This is one reason why I need a new house!  I can't see out the windows without getting on the furniture.  My new house will have windows that go to the floor in most of the rooms. 

It's still raining.  Woke to spring snow this morning.  Forecast is better for next week.

The nearby town of Shady Cove has a daffodil festival.  This is our daffodil hill!

Have had more rain Sunday and Monday (about an inch) which made the already soaked soil, which is loosely packed around the foundation, a deep soupy mess!  So waiting for it to dry out again!

A couple of my followers are unclear about where the new house is in relation to the double-wide.  This is the view out the back door of the crust bucket.  The foundation is where the walnut trees and wildflowers were.

Note that I'm tied up.  I've been getting in trouble lately for chasing the chickens!!  I run over them and roll them!!  Mom gets all upset and starts chasing me!  It's hysterical!

Still moving drainrock!  Donnies gets so close to the foundation with the trackhoe; it's amazing that he hasn't hit it.  We're about 1/3 up on 2/3 of the perimeter.  He has moved tons of subsoil back into the foundation hole.  The piles are slowly disappearing!  Working on Saturday before the next rain forecast!!

Monday was a dry-out day after 2 inches of rain over the weekend.  Tuesday we started backfilling and putting drainrock against the walls.  The drainrock sits in a silt/fiber cloth, which wraps down around the footing, and makes a barrier between the backfill soil and the drainrock.  Very cumbersome process.  Each wall we do we try to improve on the process.  The walls have to loaded equally and gently all the way around.  The drainrock needs to come all the way up to the edge of the Styrofoam board!

Neighbor Jim, Dad and Mom work in the "hole" setting up frames for the drainrock.  Donnie gently dumps massive loads of subsoil to fill in.   Even though the dirt was piled up 15 ft high, it is saturated all the way through, so it's still a muddy mess!

Me, I got my own work to do.  Haven't caught a gopher yet, but did get a tasty mouse treat the other day!

Before the backfilling can continue we dug (backhoe) a 200+ foot trench for the outside drain system.  The pipes drain the form-a-drain (french drain) around the house, the channel drain in the basement's outside stairwell, and will eventually connect to the rain gutters.  The end of the drain daylights out the bank in the field closest to the creek.  More piles of dirt, more mud!

After setting the pipe, they finally let me out so I supervised putting the DG on top of the pipes.  I can leap across that trench easy!

Zolo supervised Donnie digging.

The guys came and started polishing the basement floor; one of three steps before they put the acid stain on.

The pumper truck company hired a Kenworth tow truck to haul the pumper truck out, but it spun out in the mud.

Then Donnie tried the back-hoe, but the pumper truck was too heavy.

So then he got the Hi-trac bulldozer which had no problem pulling it out to the road.  The pumper company is very fortunate to have had a variety of heavy equipment  to choose from.  They did not seem prepared.

They got the trucks out, pointed in the right direction. and hauled down the road.

The backfilling has started!!

Yesterday the plan was to finish the basement floor with a pumper truck and 2 truckloads of concrete.

The pumper truck drove over from Klamath Falls experiencing some sort of engine trouble on the way up Elk Creek Rd.  He got set up, extended the pump and the hydraulic system died.  There was a concrete truck churning away while they came up with plan B which was to hire a pump and use a long hose to get the concrete into the basement.  In the meantime the second concrete truck arrived.  The first one had to be sent back because too much time had passed.  The floor pour got underway.  

A second pumper truck (the boss) came up.  In a rarely seen mating ritual the 2 pumper trucks connected hoses from the 2nd truck to the 1st, exchanged hydraulic fluid, and got the boom lowered back onto the truck.  But, the truck is dead where it sits and spilled lots of hydraulic fluid even tho we discussed that before they started.  They will have to tow it out of here, and they need to deal with the spill.

Part of the basement floor was poured Monday.  This last corner wasn't quite set before it started to rain so they tented it with plastic.  We had an inch of rain that night!!

The girls love to weed!  They follow so close to the hoe you have to be careful not to whack them.  Not one worm, grub or bug gets by them.  They are on it!

Two rows of wine grapes pruned and weeded with help from Erin and Cynthia!  Those were the Zinfandel, Pinot noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris grapes.  Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah to go!  This is their second year (ie., no wine this year).  The individual deer fences will come off as soon as the entire area deer fence is finished.

Its' open range season!  If you don't want cattle in your yard you need to fence them out.  Our neighbor has been building a new gate and isn't quite finished.  These cattle are from 1.5 miles up the road and should not be down this way, but they manage to find green pasture in any direction!  David hi-tailed it out of here to close up his gates!

The basement floor is about 2/3 prepped ready to be poured Monday.  Once they can stand on the poured part, they'll prep the remaining section.  We were wondering how they would avoid boxing themselves into a corner!!  Hopefully the weather will hold.


We opted to not insulate the floor with Styrofoam sheets.  Even tho the walls are well insulated we want the basement temperature to be cool for beer and wine!!


We had 9.3 inches of rain in March!

Already had to mow the lawn; even before the daffodils were blooming!  We have a small morel mushroom patch in the front yard.  Enough for a couple mushroom, chive, bacon pizzas!!!