Movin' Along

 This past month continues the rapid pace of construction that we've enjoyed since the house arrived on site at the end of July.

The house was originally set over the footings for the foundation, high enough that our contractor could build the foundation walls beneath it. A few days after the two halves of the house arrived, a crew came in, bolted them together and nudged them into the exact position over the footings. Our contractor then went to town building the foundation walls. 

Here's the foundation wall. The house is still setting a few inches above the pressure-treated wood that's bolted to the top. Additionally, before the soil was backfilled the wall was treated with a waterproof coating. 

While all the was going on, we took a quick trip to Seattle to celebrate Parker's second birthday. The trip was shorter than we would have preferred, for two reasons: 1) we had also committed to watching our other two grandchildren when their mother went back to work before they started back in school; 2) we suspected that we'd need to be home for consultation and decisions.

Parker and Dodger, getting ready for the birthday party!

So, we returned to Paso on Friday, August 13 and met Jill and Joe in Santa Barbara on the 15th to pick up the kids. We had them with us all week, returning them home on the following Saturday. Additionally, we watched them on the following Monday and Tuesday before we were finally released from duty on Wednesday afternoon. We had a ball with them, but chasing after two little ones, especially a three-year-old, just about did us in.  

Teddy's a huge fan of Grammy's spaghetti!

A tragedy ensued while we had the kids. Our beloved Copper collapsed on a morning walk. We managed to get him on his feet and back to the truck. We immediately took him to a veterinary hospital, where he was quickly diagnosed with an inoperable bleeding tumor on his liver. We made the tough decision to have him put to sleep right then. The vet said one of his lungs was full of fluid - probably blood - and we didn't want him to needlessly suffer any more. 

The grandkids were with us while all this happened. Poor Madeline, who loves dogs, was just devastated. Teddy, at age three, struggled to understand the finality of death. 

I discovered later that over 60% of golden retrievers die of cancer, mostly the hemangiosarcoma that Copper had. Here's our precious one...

Meanwhile, a ton of work has been done to the house, both inside and out. There's people working on the utility trenching, and the plumbing under the house. The septic tank has been set in place; while I write this, the grading crew is excavating for the leach field for the septic tank. The foundation was finished and the grading backfilled around the house; it's really starting to look like something now! They're supposed to start work on pouring the concrete pads for the porch and the garage today or tomorrow. The well people will be out in a couple of weeks to set the rest of their equipment. 

We're even more involved. Our contractor asked us if we wanted to take on building a retaining wall along the east side of our house. This entails a wall about 3' high and 45' long; if you look in the picture below, we're talking about the space to the left of the front of the house. The work will entail setting about 400 stackable blocks, which we'll have delivered as close as we can to the site. 

The front of the house. Our porch will be attached to the gable, and project out 8'. 

With all this going on, the obvious question is: when will things be done? We really don't know for sure, but we know that it won't be sooner than September 21. That's the date that PG&E has scheduled to attach their meeting and provide us with power. 

Also, we just found out that AT&T needs to move a telephone line that runs along the street. It's buried too shallow to allow for the proper excavation of our driveway. AT&T wants to charge us some $6-7,000 dollars to move this thing, which I think was improperly buried in the first place. Also, the guy told us it will take 30 days or so for them to do the work! UGH!