Too Many Dirty Dishes

A lot of people have asked me if I eat out all the time because I don't have a kitchen. I sometimes cook for the guys at work and they are completely confounded that I am able to prepare decent meals without a stove but it is really not a big deal. I guess it does take some getting used to but with a little thought you can prepare most any meal with just a few things. I do try to keep it simple, mainly because I just like foods that are cooked quickly (the meals feel lighter) and because I am pretty busy, as you might guess, and need to get the cooking over with. I like to cook a lot, which surprises the guys too. They think that any woman that is "liberated", as they like to say, would not like to cook. They're so funny. I try to cook a full meal most evenings and that means a meat, at least one veggie (usually two) and one carb, usually rice or couscous etc. This is a really easy recipe for just about any cut of pork. You take about 2 T. honey (local beekeeper), 2 T good, stone ground mustard, a little garlic, about a T of olive oil and salt and pepper. Mix all of that up and pour over the pork. Roll it around to coat the meat and bake for about 30 minutes for a tenderloin or pork chops etc. A little longer if it is a bigger roast or so. As you can see, I don't really measure or time stuff; you just know when it's right. You may need to make more sauce for a larger piece too and sometimes I'll add a teaspoon of hoisin sauce.
I use this toaster oven, which works great for baking lots of things. The guys kid me and say that I'll never be able to cook in a full size oven again. I have made them many homemade biscuits in this oven. Plus, the toaster oven works wonderfully to warm your plates on as you are cooking. I mostly use my own pottery to eat off of and stoneware will draw the heat out of food if it is not warmed up itself. I have a microwave and a little, one burner propane cooktop and that is about all I need really. Of course, I don't cook for several people either. I am going to buy a nice grill soon for the deck and that will help a lot.
Several of the younger men I work with say that their wives don't cook, in fact, don't even know how. How is this? Mama never really taught me much but I guess I just wanted to know. The guys often have to go home, bathe their kids and cook supper. I don't understand these younger women. There is nothing wrong with these men doing some of this but the women ought to know how just for their own sake. They seem to have an attitude of, oh, he'll do it for me. I have talked to some of them myself and so it's not just what the guys are telling me. It seems some of these younger women think that being a feminist means sitting on your butt and talking some man into doing everything. I guess I lost my handbook when I was little because I never have figured out how to find a man that will do all these things. But what these women don't realize is that they are dependent on someone else then for their well being and that is a bad thing. All women, and I guess men too, should know:
1. How to cook at least a small variety of meals.
2. How to sew a little, at least to make repairs on garments.
3. How to mix one good drink.
4. How to change a flat tire.
5. How to properly drive a nail.
6. How to weld.
7. How to wash clothes. You'd be surprised how many don't.
8. How to grow something you can eat.
9. How to balance a checkbook.
10. How to write a good thank you note.

Was this all a rant? Did I leave out an item that you think everybody should know?


*title is an old blues song by Albert Collins.

What's The Matter Here?

This is the creek that runs from my spring; it is supposed to run clear. I think my efforts to prevent more mud from washing into the spring have been successful, however, so much is already in there that the recent rains just keep it stirred up as the water eventually makes it way through it's underground crevices and into the spring. Last Sunday it got so bad that I have just had to temporarily abandon the spring and jump over to another one. There are 2 springs on my land. The other one is very clear but it is a surface spring; the water just bubbles out from beneath a tree. It is a large volume of water but it is more exposed to the environment. Any deer or possum walking by can just poop right in it or whatever so I don't want to stay on this water long. It is my plan to help the spring purge itself by pumping the water out and as the spring fills back up, pump it out over and over until it is clean. I don't know if this will work but I have to try.
Last weekend also had me fighting it out with the wasps. It warmed up some and I came home to find about 20 wasps in the house. I had had it with those damn things so it was war for about 2 hours. I think I got most of them and stopped up the bottom of the clerestory wall so any more can't come down that way.
I still have to fix the spring and I may have to redo the media in my water filter but things are improving. It is kind of two steps forward and one step back all the time. This weekend I got the posts for the deck handrails and have them cut etc. They are almost ready to start installing. Tomorrow I must attend my brother and his wife's 25th wedding anniversary party so I will not get anything done on the house but I don't see them much as it is.
It is gradually getting warmer here so I planted a row of lettuce and 2 rows of brussel sprouts the other day after I came home from work. I plan on starting my tomato seeds soon. I am very much ready for warm weather and longer days.
Another carpenter left the job to go to another one so I am one of 2 left. Not sure how much longer I will be there or where I will go afterward. The Switchman must have noticed that I was looking kind of down at work Monday (after the wasp fight, etc.) and he yelled for me to smile as he went by on a train. I guess I didn't do a good job of it because he frowned and asked did I not have anything to smile about? I just shook my head as he was out of earshot at this point. About an hour later he came out and found me to ask what was wrong and so I told him some of my frustrations. I tried not to rant, lest he think that I am more of a nut than he already believes. He did offer a sympathetic ear though and cheered me up some.
Hey, speaking of switchmen and trains... did you know that locomotives are full of sand? I know you know, Woody, so you don't get to say! We installed a huge sand silo at work and we heard that it was somehow used for the trains but I did not understand until the other day that the locomotives actually have big compartments up front and carry it with them!

