Giddy up and ride your pony "wall"...

... bit of a horse theme going on lately!

So what's been happening?  Mr M has finished up the mud sills, leveled and bolted down!

Then he had to giddy up and build his pony wall! The pony wall is for the floor joists to sit on whilst allowing access to both sides of the crawl space, its nice and spacious so Mr M will have lots of room for rolling around in there!

Next he laid the septic pipes, there was some digging involved...

Then he had to fill it all in again, quite repetitive this building malarkey...

We have still been having a drop of the wet stuff, apparently this is April Showers - more like April Soakings... the ducks have decided if we don't want the house they will move in...

Unfortunately for them this sump pump takes care of any flood issues...

So the floor joists have been delivered and that will be the next job "on site"...

The garden "work in progress" got some fancying up this weekend, I found these super cute metal bird post caps for my new garden fence...

Can you name them all? They aren't all native to Oregon and US fans will obviously have an advantage...

Laters Taters!!

Dispatch from the trenches....

... all soldiers could be suffering from trenchfoot!

Monday morning dawned bright and early and everyone arrived "on site".  Concrete trucks, concrete pump and men, lots of men!

Concrete got poured out of the truck into the pump...

and then basically pooped its way out of this big tube into the formers...

Men then go around with a big vibratoring thing vibrating into the concrete to remove air.,..

Whilst other men go around and smooth the top of the concrete..

All these men.....

Worked their socks off and in less than 4 hours the foundations were in...

So we had some sun which allowed the concrete to set, then some of the men came back and took off the formers... and voila.... job done..

Mr M has now started, he is working on getting the mud sills in place! Mud sills are bits of wood that are the interface between the concrete and the floor joists, lots of measuring, some more measuring and hole drilling.....

He will be finishing up these this week and all his floor joists are being delivered at some point.  Check back next week for progress!

So its still raining in Oregon on and off (more on than off) and this last week we had a big windstorm one night, the wind came from a different direction to normal and we had a lot of branches come down! My chickens must have woken with a start when 2 huge branches hit the chicken coop... luckily the ducks are there to protect them!  This has now been fixed and life continues on as normal for the FU...

 

Get the bonfire started up Mr M, we have more stuff to burn....



Underneath every house....

......is a dead body.. are concrete foundations!!

It was a busy end of the week here at Wern y Wylan, the contractors arrived and within 2 days they had the formers in, inspection passed and ready for concrete pouring at 8am Monday morning!

First they put the outside formers in... they worked flat out (Mr M take note)..

Next the rebar is suspended so that when the concrete is poured it ends up in the middle...

Finally the inside formers with spacers to keep it all in place, plus big metal bolts that the house will be fixed to (that should stop us getting blown away then, maybe?), the grey box is the vent, these are positioned all around the top of the foundations.

They then painted the formers with diesel - lovely lovely diesel.. Mr M was particularly disturbed by the smell, he obviously didn't grow up on a farm! I kept looking for the tractor!

All ready for the concrete....

Whilst the real work has been going on I have been pottering around in the garden, loving that Spring has finally sprung and I can finally get outside without wearing a coat..

I have been wheel barrowing river rock up to the top of the garden to complete some of the pathways, and putting in a bed here and there...

My greenhouse is starting to come alive, I have baskets and pots with nasturtiums and sweet peas....

A bin with potatoes that were originally planted for Christmas LOL.. taken a while but I think they might be ready before Christmas 2017...

We've been enjoying salad mix for a while now...

And if I keep checking these pots I think my seeds might germinate quicker...

So BIG day tomorrow - no going back - house or swimming pool next!

Under starters orders and they're off.....

Tally Ho!! So this is it, fed up for waiting for the weather to improve we have taken the plunge (quite literally) and we have begun! I mean it is the end of March so the weather is destined to improve soon - right?

This could take a while...

 

 

First sod taken from the site.... No going back now!

Mr M took the adult decision and downed shovel and got the big boys in...

The mounds of dirt *sigh*  eventually they will be used for back filling around the foundations and then the rest is going to a good home...

 

A man and his hole....

 Next it they layed pipework ready for septic lines and electric cables and then they lined it with gravel, keep the workers out of the mud...

 

Then just for a change it rains and you discover you have in fact built a swimming pool, Thankfully we have also had some dry weather and so discovered that it does drain pretty quickly!

 

 

And so now we are all set for the concrete guy to come and lay the foundations, we are hoping that it will be this week! watch this space!

Obviously whilst this has been going on we have had some downtime and actually took off back up to Seattle to ski for a few days, so much fun apart from the rain! we might actually be Rain Gods! 

Thank you Tom for coming to meet us, never fails to be a good day on the mountain!

In other exciting news the garden is back on the grow.  The bulbs I planted so diligently in the Fall have done me proud, we have SO many daffodils etc. up and about...

 

 

So here's hoping that Spring is really on its way!

We just had a great weekend with my friend Joni and her husband Leo and their 2 dogs Kane and Ace.  So much fun to catch up and plenty of dog walking whilst they were here.

Thank you for bringing the sunshine and feel free to bring it back anytime :)

Check back next week I am thinking we could be back in full blog action!

Under Starters Orders.......

Ola blog readers!  Quick update from the wonderful world of our Grand Design!

Firstly we have our permit, all approved and ready to go, we also have a contractor lined up to put in the foundations and they are ready to go... Now we just have to wait for the weather to give us a satisfactory break! Its interesting that even after all the rain we have had this winter our property is still really dry, I did some digging earlier (more on that shortly) and the ground is still dry.... No Mud clogging on my Wellies!!

Work continues on the "plans" Mr M needs to remember it isn't an airplane, if the final build deviates slightly from the plans the world won't end! but it is keeping him quiet during these wet days!

 

When it hasn't been raining he has been putting up a fence!  The fence is dividing the vegetable garden/orchard from what will eventually be the main back garden.  I am hopeful that this fence, along with other measures will help to deter the deer and send them to other, easier gardens, to invade!  It will also be useful in keeping Daisy Dog out of the veggie beds when they are blooming!

 

I've got arbors too... ohhhh arrrrrrbors!

 

 

I have plans to put in another couple of raised beds this year, so today I got started on the first one as I want to get some additional raspberry plants installed, its hard work digging when you have had a few months off. 

I have also netted my existing raspberry bed as that suffered greatly last year at the hands/mouths/hooves of the deer - let them try now suckers......

This winter has been a mixture of weather, wet and wild and cold and frosty!  February is certainly living up the wet and wild name. Mr M just happened to be stood next to one of our tall trees that is opposite the barn the other day, and thought he was having a bit of a moment, turns out that every time the wind blew he was moving up and down, the ground next to the tree was heaving about 5-10 inches, quite fascinating to watch! but obviously a bit concerning.

 

It could have hit the barn, the cars or Glenda's house, so despite Mr M getting all manly and self important with his chainsaw we both realized this tree was too big for the both of us!  So we got Wayne (who helped us clear the land) to come over and take it down for us!  But this was after a particularly windy weekend during which we basically watched and hoped it stayed upright!

 

Mr M paced it out and it is about 90ft.. so fairly large! plus once it came down it was apparent it was starting to rot!

 

 

Good fuel for our bonfires though and also some new seats to go around the firepit!

In the meantime when it isn't wet and windy, its this..........