Day 59: RAIN

Wednesday

Yesterday we got the basement walls poured, and just in time, as it poured rain Tuesday evening and Wednesday early morning. As Steve put it, we can check the swimming pool off the list as we now have one in our basement.

I was going to have some gravel delivered today for the basement underslab, but my gravel guy sent me this picture in a text. They got five inches at their house in Excelsior Springs, MO, about 10 miles from Kearney. It's a bit too wet and muddy to be bringing gravel trucks down our driveway at the moment. Steve's rain gauge "only" showed 1.4" from last night.

Our bridge that we installed last week did well, holding up to a flood of water that washed over the bridge.

Compare the water level to where it was last week.

Day 58: Basement Walls Poured

Tuesday

Early Tuesday morning, cement trucks were rolling into Beyeler Hollow.We now have the foundation poured, and just in time, as storms moved into the area Tuesday night bringing a lot of rain.

It was a big pour, compared to typical foundations. The suspended garage and safe rooms added a lot of walls that aren't part of a normal house. We're glad we have them, though, because you can't add them later.

We had our contractor add waterstop at the top of the walls above the suspended areas. It is a vertical rubber fin that connects the basement wall with the flat cement floor which will be added next. It provides a waterproof seal to prevent water from seeping into the basement from the crack between the slab and the basement wall.

Will was a good help, pounding in the rebar with a mallet he found at the site.

Daily Stats		Hours Worked			Cost
	Day	Trevor	Family/Friends	Contractors
Today	58	0	2	16
All Time	58	32	54	294.5	$13,496.75
Summary of 6/3/2014		Work Done Today
		Poured foundation, smoothed Driveway
		Materials Used Today
		Concrete, rebar, lumber, water stop
		Who Helped Today
		Steve
		Contractors On Site
		Remley Construction

Day 55: In Formation

Saturday

The forms are in! We're excited to have the forms in and set up. They're ready for concrete to be poured into them. We've waited for a long time to get our basement finished, and this is a great step. It helps to have the forms in because it commits our contractor to our project: as long as his forms are here, he can't move on to the next project. I'm keeping my eye on a line of thunderstorms to the west. As long as they don't dump too much on us, and soften up the ground, we should be able to get the basement walls poured tomorrow.

Daily Stats		Hours Worked			Cost
	Day	Trevor	Family/Friends	Contractors
Today	55	0	0	16
All Time	55	32	52	278.5	$13,496.75
Summary of 5/31/2014		Work Done Today
		Final form set up, blocked out window and doors
		Materials Used Today
		Rebar, treated lumber
		Who Helped Today
		Contractors On Site
		remley Construction

Day 53: Basement Progress

Thursday

We've been anxiously awaiting for the day when we'd see some progress on the basement walls, and today was that day. Our contractor dropped off forms yesterday around noon. They sat out in our basement like Easter Isle statues or a modern version of Stonehenge. It was a sign of progress to come.

Today the crew arrived and started putting up the rebar. They attached the vertical pieces to the ones sticking up out of the footing concrete shown in the above picture. Then they attached the horizontal pieces to the vertical ones using metal ties. Once all the walls are tied in place, they will put the forms around them and be ready to pour.

Speaking of pouring - it did that today at our land. A small but potent storm cell just a few miles across blew in and dumped water for about ten minutes. Just long enough to make everything muddy. Then about thirty minutes later the same thing happened again. It dampened the soil and made it too slick for our contractor to unload the rest of his forms. He'll get to them tomorrow, provided it doesn't pour any more tonight. If all goes well, he'll be pouring concrete Saturday morning or Monday morning.

Daily Stats		Hours Worked			Cost
	Day	Trevor	Family/Friends	Contractors
Today	53	0	0	32
All Time	53	32	52	230.5	$13,496.75
Summary of 5/29/2014		Work Done Today
		Tied rebar for basement walls
		Materials Used Today
		Rebar
		Who Helped Today
		Contractors On Site
		Remley Construction

Day 50: Building a Bridge

Monday

No progress on the house recently as our foundation contractor is running behind. However, we did make some progress on the accessibility front. There are two main ravines that pass through our property and, so some extent, separate our land from the other neighboring parcels. One of the ravines continues to the north, and separates Nate and Krista's lot from Steve and Kim's lot. There is a trail connecting the two properties, but it is rendered impassible by the creek.