*10,000 Maniacs/ In My Tribe album

Mama's Hand

I took advantage of this past weekend's great warm weather to wash some big things and give my new dryer a break. This is an old quilt my grandmother and mother made (and probably an aunt) many years ago. These old quilts have a certain quality that quilts made today just don't have. They feel much weightier for one thing and I like that. This one was made with actual cotton lining whereas the ones made today use some kind of synthetic crap. Of course, the pattern is a little rough and not as artistic as, say, the one I have hanging in my bedroom (http://edificerex.blogspot.com/2007/12/ill-be-home-for-christmas.html ) and the stitches not as fine but I love it anyway. One fond memory I have as a child is sitting on Granny's front porch in the summer with her and my aunt Corinne and watching them piece quilt squares or snap beans. Her porch was very shaded and made of concrete so it was very cool there and we would have plenty of iced tea. Quilting is one art I have never been able to get the hang of so I have always had a good appreciation for the work that goes into them.

Milestone

I am now posting from my house!! The final connections were made yesterday by the utility company so I am now totally connected! Well, to the Internet, maybe not to reality. I bought a new computer, a new TV and a cool new set of stainless knives by Kitchen Aid! I am more excited about the knives than the TV. I don't care for TV much but do watch a couple of things so I only subscribed to the very basic cable service, which is only like 10 channels, most of which are crap. I do get about 30 music channels though, which I didn't expect, so that is a pleasant surprise. The computer I bought is great! It is so lovely! There is a great little computer company here in town where I just had them build me one. In fact, they are about a half a mile from me. I could walk through the woods to their place. Very nice people and they came and set it all up for me which is a good thing. I mean I could do it but it is nice to have someone who really understands that stuff to get it going. The name of their company is O'Gosh Computers and they do have a website. If I were more organized I would have a link for you right now but I am still fumbling through everything. My photo editing program has changed and how I download to Blogger so I am still trying to figure all of this out. The text of the post is not aligned over to the left either and I cannot seem to change it and I am not able to view the photo that I am trying to post so God only knows what this post will look like. I don't know if this is Blogger or something in the computer. I suspect it is Blogger being a butt right now.

Things are going better here although most items are still in the process of being fixed. I plan to do a little more work on the spring today and try to run some trim inside the house. I have been a little slack lately on the house but much pick up the pace some.

High Hopes

These photos are a little out of sequence so just bear with me here. I don't have the patience to try to fix them. This is my attempt to fix the problem I am having with rain runoff clouding my spring. Basically, I am trying to build a dirt cricket. A cricket is a small roof that diverts water behind a chimney for those of you who may not be familiar. I discovered 2 holes in the ground on the uphill side of the spring and I believe the muddy water flowing down the hill was then entering the spring underground before it actually reached the mouth of the spring. At least, that is what I am hoping. I hope by backfilling the uphill side it will cause the water to run around the spring and not down these holes or into the mouth of the spring. I put that meter box over the shutoff valve so that it is still accessible, plus the pipe needed to be covered anyway to keep it from freezing.
Here I have backfilled a good bit of the area after putting down a layer of poly as extra protection. I need to lay up another course or two of the stone on the uphill side so that there is a curb of sorts for the water running downhill to be diverted around the spring.

This is the beginning of the project. I got some Sonotube from the job (leftovers) and it was the perfect size! It is 2 feet diameter. Sonotube is great stuff if you need to pour something round. It comes in many different sizes and you can get it at Lowe's or some other similar devil store. Now, in this instance, I poured on the outside of the form where you would normally use Sonotube to pour the inside. Don't laugh at my formwork; it was difficult to get that stuff down in that crevice! And I had to cut the Sonotube open to get it around the water line. Anyway, a few nail pins (also invaluable) and we are ready. I didn't get any photos of the footing but I'm sure you can imagine.

