it POURED last night and the mud here is AWFUL! You couldn't walk down the slope without falling on your butt, as you would roll the mud would stick and you would hit the bottom looking much like a snowball. Today, we built a set of stairs up the ramp and a little network of wood pathways all over the yard.

Pictures from the Railway Musuem

Dan - shortly before he realized his towel was on a red ant hill...




Dan - dreaming about driving a train (maybe with the straight tracks and no thought required he wouldn't hit so much stuff)



Railway museum









They used to sit in these towers to control intersections where rails would cross - if their was a problem they had controls inside to derail the train!







Oxymoronic - Dad's standing in the train headed to "pleasant hill" but there is no wine in sight



I made a friend!



Love of my life!



Oh, guess his train did arrive at Pleasant Hill afterall - my gene pool is a little shallow







Train snow plow!

Ground Breaking Again

August 9th

We decided to do something today!

We have seen the sign to the railway museum a couple of times on our way around town. So we decided to drive out there and take a look. We got there at 11am but the museum doesn't open until 1:00pm. We decided to keep driving down the road we were on until we came to a lake half an hour down the road. We sat on the beach for a while then Dan and I decided to rent Kayaks. It was a tone of fun, now we're hooked and want to buy our own! Dad sat on the beach and played cards and played with the camera.

We then went and grabbed snacks at the gas station - Dan spent the whole time looking for his wallet because he thought he lost it at the beach; he really just left it sitting on the back seat of the car.

We then went to the railway museum. It is all outside on a seven acre strip of land next to the railway tracks. We started off by getting a ride from the front all the way to the back on a cute little rail car thingy. Then we started walking working our way back to the beginning. It was a lot of fun, it was basically just old rail cars and buildings that you could walk on and play in and everything was open and touchable!

After that we went on home and crashed pretty early that night.







August 10th

Well yesterday was an event full day!

The excavator came again - this time a smaller rubber tired machine. He had to move the dirt pile that was in the back yard and haul it away on a truck. He then dug a ramp down into the 8' deep hole to get the machine down there. He played around in the hole for a couple of hours and hauled away about three or four more loads of dirt.

The excavator was almost as long as the hole was wide so he had a hard time turning around or digging at the sides of the walls. Dad had to hound the guy constantly to keep digging and removing dirt. He just wanted to go home!

Later that afternoon we had to get a bob cat in to finish the work. The guy who came on the cat was the nicest one yet and actually willing to work! He was fast and almost as scary of a driver as my dad is in his bob cat. We finally got the hole all nice and dug, cleaned up, and ready to do.

This morning we're going to start with the framing of the forms. The cement truck can't get here until after 4:30 so we have all day to build a few rectangle boxes.


**Pictures being posted this afternoon**

Rain Rain go away

So we got everything ready last night for the excavator to come back. We're going to get him to dig a ramp down the front of the hole and go into the hole to clean it out better and get it closer to the property lines. We were feeling really great with ourselves for having everything ready to go in less time the we planned. The excavator was all lined up to come at 7:30 this morning.

Then it started to rain, and rain, and rain. I've never seen it rain for an entire 20 hours straight but the weather seems to be going for some kind of record breaking last night and today! There is no way an excavator would be able to navigate the great Saskatchewan mud hole that is now my yard. You cannot walk across the yard without an inch of mud sticking to your feet - very literally as you walk you get taller!

So now we sit. Even if the weather clears up tomorrow it will probably be too wet for the machine to get into the hole. That means we won't be able to excavate will Monday which means everything is pushed back another two days. It feels like maybe we will be living in a trailer for the rest of our lives. I have contemplated the idea of putting in a swimming pool instead of a house. It would be cheaper and done way sooner. And then we'd just live in the garage with my dad and have a giant sized pool in our yard. I'll have to run it by my husband though to see what he says.

I'll update again when the rain finally goes away.

Ground Breaking!

Yes, you read that right - the ground breaking of the new house is finally here!

After waiting through a long and torturous weekend Dad and I woke up with great expetations Tuesday morning. They promised us to start excavating right away! So at seven in the morning dad got on the phone with the head boss wanting to know what we should plan for them to arrive... 11 am was the answer. Oh well, at least they would be there in time to dig and get it finished on Tuesday. 10 am... 11 am... 12 am... 1pm.. 2pm.. 3pm... finally! The exavator shows up! and we were told the opperator was right behind him. 4pm... 5pm... finally! Some arives to drive the machine! They work for two hours and then pack up and leave... job not finished. Oh well, why work a full day when you can show up at five and work for two hours!

So now the hole is all dug and we're good to go. Or not! We may have had a minor miss calculation. The hole is too small. Unfortunatly the hole is too short on the BACK side of the lot - where we have stockpiled all the dirt for backfilling. We now have to move everything from back there (including a shed full of all the cedar and tile for the house), take down the fence, and move the trailer so wo can get a rubber tire hoe back there. The hoe has to break down the pile of dirt we have stockpiled there and then reach over and try to make the hole larger. It will take us all day tomorrow to get the yard ready for the hoe to come back. We talked to the Esxavator and he is hopeful to get us the machine Friday afternoon or Saturday morning - that would be great so long as it doens't turn into the waiting game we had the first time.

Guess this is all just part of building a house. Hurry up to wait.