DINNER

DINNER & WATER IN THE HH

by with No Comment Mountain Gaitway

Dinner and water? Sounds like an odd combination. But, things are continuing to move along in the Happy House (HH) and these are two things I wanted to share in this post.

A few weeks ago, Laurie and I set up a card table and plastic chairs in the HH. A few times we took some cheese, crackers and wine out there and enjoyed the view while munching. The other day Kelly and Carol (who are building a house on a property across the road from us) came over to share dinner. We decided to eat in the HH; a preview of the time we will be living in it and enjoying this experience every day. Carol snapped a picture with her phone:

What a view, eh?

Up until now, we’ve been dragging multiple water hoses around in order to fill up the RV, the stock tank for the horses and water for the ducks. Now that the house shell is complete, we were ready to get the well water run into the crawlspace and hooked up. We included a 300 gallon cistern for spare capacity. Here’s what it looks like in the crawlspace now:

We had put in hydrants (faucets) at the barn and at the RV. A short hose is now connected to the RV. We no longer have to fill up the tank in the RV, the water goes directly into the RV water system. This provides better water pressure and is really appreciated when taking a shower. Oh, life’s little pleasures J .
The ducks can now be watered with a short hose connected to the hydrant. And, the hydrant at the barn fills up the stock tank. No more dragging hoses around and having to remember to manually turn off the well pump when not in use! WooHoo!

We have been putting the metal roofing on and will have a post with pics when that is done, hopefully in the next week.

One by one, the pieces are all falling into place. And, we to continue to meet new neighbors and build relationships and connections in our new “hometown”. (I saw a person wearing a T Shirt that said: “Guffey, you either get it or you don’t”. You have to come see Guffey in order to understand that T Shirt!

THE DUCK STORY

by with No Comment Golden CascadesMountain Gaitway

In addition to building the house, we took on 13 ducklings, which arrived June 4th.

13 Ducklings, June 5

They grew, and grew, and at 12 weeks, they really filled the pool!

A few days ago we finally found time to “reduce the flock”. We sold two of the females, and butchered three drakes and two of the remaining females. As planned, we had six remaining ducks; presumably one drake and five hens, all the Golden Cascades.
The only problem was this little stinker. “She” turned out to be a “he”. This one looks pretty much like the other hens, and with 13 ducks, I hadn’t noticed that he talks like a drake. Just after the butchering was over, Tim noticed that this duck was making the drake sound, and sure enough, he also has the drake curly tail.
Golden Cascade Drake
He doesn’t have the white ring around his neck as the other drakes, nor the yellow bill. In fact, this bill is quite blueish-grey. All along I’ve just thought this was one of the hens. I had wanted to keep 5 hens for laying, but it’s not a real big deal that there are only 4 now. There will be plenty of eggs for Tim and me. We’ll have to figure out what to do with this extra drake, but we’ll figure it out.
For now, it’s awfully nice to have a mere six, calmer ducks. There’s less competition for food, they all happily float in the pool a great deal of the time, and it’s nice putting out half as much food for them. I don’t have to clean the water bowl or pool as often, either. Ahhhhh.
082615-CURRENT

GETTING CLOSER TO THE VISION

by with No Comment Mountain Gaitway

We went to Colorado Springs to pick up the windows and doors. We installed them and added the overhangs:

Here is a pic looking out from the interior:

What a view, eh?

This one shows the skylight:

When we headed off to bed it was 68 degrees inside the house. When we got up next morning it was 42 degrees outside, but still 60 degrees in the house. Not much heat loss overnight. And, we’re not even fully closed up yet!

This is a good time to review what we had envisioned and where we’re currently at. Here is our lot before we started (2014):

 

Here’s the way we envisioned it with an overlay of the house on the property:

Here’s where we’re currently at:

We are thrilled with the amount of progress to date. Over the next 2 weeks we plan to get the roof and siding done. Once that is done, we will be “winterized” and be able to work inside whenever the weather outside gets nasty.

As always, we give thanks to our Father for His this wonderful gift and opportunity.

SIPS-DONE

INSTANT HOUSE

by with No Comment Mountain Gaitway

After months of planning, reviewing drawings (correcting mistakes on the plan) and getting the SIPs panels made ahead of time the big day has arrived. All the pieces should fit together and in 3 days we should have what looks like a house. Here we go…

The first floor panel is in place:

The horses are clearly not impressed (or interested) as more floor panels are added: 
With the floor done, wall panels start going up: 
Now for the roof: 
After several roof panels are in place, it’s time for the compression ring: 
The last roof panel goes in: 
Now for the crown, the skylight dome: 
Perfect fit! (as if there were any doubt 🙂 

At this point, the house shell looks kind of like a water tower. But, there’s more to come!

Total time: 3 (very long) days. 

FOUNDATION COMPLETE

by with No Comment Mountain Gaitway

Whew! The foundation is finished and passed inspection with two whole days to spare before the SIPs crew gets here to put up the house 🙂 .

Here’s a pic of the foundation:

You can see the plastic around the outside of the foundation wall and the beams across the middle that will support the floor. 

Next up: SIPs installation.