I thought the tube was going to be too big but turns out it was just right to go around the mouth of the spring.
Here I am in my Superwoman pose! I had to haul the concrete and mortar down in a wheelbarrow but the stones I did bring down in my truck. Still, it was a pretty good workout. I kept the Sonotube in place to help me keep a good circle going with the block. When you are through, you just peel the Sonotube off or out of the concrete.
Here you can see the footing and the stone work. Most of the block is some old stuff that I busted up out of the BFA's driveway. I thought it was kind of cool looking because it is so old it was poured back when they used slag from steel mills as the aggregate, so you get these bright, glassy bits in the block. They are pretty much all a uniform thickness too so they lay well. I pointed the outside of the wall on the uphill side to help seal it up and put the poly against the block before backfilling too. So, we'll see. As I said, I need to go a little higher with the wall and build a little berm uphill to help divert more water.

Thank you all for your kind words recently. I am not going to give up on my house. It is just like any construction project; you always run into problems that you did not forsee but you fix them. Everything is just one thing at a time and you keep going. I think I may have not explained my work situation clearly though. I may have to go out of state but we do get to come home about twice a month. Sometimes you can come home every weekend; depends on how far away you are. Anyway, I could make a lot of money if I go and afford to build the other side of the house (much faster) when I come home for good, so it has it's advantages. And if I go with mostly the crew that I have worked with on this last job it will be a hell of a good time. We have already decided that we are going to get up a bowling team and join a league down there and I told the guys we are all going to learn to dance to the Zydeco music too! It will be an adventure for sure.

Something Warm

I rarely make food posts but here is one for a change. It has turned off cold again here and I really enjoy a nice bowl of hot steel-cut oats in the winter. I don't care for the regular rolled oats that most of us are used to in oatmeal but steel-cut oatmeal is a totally different texture and taste. I just put a little honey (bought from local beekeeper), chopped apples (organic if possible) and pecans (a required staple in the South). That is a cup of organic milk and yikes! some bacon in the background. I would like to raise my own hog someday. We raised them when I was growing up (beef too) and the taste cannot even be compared to store bought pork. Plus, you know, there is the thing with no drugs or hormones etc.
Things have not improved with the house as we have gotten even more rain but at least I have this weekend off to be able to work on correcting the problem. Well, one of them anyway. I am very glad for the rain but must find a solution to this water problem. The creek is way up and I can even hear the rush of the water up at the house! That is very nice. Well, got to get to work; I'll try to show some of my work this weekend.

Nobody Knows You (When You're Down And Out)

That's a crappy title, huh? I am in a bit of a bad frame of mind right now. Things are not going well. I have made an effort through this blog to try to show all of the joys and frustrations of building something as significant as a house and how it affects your life (or has affected mine anyway). I don't know if anyone out there who reads this blog is even remotely interested in building their own home or gets any worthwhile information out of this. It is very satisfying to build your own home but I have chosen one of the hardest ways to do this, as usual. Building out of your pocket is very hard and takes a long time. I keep telling myself that it will all be worth it as I will not have a mortgage but I want to finish this house so badly.
I am having trouble with the water again. I have begun enclosing the spring with masonry but this weekend we had some torrential rains that muddied the spring tremendously. The filter that I have is good but cannot handle that much silt and mud so the water is not fit to drink at the moment. It will take it 2-3 days to clear I am getting very frustrated with this. I am very grateful for the rain here but I cannot tolerate the water in this condition. I believe there is a hole on the uphill side of the spring that is the cause of this, combined with the disturbed soil from trenching. As I said, I am in the process of backfilling and moving soil to keep water from even running to the spring but I thought I had made some headway, not made it worse.
Another bizarre problem is that apparently, back during warm weather, wasps got in the house and built a nest (a big one) somewhere in a wall without being noticed. Now, whenever we get a warm spell, wasps start crawling out of the clerestory wall. I mean lots of them. One small section on the back of the clerestory is still open (on the inside) and they must be coming from there.
Another problem that I am having is purely my own fault for not doing enough research. I noticed after moving in that I was having a real problem with moisture in the house, as in condensation on the windows. Now, I paid good money for double insulated windows and knew that they should not be doing that. After a little investigation I learned that it is my propane heater. The nice, cozy fireplace. It puts off water!! Plus, it is just not adequate for heating the whole house. Also, I called today for a refill on my tank. I was disgusted to see that the first 200 gallons barely lasted 2 months and now propane is hitting near $4.00 a gallon. This is double what the first tank cost me. This is just not what I had in mind for affordable heating. I mean, I can technically afford it but I don't want to! I think I talked about this in a previous post and my decision to install a wood burning heater in the basement. All of this can be fixed but I am very aggravated at myself for not investigating all of this better before now.
And to top all of this off, work is slowing to a crawl in town for my company and I have been asked to go to Louisiana for the next 2 years. I just moved in my house and now I may have to leave it. I must keep working in my present occupation in order to finish my house and as quickly as possible because the work that I do is beginning to take it's toll on me physically. I cannot make the same amount of money doing my pottery or something similar and I don't believe I can make it in construction for more than 5 or 6 more years. Also, some of you may have noticed a revision in my profile. Allen is beginning to build his own house elsewhere. This is not a new development though. This was decided over a year ago but we do continue to help each other out when we can.
I know everything will work out fine eventually and this is all my own doing anyway as I always want to try something new and do something different. Everyone told me I was crazy to become a construction worker! I guess everyone wonders throughout their lives if the decisions that they have made have always been the right ones. Should I have done this or that differently? Should I have taken other people's advise or followed my own heart? I have always followed my own heart ( but taken other advise seriously too) and it's been a hard row to hoe sometimes but I guess it is for everybody.
I am still working on getting internet service at the house and a new computer but I think it will still be around the end of the month before all of that is completed. I hope to post more frequently then, if I don't give up on it all together.

