Good Vibrations

Trenchers are wonderful machines. I would have really been discouraged if we had to dig all 390 feet of water line by hand. As it was, it was pretty rough going even with the machine when we hit the wooded areas but we got it all trenched in a day and the next day even put in a line to the garden since I had time left on the machine. It was only about $140 to rent the trencher for a weekend so to me it was worth every penny. It did very well but we did hit one rock that would not be moved so I had to remove that one by hand. But thanks to this little chipping hammer I borrowed from work, it didn't take but a couple of afternoons to get that done.

We have suffered a bit of a setback with the water though. Due to poor planning and research we have now discovered (after complete installation) that the pump is not going to work in it's current location. We are going to have to move it and the pressure tank much closer to the spring and build a little pump house etc. etc. This means running power to it, which means more money and more money for pump house materials although I can probably scavenge a lot of that. We did get the septic tank about half full before we decided to shut the pump down for good though, so that gives me a little more peace of mind; not that it is going to be in danger of floating out of the ground around here with this drought. Hey, but Sunday, it came a toad strangler at the house! I was SO excited! If it hadn't been lightning too I might have been out playing in the rain. We quickly rigged our gutter system back up under the eaves and funneled even more water into the septic tank. Oh, Allen did get the septic tank tied into the house lines also, so now we just need water coming in 'cause it will go out!

I worked on getting the ceiling ready to stain and finish so the scaffolding can be gotten rid of for good. This must be done now in order to build the wall between the kitchen and living room. Once that wall is there, it will be much harder to move scaffolding around and reach everything. The sheetrock finishers came back today so I am closer to painting too. I hate trying to pick out colors though!

I would like to think that the house is entering an easier phase but it doesn't feel like it. I still have several of footings to dig by hand (because of more poor planning), much stone and block need to be laid and a lot of concrete to be formed and poured. We are not working much overtime so far this week at the job but I almost broke a finger today at work and am still tired from last week. I know all of this will be worth it but I just hope my body will hold out until I actually get to live in the house. I wish I could post more because there are lots of little details to show but I just can't make it sometimes. Our computer is at our office, not at our little apartment so that makes it harder to make time especially when I just want to go home and collapse. The camera is still out of commission too so I may have to post little cartoons of what's going on.

Oh, yes, Pablo, Oliver is named Oliver because that is what kind he is. And it kind of suits him. I bought a book for Allen some time ago titled "Sex, Love and Tractors" (the authors name escapes me at the moment) which was quite humorous and that guy had a tractor named Sweet Alice because it was, of course, an Alis Chalmers.