HOUSE ON A TRAILER

by with No Comment Mountain Gaitway

On Tuesday, ‎August ‎4th, ‎the SIPs panels arrived. The floor, walls and roof of our house were all on a single trailer:

The driver unloaded the panels and Tim directed where each set of panels was to be placed (around the house) in order to make them the most convenient to grab and put up in order: 
Here you can see several piles of panels with the foundation wall just visible to the right of them: 
You can see that the panels are kind of like an Oreo cookie; OSB on each side with foam in between. The floor is 10″ thick, the walls 8″ and the roof 12″ thick. Each panel is made ahead of time to assemble with other panels. They interlock and form very tight seals. The thick insulated walls along with the seals (greatly reducing air infiltration, a major source of heat loss) is what gives SIPs their incredible energy efficiency. 
The installation crew has been delayed for a week, so we’re now expecting to have the panels installed starting on the 19th. 
Now, Tim just has to finish the foundation before they get here 🙂 .

BASEMENT WALLS

by with No Comment Mountain Gaitway

The basement walls are framed and we’re starting to put plywood on the outside. Our friend, Trisha, helped!

 

Here’s a picture from farther back showing the barn, RV and background:

The septic system was completed and approved. 

We expect the SIPs panels to be delivered on Tuesday. We’re tentatively scheduled to put up the SIPs the following week. That means we will have the house under roof in about 2 weeks from now – WAHOO!

A FIRM FOUNDATION

by with No Comment Mountain Gaitway

Wahoo!! We passed the county inspection for the footers and got them poured!

The building inspector and the excavation guy both commented on how much attention to detail we were applying. I guess they see a lot of less-than-good-quality instances that they have to deal with. Hey, we’re retired; we have the time to do it right 🙂 . After all, there is a fundamental principle that a firm foundation is the key to a well-built house. I enjoy contemplating spiritual parallels to the “everyday” events in our lives. If you’re interested, you can read my thoughts about the spiritual parallels regarding having a firm foundation here.

Now we can start building the basement walls. After what seems to be a long period of “destruction”, now we can begin the “construction” part on the house. It’s really true that construction is frequently preceded by deconstruction. In order to start with a firm foundation on which to build you must frequently do a bit of “tearing down” in order to have a good start.

Well, we’re finally beginning the construction, or building up, phase. This is a very exciting milestone. As usual, we are grateful to our Father for this blessing and opportunity.

HAVING A “BLAST”

by with No Comment Mountain Gaitway

Many people don’t realize how much work goes into a new property before you can even think about working on building the house. The septic system is being built, trenching is done to run water and electric lines to the house, barn and RV. And digging for the house foundation is finally done.

Monstrous machines were brought in to dig up the dirt and crunch thru the rock. There were some rocky areas that even the machines couldn’t bust thru. They had to blast these areas with dynamite to break them up.

Then, the monster machines again clawed at the stubborn material to eventually get us to a level, solid starting point on which to build our foundation.

Our peaceful and serene mountain getaway looks like a war zone. It’s been noisy and piles of dirt and trenches are everywhere. But, we’re finally ready to pour the concrete footers. After that we start on the basement walls. I’ve been going a bit “stir crazy” waiting to get to this point. Now, I can finally get started on my part and the pressure is on me instead of waiting on others to get their part done.

A new neighbor that we recently met asked “So, when do they think they’re going to be done building the house?”. (They assumed I had hired a contractor to do that.) I replied “Whenever I get it done.”

Even in the midst of all this turmoil, we continue to appreciate the wondrous beauty of this place. The deer come by to inspect our progress:

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The amazing hummingbirds are always fascinating to watch: 
The ducks are growing at an amazing rate: 

The horses are doing great and we get to enjoy the ever changing grandeur of the Rocky Mountains:

 

So far, it looks like we’re on track to get the house under roof and weather proof before the autumn/winter snows begin. That will allow me to work inside as the weather gets colder. Being a “type A”, task-oriented person I have to keep reminding myself to take a break and enjoy our new life a bit more (and Laurie helps me with that, too).

What a great time in our life! We are so grateful for all that our Father has blessed us with.

IT’S OFFICIAL?

by with No Comment Golden CascadesMountain Gaitway

We’re continuing to make progress at the new Golden Gaits Ranch property. There’s a lot of grass in the fields that is just begging to be enjoyed by the horses. However, the property is not fenced. I (Tim) started working a bit on fencing in order to not let all that grass go to waste. Here’s a picture of the horses enjoying their newly expanded pasture:

The fence is not truly “horse-proof” at this point. It’s just a single strand of electric wire. But, the horses respect the wire and have plenty to eat. However, we put them back in the more secure paddock when we leave the property.

The ducks are growing amazingly fast. We’re starting to see real feathers sprout, replacing the baby down.

Laurie has lots more pictures and should be posting more details soon.

We’ve been hankerin’ to put up our Golden Gaits Ranch sign for a while and yesterday we took out time to do that. It’s kind of a temporary thing; we’ll likely re-do it later. But, seeing it up kind of makes it “official”. The Happy House will be located on top of the hill behind the sign.

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A neighbor came by the other day and said to Tim: “Are you Tim?”. I answered in the affirmative. She then asked: “Do you train horses?”. Again, affirmative. She wants me to work with her and her horse. I guess word is getting around. That should be fun.

It’s still hard to believe we’re really here. There is so much to do and yet so much to pause and enjoy. We love sitting on the swing in front of the RV in the evenings watching thunderstorms off in the distance or enjoying a beautiful sunset. We are truly grateful to our Father for this gift. We’re always looking for ways to share it with others. Come on out for a visit if you get a chance!