Hey, Good-Looking (Whatcha' Got Cookin?)

This is the temporary kitchen that I have built. It's not so bad really other than I do not have a stove. But I still make do even without that. The small, unfinished room that you see beyond the kitchen is the pantry. It's an 8'x8' room so that is not bad for a pantry though. Completing the kitchen will probably be one of the last things I do. I don't know why really, it just seems to be working out that way but I might change my mind. Having it like this is almost a good thing too because I can live with the space for a while I see how I actually use the area. You know, where does it actually work to store such and such or use this appliance here or there. It's like a construction project I read about once. This company build a school and at the architects request, did not pour any sidewalks. The builders packed up their stuff and left but then came back about a year later and poured all the sidewalks where the students had naturally created their own walkways, which were the most convenient paths.
I built this quick little shelf unit to store my few dishes. Most of these are my own pottery although I do have a couple of pieces from other potters. I will not have any space for wall cabinets but that is OK. I don't really like them anyway but I will keep some nice open shelves for dishes I use often. Many people have asked me if I intend to build my own finish cabinets. No, I do not. Being a form carpenter and not a cabinet maker I intend to save myself the frustration of such and just pay a small but good cabinet company here in town to make them for me. I know of a good company here that does nice work. I will pour my own countertops though as they will be concrete. I like to do as much of the work as I can but sometimes it is just worth it to hire people that do that thing for a living. They are much better at it than me and I am helping the local economy.
There is still not a lot going on at the house; just little things here and there. I have had other financial obligations that have taken my money that could have been used on buying material for the house. I am scavenging more material for the house and think I have come up with a really cool idea and material for the deck handrails. One nice thing about being a female amongst so many men is that they will give you about anything you ask for. Of course, we give leftover material away to lots of people and I do have to wait until the job is over.

By the way, my spellchecker on Blogger has decided to stop working so if you see a bunch of misspelled words now, that's why. I try to check things but I am usually fairly tired by the time I write this.

Gloomy Sunday

These photos don't look gloomy but they were taken last weekend I believe. This weekend is drizzly rainy and dark but not too cold. It has been raining on and off for several days now and we are all very glad. So maybe it's not so gloomy after all. I actually had to go into work today as someone from our company has to be on the job if a subcontractor works, so I was the lucky one to get to go in. Anyway, I have been working on some stuff at the house but not anything really big or exciting. I ran some trim around the windows and worked on getting more of a temporary kitchen set up. Things are going well; just not enough money coming in fast enough to do some of the big projects that I need to do. You can see from these photos a little better the amount of sunlight that comes in. The book that I went by said that for people in our region, we should not have any more than 7% (of your square footage) in glass on the south side. I think that is actually a little slim. I think I could have gone with 10% and done OK. Of course, unless I just ran windows solid across the back, I could not have gotten too many more in. I did need some wall space. This is taken from the other side of the living area. There is a lot of work still to be done. This wall obviously needs sheathing and the tile work done and I think I will build a small hearth under the little heater. I am not really satisfied with the supplemental heating of the house. Even at 70 degrees inside the house still just feels cold. So, by way of an experiment and at Allen's insistence, we started heating the underside of the house, the basement area and turned this heater in the house way down. We put a propane heater under the house and directly under the bathroom where I had poured a small concrete slab for the water pump that did not end up going there. Well, the results have been astounding. That slate floor in the bathroom heated up (and the bedroom floor too) and it just warmed that whole area so incredibly. Before, that slate was so cold I could hardly stand to step on it. I knew it would be cold before I installed it but it seemed to chill the entire space. Now, it is so nice. When I have it heated you can't pry Grendal off that floor with a crow bar. I even laid down on it myself. It is really amazing how much difference having a warm floor makes. It warms the whole floor too; even out in the living room etc. Now, I have noticed that at 67-68 degrees the house actually feels warmer. I think that psychologically, having cold feet makes you cold all over. I was afraid that this would double my gas costs but the heater in the living room rarely comes on when the one in the basement is going so I think that it will not add that much at all.
I'm thinking now that if I install a good, efficient wood burning stove under the house and some vents in the floor, I could heat the house very nicely at very little cost. And on days that I don't feel like fooling with the wood stove I still have my gas back up. There is plenty of head room for such and it's all on concrete down there. I just need to figure out where to vent the smoke from a wood burning stove. I don't want it coming up right beside the house. As I mentioned before, I would also like to preheat my water through the use of a wood stove because that would save money on the water heater and I am also having some trouble with condensation in the house. The water going into the toilet and kitchen cold water line is SO cold the tank on the toilet and water lines sweat almost constantly.
I tried to get a decent photo of the bath since it has gotten a little more completed but there is not much room. This will one day be the guest bath so Pablo, if you and Libby come visit, this will be for you. I'll make Grendal stay on the other side.

