This is Bear. He's my neighbor. He's my regular guy. He's a Rottweiler. He weighs 110 lbs.  We play hard.

Constant light rain today.  Had two tandem truckloads of DG delivered.  Still filling in the inside of the footers.  Mom, Jim and Donny traded off on shoveling and compacting.  Dad drove tractor dumping many loads where they could be easily spread.  It will be 14 to 16 inches deep.

Yesterday Dad went to town for supplies,
 Mom helped Donny and Jim with the shoveling.
They left me inside.

We built a ramp using decomposed granite on the outside of the footer. Then shoveled 4 inch layers of DG on the inside of the footer, compacting each layer until it was built up to the level of the footer.

They laid a steel plate over the footer so we can drive the tractor inside to dump more DG.  The entire inside has to be filled with compacted DG which makes the base for the slab/floor.

Temperatures are predicted to be in the teens so the engineer recommended that we cover the concrete footers with blankets.  ICF Mike brought blankets out.  When we ran out of blankets we used hay!  It was snowing pretty hard by the time we quit.

The footings were poured Monday morning!  The pumper truck set up on the edge of the "hole" and was able to reach all the way across to the opposite side.  The five ICF PRO guys muscled the concrete around.  The pumper truck guy had a remote control to move the pump around.  We used 5 or 6 (lost count) truckloads of concrete.  They had them set up to deliver every 20 minutes.  The forms were taken off on Tuesday.  Now the footers are curing for a couple days.  Next we'll fill the middle with DG to provide a surface for the basement floor.  Snow is in the forecast!

Added many more loads of pit-run rock on the driveway today prepping for the concrete trucks scheduled for Monday!!  This is Donny's (Sugar Kat, Inc) Hi-Track bulldozer.  He smoothed and crushed the rock like it was sand!!

Passed the structural engineer's inspection!  Ready to pour the footings!  Lots of rebar sticking up.  The plywood boxes are the forms for the column footers.  Lots of talk about the width of the footers (5'6"); wider than the guys on the job have seen for our size building.  The Engineer explained that they're using a cantilever design that is not supported by the subfloor.  The subfloor sits on top of the wall.  If the subfloor had to provide support to hold the walls up (out) it is more expensive than a wood subfloor--requiring steel beams.


BTW, the coconut.... pierced the shell... no problem.  Folks took it before I made a mess.  It may be a good outdoor summer treat.

Woke up to 3 in of snow this morning!

Passed the County footer inspection today!   Getting ready for the first concrete pour.

My trainer said coconuts are good dog toys so the folks bought me one!  I can chew it, roll it, and I know there's something inside!  But I dropped it on mom's foot. It's heavy. Probably the last coconut I'm getting.`

Yesterday the guys worked on putting rebar in the footing frames.  Today we woke up to 1" of rain, then 1" of slushy snow, which will become thick mud.  So no work today.  Weather doesn't look good this week.

Darn.  We lost Zimbit the other day (Thurs).  When we put the girls in at night she wasn't there.  No sign of her. No feathers, nothing.   She was the smallest chicken, a Leghorn, smartest, most outgoing, and a reliable layer.  This is a picture of her first egg on the seat of the tractor! It was probably the red tail hawk that circles around, that we once saw dive bomb the girls.  Darn.

ICF Pro out of Medford is building the basement.  They've set up the "Form-a-Drain" which is the permanent footer form and french drain. They're beginning to lay down "Form-a-Bag" that provides a moisture barrier between the base rock and concrete, which stops water from wicking up into the concrete walls.

This is a close-up of the form-a-drain.  It will have piping connecting inside to outside and to a storm drain that goes to daylight.  It's made of light-weight PVC.

Ooops!  I sat on the cat!  She was stuck!  You should have heard her howling!

We brought in 4 tandem truckloads of decomposed granite for the base foundation.  There is a ramp to get down into the foundation.

The excavators, Donny and Jim spread the DG, compacted it, and leveled it across the entire area.

The girls are loving the fresh dug dirt!  They have to be locked up when people are coming and going because they get in the way.  This is Zolo.

This is the wildflower field last summer where we decided to build the house.  The walnut trees to the left had to be removed.

Here is the Trackhoe moving on-site in early January.  Why do they always chain me up?

Pit run rock being dumped to form the base of the driveway across the field.

The excavators piled up the topsoil all around the sides to keep it separate.

Staying out of trouble in a truckload of blackberry brambles.

Here's my Mom finishing up the digging!