The past two months have flown by since we got home from New Zealand. And we haven’t been entirely productive on the Cabin. We’re wasting valuable time. I get done with school at the end of June, and will hopefully have a job before then or very soon after. At that point, I am just dreaming that we might be able to focus on mountain biking and maybe some gardening and that’s it for the beautiful months of the year. I want to drink beer (I’m currently on a wine kick for the Winter!) and soak up the sun and enjoy this gorgeous property we have the pleasure of inhabiting. So I filled up all of our free weekends on the calendar with projects so that (if all goes according to plan – which it totally always does…………………………) we could be moved into the loft by June 1st. And then I can study for my boards the last couple weeks, graduate, take my test, get hired, and RELAX. Oh wait, adults don’t get to relax these days, do they? This past weekend Husband has already made a boat load of progress while I’ve been working/schooling.
We’ve had a lot of rain and there’s been some heavy flooding in the low lands recently, but as we’re up on the hill, we’ve just had rivers running down our property. However, we got quite a bit of standing water in the crawl space of the Cabin. We decided it’s probably best it happened now, before we had the subfloor in, and decided to dig some drainage ditches and fill them with gravel so the water has an easy path out.
Oh man was it good to see that water go. We were worried it wouldn’t drain, or the ditches would be harder dig in the hard packed clay on our property, but it ended up going fairly smoothly! The crawl space ground had turned to a sludge-y muck from the standing water and mold started growing and holy cow the mud smelled something fowl. Once it drained and dried out a bit Husband shaped the ditches a bit more and we carried buckets of gravel in and filled them.
You can see how mucky it was by our footprints in the non-gravel filled areas! As Husband shaped the ditches he removed all the excess dirt (mud) so the crawl space would stay level. That bucket shaped mud clod was the nastiest looking jello-y glob I’ve ever seen (and didn’t smell too pretty either). It held its shape all the way to the dirt pile.
Once all that was done, Husband filled in the ditch we (read: he) dug for the drainage pipe on the Southwest corner. Simple enough. But shovel work is the most exhausting work I’ve done thus far and I’m mighty thankful he did the majority of all the shovel work for this project. Words cannot express the immense appreciation I felt for that man this weekend.
The last portion that needed to get done before starting the plumbing next weekend was to build a platform for the corner of the downstairs bathroom/living room wall because it will be holding up the majority of the loft weight. Husband measured, dug, formed, poured, and finished it all before I even got home from work. He’s a champion.
As for the other champion in our little family, a couple weeks ago my FIL did some finishing/flashing work on all the driveway side windows and holy shmoly. When I saw how it turned out, it’s what kicked my butt back into gear. I thought: look at this beautiful home you can’t live in. GET BACK TO WORK.
The Homestead Journey 