I Should Have Known

Well, I guess I should not have said anything 'cause it wasn't but just a couple of days after that last post that we had a guy squashed on our job. A crew of guys came from Kansas to install some heavy equipment and as they were unloading some of it, on just their second day on the job, one of the pallets tipped over and fell on one of the men. Thankfully it did not kill him but it mashed him up pretty bad. At first we thought it broke both his legs but I think it only broke one. Our guys did very well and reacted quickly, flagging in the fire department and ambulance. The last I saw of the poor guy he was still laying in the middle of the gravel road and the paramedics were putting the IVs in etc. Fortunately, and I know that may sound weird, that is the worst accident on a job that I have ever actually seen.

The word spread fairly quickly and soon the railroaders were coming out to see what happened. The Switchman (some of you might remember) came out and found me to see what was going on. He sternly told me I better keep my little hind end away from anything like that going on. I assured him I try to always watch myself as I have a big aversion to pain and blood. I felt bad for the young man that was driving the forklift (who was picking the load when it tipped) as Steve said he was having a rough time of it after the accident.

I hope maybe to post again today or tomorrow and show a little about what is going on at the house.

Over Before You Know It

I'm not sure if this is an actual title to a song but I know that it is some of the lyrics to a favorite song of mine by Natalie Merchant. This week in Birmingham, not far from our job, a rival construction company had a man killed on the job when a large pipe fell on him and crushed him. Of course, when something like that happens it gets around pretty fast. Deaths don't happen a lot on construction sites nowadays but I have known of several since I've been in the business. There have been some deaths with my company, on our sites, but it has always been a subcontractor, not one of our boys. Our lunch time conversations sometimes turn to the morbid but it is a reality that we keep in the back of our heads. You have to constantly be on the look out for hazards but if it ever comes, we'll probably never see it until it's too late. Just the other day we were talking about stuff like this and we all agreed that the worst place or situation to "buy the farm" would be while you are in the Port-A-Pottie. I mean, when you are in there you are essentially blind. You really can't tell what is going on around you and they always put those things pretty close to the actual work. Nothing sends chills racing up your spine quicker than to be in there, doing your business, and to hear a back-up alarm very close to you from one of the pieces of machinery. I mean, if we have to leave this world on a job site please let it be doing something somewhat dignified; you know, saving a buddy from death or injury, something. Not squashed while you are trying to take a dump.
The photo is from our Christmas lunch but it is only part of the crew. This is probably the best bunch of guys I have ever worked with. We have all gotten along really well and had a great time. We have had several guys sent to other jobs already and today we had two more leave as our job is beginning to wind down. I suspect that I will be next to leave. I am usually a little sad when jobs end if I have been there for a while. You go through so much together on these jobs that you either end up hating each other or become great friends. We all thought we were going to die of heat strokes when the job started and now we are all freezing our butts off together. It has been very cold this week. I was working grouting handrail posts in today and one of the men that works with a subcontractor brought his little propane heater over and set it up right next to me so I could warm for a while. Of course, I could not stay in that spot for long but it was sweet anyway.
I plan to run some trim at the house this weekend and maybe work on enclosing the spring. I am still having a little bit of a problem with murkiness in the water from storm run off. We'll see what happens and hopefully I will show you my new washer and dryer too!
Be safe!!

Move Over

I think I have mentioned several times how happy I am with my shower but even Grendal loves it too. She gets very impatient for me to get out and will stick her head in and whack on the curtain with her paws. She wants to lick the water off the walls for some reason. I don't know. She has plenty of fresh spring water in her bowl, which she drinks, but she likes this. If I could just get her to clean the shower somehow...
She loves to lay in the patches of sunlight around the house too. I figure she may be adding somewhat to the heating of the house because she is dark colored and very large so her thermal mass is significant. When I mentioned this theory to Allen, he said that molecules produce more heat when they are agitated so therefore I should let Grendal soak up a lot of the sunlight and then kick her in the ass. That should agitate her pretty good and she would release a lot of heat. I said I did not think much of that theory. Seriously, Allen doesn't kick my cat but he likes to talk bad about her. Grendal is enjoying the house very much though. She plays a lot more than she used to.