We decided to tame the wilderness by building a bridge. Steve came up with the design, materials, and equipment. We provided some of the grunt labor. We had a lot of family in town, so we enlisted their help.

First, Steve drug two telephone poles that he bought off Craigslist down to the crossing. Matt used his winch to drag them across the creek. We lined them up where we wanted them, then we dug small trenches for the poles to rest in so that the top of the bridge would be flush with the ground.

Once the poles were set in the ground, leveled, and spaced correctly, we laid 2x6 boards 6' ft long across the bridge. We had a pretty good fire brigade set up for this part of the operation. 

We had a righty and a lefty working on the bridge at the same time, which worked out well for spacing, productivity, and camaraderie.

The nailing was pretty hard work. Fortunately, we had a lot of people standing around to cheer us on. Matt came to the rescue with a 5 lb sledge and helped finish them off.

Once we were finished, we decided to quality check our work. For the maiden crossing, we opted to get both mules on the bridge, loaded with passengers, just to show how confident we were in our work. 

Daily Stats		Hours Worked			Cost
	Day	Trevor	Family/Friends	Contractors
Today	50	4	20	0
All Time	50	32	52	194.5	$13,496.75
Summary of 5/26/2014		Work Done Today
		Built bridge across tractor trail to Nate's lot
		Materials Used Today
		2 telephone poles, 2x6 boards
		Who Helped Today
		Steve, Matt, Darwin, Nate, Max, Reed
		Contractors On Site
		None

Day 38: Back to Waiting

Wednesday

Well, we haven't made any progress yet this week. Monday we got rain, which slowed down our foundation subcontractor. He won't be able to finish up until next week with the walls, assuming weather cooperates. The rain gave us a few puddles at the site. On the positive side, the rain is really helping green up our meadow.

Day 34: Trees, Trees, Trees

Saturday

We got quite a bit done today. We camped out the night before, so we were already up a the land, ready to work. Steve started us off by using the snow plow truck to smooth out the driveway ruts. It was a big help, as the cement trucks had made the ruts deep enough that the minivan was scrapping. I did a bit more smoothing of ruts and washboard with a rake later in the day.

We had a bit of a break in the morning, with Abby joining me for a quick trip to the farm store to pick up some hardware for the posthole digger. She talked her way into two more ducks for Grandma's farm. Cheese and Quackers. The other kids were a bit jealous.

We let the new ducks play with the other ducks and goats and kids for a bit. They all got along great. The ducklings were much more at home in the grass than in the box. The chummed right up to everyone, and followed the kids (human, not goat) like they were a mother duck. The fun of country life.

In the afternoon, I was a task master, putting the kids to work for hours on end. Two hours, to be exact. We planted three rows of nut trees in the back of the meadow near the camp site. All four kids helped, plus Steve and Kim. Once again, we had  a system going, or so we thought. Maybe it was just a good plan. We set up the mule with the post-hole digger, water, tape measure, and buckets of trees. We planned to stop, drill a hole, plant a tree, fill it in, water it, and move on.

Turns out we couldn't get the post hole digger to dig. Not sure if the auger blades were dull or if the ground was too hard. So we dug by hand. The rest of the plan went, well, as planned. The kids were great help. Will and Abby helped me measure. Reed and Emmy planted and watered. I think they all helped each other with everything. They were great help and hardly complained at all.


We did trees every 30 feet in a line, staggered the next row and set it 20 feet way. We did two rows of walnut and one row of pecan. Probably around 20 trees (twigs) total. In five years maybe they'll be as tall as Reed.

We were blessed with excellent working weather, and then were blessed with rain late in the afternoon. It rained just enough to give everything, including our new trees and grass seedlings, a good soaking. Then the rain turned to hail on our drive home. Don't worry, the kids weren't out during the hail storm, just after.

Daily Stats		Hours Worked			Cost
	Day	Trevor	Family/Friends	Contractors
Today	34	4	8	0
All Time	34	28	32	194.5	$13,496.75
Summary of 5/10/2014		Work Done Today
		Smoothed driveway, planted trees
		Materials Used Today
		Walnut and pecan trees
		Who Helped Today
		Steve, Kim, Reed, Emmy, Abby, Will
		Contractors On Site
		none