Chapter 3...Pouring the Walls and Foundation

Hi everyone. It's time for chapter 3 in our story. This is from the week of June 9. Let me start out by saying- cows are very nosy and we have learned to block everything off when we leave at night. There were hoof prints all around the shipping container, they pulled out the stake we had marked for the well, and they were also inside the house. It's not fair that they got to spend the night before we did. We finally have the roads good enough to get the concrete trucks in and the homesite is also ready for concrete. The Concrete Company delivered their form boards on Monday and they will be doing footers Tuesday. Over the weekend Mike and I brought supplies and tools over to the new place. So on Monday morning Mike got to play. He hooked up our battery system for the solar and he also installed our wind generator: We will be adding one more wind generator. We would rather have 2 smaller wind generators than one because they don't need as much wind to spin. One of the worst things about developing raw land is all the grass that was torn up is now dirt. It must be covered before it turns to mud. Mike and I always used to rake out the land(get the big rocks up), seed it, and then put straw on top. This time we found a great new(to us) product called curlex. It is an erosion control mat that comes 4' x 180' or 8' x 90'. So we started seeding and working on our largest hill of dirt. You just seed, roll out the mat, and staple into the ground(the staples rot away). Sounds easy right? Well, Mike and I got the bright idea that one of us(Mike) would stand with the roll, 4' x 180', and roll it down while the one at the bottom(me) would stop the roll with my leg. All I can say is ouch and my leg is still tender. So the next couple of time Mike was at the bottom. It didn't work much better. The other mistake we made was not stapling the mat as we went. We decided to both stand at the top and unroll all the mats and let them go. Huge mistake. When we got back all the mats rolled down the hill into one big mess. It took us forever to unravel the mats. Needless to say we didn't finish the hill that day. This is what the hill looks like now(well before the cows messed with it). On Tuesday the concrete crew showed up to work on the footers. The pump truck and the concrete trucks had to make it up our hill. We were all holding our breath but everyone made it to the top. And it's a good thing we made all that flat land up top because it got really crowded up there. That night we had to get a solar electric rope to keep the cows off the footers. Wednesday and Thursday We went to town and ordered our patio doors for the front of the house. When we got to the house site I almost gave Mike a heart attack because I was yelling and pointing because our windmill was spinning like crazy. Mike had to take me inside the building and plug up a light to it to show me how it works. That was so... cool. I can't wait until we have "all of our own power". On Thursday we ordered our trusses for the roof. When we got over to the property the place was hoppin'. The crew was putting up the form boards for our walls. They poured the walls that afternoon. Now it's starting to look like a house. What a great day. This concrete crew is the best we have ever seen. Friday we ordered our metal roof and we had to put the plumbing in the house because the slab will be poured next week. We had a great week so we took the weekend off. I hope you enjoyed chapter 3. If you have any questions or comments please post. Lisa