I have been working on the kitchen some lately; mainly trying to get it more organized. I put up some temporary countertops and a wall shelf for dishes. I've run some more window trim and OH! Man! I almost forgot!!! I bought a new washer and dryer! They are beautiful! They are GE Energy Star models. Wonderful appliances. I will post about them soon. I know you are on the edge of your seat! But they are very nice and work so quickly; it's amazing.

The phone company came out this week and ran my cable for phone and internet, etc. it is not completely hooked up but it's getting close. Hopefully I will soon be posting from actually inside my house!! That will be so cool.

Frequent Visitors

I took this pic up at the old apartment where Allen now has his office and the computer. I was standing maybe 30 yards from these deer. They were all does but that one was a really good size. I have counted as many as 9 at one time in this area. Fred has been putting a little corn for them. I have heard from some of the guys at work that their food sources are going quickly this year due to the severe drought. They say that deer will normally wait until about February to browse the acorns and such but that all the acorns have already been eaten this year. There seems to be plenty still to eat in our area but I don't know much about deer and their habits. This bunch looked very healthy. I do remember years back when you could only hunt does on certain days but now, due to the population, you can take a doe a day here. My house is just down the hill so these make the rounds down there too. I don't leave any food for them though because I don't want them to associate my place with eating! They got all my azaleas as it is.

We got a little snow today and everybody down here is going nuts. It is embarrassing. We all seem to remember much more snow as kids but I'm not sure if that is true or just nostalgia. I know it rarely snows here anymore; at least anything that amounts to covering the ground.

The house is very cozy today although I have discovered a slight leak in my propane tank. I am not quite satisfied with the heating of the house though as the bathroom remains kind of chilly so I am investigating alternative ways of heating. I had the idea of a wood burning heater in the basement and perhaps even devising a way to heat my water with the wood. I have seen this done at a earth sheltered house near here. They say it works very well. It's nothing very pressing though and will probably be a project for next winter.

Happiness Is A Warm Toilet

Ok, so I took a little bit of liberty with that song title but it works anyway and does actually have something to do with this post. I don't actually have photos of the toilet ( I know you are disappointed) but I think you can imagine what I am talking about. I have been trying to observe the effects of the sun on the house lately and over the weekend I had a good chance to watch things. Yea, I had the weekend off finally! Anyway, I was a little surprised to realize that the sun does not start coming to into the house until about 9:00 a.m. Being down in a valley delays this and speeds the suns retreat in the afternoon. Not by much but some. Of course, the sun first enters through the east windows but moves quickly to the south facing ones. I basically have 2 rows of south windows; one high and one low. The clerestory windows sun the living room and the low ones in the kitchen and dining area sun the kitchen and parts of the living area. In the photo above you are seeing sun around 10:00 a.m. I am having one small problem though. If you look close at the sun in the lower corner there, you will see that it has a lot of shadow in it. I have 3 fairly large oak trees on the south side of the house and one of them ( the closest to the house) insists on keeping it's leaves as long as it possibly can so it is actually blocking about 50% of the sunlight coming through the clerestory windows. If you look up at the windows at the right time this is clearly visible but I could not get a decent photo of this. So....I may have to cut this tree. I have plenty more back there and actually might not have room for all of them when they begin to get bigger and spread out.
But back to the title of the post. By afternoon the sun is coming into the bathroom and bedroom windows, warming those rooms before going down for the evening. Just by chance, the sunlight falls directly on the toilet seat for a good amount of time and I have to say, that really feels nice. It's a small luxury but I have read about people who pay big bucks for toilets with heated seats and here I get mine for free! Of course, like all good things it doesn't seem to last long but it's nice while it's there.
As far as technicalities, the temps this weekend were in the 50's and the house regular maintains an inside temperature, in the daylight hours, of between 65-70 degrees with no additional heat source. I think if I install ceramic tile in the kitchen (walls and floor) this will help the temps stay up longer because the kitchen really gets a lot of sun. I still have not insulated the floor so this may help also, and installing siding on the house. The walls are not up to the best R-value yet. My power bill for this past month was $64. I was not real happy about that. I know it's that crappy hot water heater. I must start saving money for the solar water system. Also, it looks as though my yearly gas bill will probably average about $65-70 a month (although most of it will be used in the winter). Not really happy about that either so I am looking into some additional solar heating ideas. At any rate though, my house is beautiful and wonderful and I am very happy and thankful for it.

Stormy Weather

Well, this photo does not look all that stormy but we have really gotten some bad weather today and more is coming. They called a rain out today at work so you know it was bad. We always joke that we don't get rained out anymore unless they hear the tornado sirens go off. The lightning finally convinced them today.
Not much going on at the house. I think we may try to rough in for the washer and dryer this weekend and I am going to trim out some windows on the inside. The next big projects are going to be the exterior of the house. It looks awful on the outside and I have got to get something started there. I did find out this week that there will not be any construction costs for the phone company to run lines to my house though, so that is some good news. I guess I will have a land line but I am more concerned with getting Internet connections and maybe some TV. I haven't been able to watch CBS Sunday Morning lately. That is about the only show I much care to watch. Well, Antiques Roadshow too. Am I a nerd or what?
The water filter seems to still be working fine although I did have a brief period of dirty water about a week ago that I can't figure out. It was right after a very heavy rain so I suspect maybe it was from runoff into the spring. I am going to observe everything after this rain and see what happens. I guess the filter is backwashing itself. It is set to do it after midnight and I never hear it. I am tempted to get up during the night that it is scheduled and see if it is actually working.
Several people have asked if I have noticed if the house seems to be functioning as far as absorbing the heat from the sun during the day etc. I want to keep some records of temperatures inside the house to see what it is doing. The last weekend I was off I did notice that the heater did not run any during the day and the house was staying about 69-70 degrees. I believe this was with the outside temps being in the mid 50's. But does this occur in regular houses? Does anyone out there have to run their heat in the daylight hours under the same conditions? There is quite a bit of sunlight coming in the house at this point. If I can get a day off so that I am home during the day I will try to photograph some of this! We have been having warmer than normal temps this week (after that terrible cold the week before) so anything I would record now I don't think would really count. I do know that the underside of the house stays fairly warm now even when it is really cold outside. When I backfill that concrete wall it will get better still I believe.

Well, I'll try to have something a little more interesting next post. Right now my big excitement is to turn the stereo up and take a good hot shower. I have to say, that shower is worth the money and effort I put into it. Allen said the only problem with it is that you don't want to get out. Amen.

The House Is Rockin'

My decor is still a bit sparse but there is one important new addition to the house that you can see here. If you look up near the ceiling you will notice a small white rectangle on the left and right up near the rafters. These are my new Polk Audio stereo speakers. They are soooo cool. I tried to be very conservative in some areas and use reclaimed materials etc. when building the house but this was, in part, so that I could splurge on some few items and still keep a good budget. Now, these speakers are nowhere near the most expensive that I could have bought but they were not cheap. I don't care much for TV but I love music of all kinds and have always wanted I really killer stereo system. If you like music and don't have the speakers installed in the ceiling or walls, stop now and go buy them. They are worth it. I have enjoyed these things so much this week. I still don't have cable or Internet service yet (the utility company is estimating things now) so listening to music is my entertainment. In the mornings, I like to listen to NPR as I am getting ready for work. Clapton sounds incredible; it's like I have all new CD's! It's a good thing no one lives nearby. I really don't play it that loud but occasionally I will turn it up.

My postings have been a bit sparse lately too. We are working much overtime lately. Saturdays and Sundays. I think my last day off was New Year's Day. I'll make enough money to go pay cash for a washer and dryer (yea!!!) but I'm getting tired. During the recent cold spell, we were having to make 3 big concrete pours at work, one right after the other for 3 days. If you read Rurality, you know it got down around 7 and 8 degrees one morning down here. Not good for pouring concrete. The batch plants freeze up which means you are delayed pouring until it can warm up. We finally got mud around 11:00 a.m. But concrete doesn't set up fast in cold weather so you have to stay with it and put tents up over the pour and run heaters blah, blah, blah. Our poor finishers did not leave the job 2 nights until about 12 midnight. For some reason, I am never asked to stay on nights like that. Some carpenters will stay to saw cut the slab after the finishers are off of it. I think the men don't want me to have to go through that so they let me off.
Well, I must go to get some rest for work tomorrow. What day is this now??

Cold

I started to go with Hank Williams Sr.'s (one of the few country artists that I will listen to) "Cold, Cold Heart" but then remembered this song by Annie Lennox. Wonderful, haunting song. Well, things are going fine living in my house! It is taking some getting used to as far as all the windows and space. I have to fight the urge to just get up in the middle of the night and take a hot shower. This is the refrigerator that I finally decided on and am glad I did. It is a Whirlpool 22 cubic foot standard model. It is an Energy Star model and only uses $41 per year to operate. So they say. I like it and even the BFA liked it. I plan on having all stainless appliances. And no, I don't normally keep the top of the fridge junked up like that but I am a little short of storage space right now. I don't know why I really thought I wanted a big side by side fridge; I don't need all that space. I have really tried to keep the idea of real necessity in mind while building this house. I think often times we are convinced that we really need this or that, that giant house or 50" TV etc. and you know, there is a lot that we really don't need and actually would not miss if we didn't have it. Maintenance of all that stuff is the really big issue too. The more you have, the more effort you have to put into taking care of it. Now, I think most of you know I am by no means lazy but I had much rather spend my day doing some gardening or art rather than spending half the day cleaning around a bunch of junk I don't need or working to pay the power bill to run $3,000 worth of entertainment electronics. I read a survey not to long ago that said that like 70% of women had rather have a clean house than make love.....??? what?? Excuse me??? That's just crazy talk. Well, if we would cut down on having so much junk maybe we could do both!!
Anyway, one really cool thing about my fridge is this magic box in the freezer portion! It was empty when I first plugged the fridge in but only a few hours later, it was full of ice cubes!! My God! What sorcery! And if I come and get a bunch of these ice cubes out and then go away for just a little while, it is full again when I come back! Is technology not wonderful? I love this thing! And I don't have to do anything to make it make ice! I'm tempted to just throw some of the ice out the window just to see it make some more! AHH, hahahahaha! Iced tea, anyone? Unsweet, of course. I was talking to one of the guys at work who is about my age and he was telling me how his daughters had never seen ice cube trays before until they found some over at their grandmother's house in the garage. You remember the old metal kind with the lever you pulled up. And we were talking about how we used to make Kool-Aid popsicles with them. Oh well, damn those things I'll keep my magic ice maker.
I have not done much work on the house since moving in. We had Christmas off but have had to work 10's since to make up and I have had some other stuff going on. I'm not sure what my next project will be. Siding probably and some more exterior work.
Hope you all had great holidays and I wish you all the best for the new year coming.

I'll Be Home For Christmas

I spent my first night in the house last night (the 23rd). It was wonderful. I did have a little trouble going to sleep at first. Maybe excitement; maybe that moon was so full and bright, I kept wanting to get up and look outside. I'm not used to so many windows.
I wish you all a very happy and peaceful Christmas time. May your households be filled with joy.
Merry Christmas Philip, I hope you do receive a book or two or other special treat.
Thanks for the Christmas card Karen and Regina. Sorry I did not send any out this year. I just couldn't swing it.
I'm going to go put my tree up now and get ready to cook a good Christmas breakfast in the morning.

The Heat Is On

Sorry about the poor quality photo but the house is quite warm and comfy! Got to get just a few more things cleaned up and cleared out. Should be moving in soon.

Come Together

Sorry to have been absent for a while. I've been working a lot at night down at the house and just haven't felt much like blogging really. My stress level is pretty high right now. I want so bad to move into the house before Christmas and it is really coming down to the wire. All I lack to be able to stay there is heat. I finished the shower completely, I hung and finished the sheetrock in the back of the closet that I had open for the shower valves etc. I just need to paint that now. I took the humongous scaffolding down!! I have room in the living room now! All of the filter media etc. finally came and we got that running. That is what these photos show.
The filter is this giant thing that has a gravel-like medium in the bottom (about 10") and then on top of that is this "Micro Z" stuff. Which is a natural mineral that is mined and ground up to resemble coarse sand, fired in a kiln and sifted. It is supposed to filter down to 5 microns, which is pretty fine. It may have been overkill (regular sand will go down to 20 microns) but I'm not taking any chances any more. It took all day to run the filter through the stages and flush out all the dust in the media. I was surprised at that. You would think they would wash the stuff or something before they send it to you. It took about 3 hours of running water to flush everything and get it working but it is great now. The water is sooo clear! I have the filter set to backwash itself every 3 days I believe. This cycle takes about 50 minutes. It washes out through the septic system so it has to tied into a drain line somewhere. I am very pleased with the system so far and the company that I ordered from which was Excel Water Technologies. They were very fast to answer questions and call me back when the media stuff did not show up. I would really recommend these people if you are looking for a filter.

I bought a Christmas tree. It is sitting out in the yard. I am waiting until I can move in to put it up. I have always thought it was funny that a holiday could bring about a state of mind where it is considered normal to drag the biggest tree you can get into your house and stand it up. Any other time people would think you were mad. It would be the best Christmas I ever had if I were able to wake up in my house on Christmas morning this year. The gas lines are almost all run. I have to work all weekend but Allen is going to put in the last of the lines tomorrow. I couldn't do that anyway but I am going refrigerator shopping after I get off work tomorrow. I think I finally found what I want. The gas company said they would be at the house Monday morning to set the tank so I could have heat by Monday night. Not sure when I'll be back but I'll let ya'll know if it looks like I'll make it in before the 24th.