Boxes

 Lisa has been trying to teach me how a woman's brain works(or at least her brain). At my age and being married to her for 30+ years I just shrug(when she's not looking) and just go with it. Why now does she think I need to know this? Is she trying to prove to me that women(Lisa) are not crazy? Because that ship has already sailed.

So this is the way she explained it to me. In a woman's brain it is filled with boxes. I am using Lisa's brain for this. She has a big box for building our house. And in that box there are boxes for the plumber, the electrician, the tile guy, the septic system, the gutters, the woodburning stove and on and on it goes. There is a box for Kendra. A box for Roman. A box for Heather. A box for the grandkids. A box for her mother. There's a box for what's for dinner. So anything you may see, she has a box for it. I think there is even a box for me but I think that one is the size of a shoebox. In her brain she can see all of these boxes and every single box is OPEN.

In my brain I have just as many boxes. Different things that I have to take care of. But the difference is that each of my boxes are closed except for the box I have opened to work on. So once I close one box, I can then open another box.

So as we work on the "Fortress of Isolation", I am glad when something gets done. Then Lisa can close one of the thousand of boxes she has opened. As for me she will just ask me, "What box are you working on today?" 

After this week she can close a couple of boxes. It has been a very busy week for sure. As we are getting to the end of September, which is kind of our deadline to have that house liveable, things are happening fast. Last week we knew that we had the tile guy scheduled for Monday. The excavator company said they could show up on Monday also. We also had some possibilities of the power company and the concrete company. So we expected a busy week.

We got out there early Monday to find the tile guy already there and starting to work. Then the excavation company showed up also. There were trucks and trailers and earth moving equipment everywhere. 

The excavators where busy clearing the forest farther away from the barn. On one side they had to clear a big area for the septic system. In this county we had to have a mound system which requires a large area.

As they were putting in the septic system we had to ask a lot of questions about it. We have never had a septic system before and didn't know how it worked.

This is the septic tank. 1600 hundred gallon capacity. There are 2 tanks in there. One is 1000 gallons and the other 600. So when you flush, forgive me if this gets too graphic, the solids will settle in the first tank. The liquids will eventually flow into the second tank. Once that reaches a certain level a pump will activate in it and pump the liquids into the mound system which is that big pile of sand behind the tank. 

This is the mound system. It is really just a filter. It is 40 feet long by 20 feet wide and 3-5 feet deep. There are pipes that run through those black covers and those are just used to disperse the spray from the pump. So the pump shoots the liquids under those covers into the sand which filters it before it rejoins the water table. I know what you are thinking. Don't you have a well nearby? We do. The sand is a natural filter and is at least 3 feet thick. Then the water table is 100 feet below that. More filtering. Plus it is by law 50 feet away downstream of our well. So if our coffee should never taste funny.

That is the finished mound system and septic tank area once they finished covering the whole thing with dirt. That took 3 days to get that in. While one guy was working on that another was clearing our RV pad site on the other side of the barn.

We will have full RV hookups on that side of the barn just in case someone were to find our undisclosed location, get through our security perimeter, past the attack dogs and over the moat. Then they have earned the right to stay overnight before we call the sheriff in the morning.

The tile guy was in our bathroom working on our shower. We decided to go with a custom shower just to spoil ourselves. It took him 4 days to get the tile laid and it turned out spectacular. 

Day one.

He got the walls up and the floor tiled. Those are rocks that look like river rock on the floor.

Day two.

He started getting the tile on the wall and he built our soap shelf. Then he had to quit and we had to call the plumber in to get the fixtures roughed in.

Day three.

He got the rest of the tile done and the rock in the soap shelf area.

Day four.

And finally the almost finished product. It turned out fantastic. The plumber has to install the shower head and controls and there will be a glass panel in front of the shower to separate it from the rest of the bathroom. We couldn't be happier.

While he was in there working the excavation company was very busy outside. Like I said it took 3 days to get the septic system installed, but there were other things they were getting done also. One of our major things we had to get done was the installation of our storm shelter. In June I drove to Indianapolis to get it and it has been sitting on my trailer for months.

So once that was off, they started digging the hole.

Once that was done it was time to haul that over and plant it.

I didn't get any pictures of it going into the hole because I was an active participant to get it in there. I was the one guiding and spinning it on the chain.

We got it in it's final resting place and now we are anxious for our first tornado drill. I told Lisa that we will have to take turns and randomly Yell "TORNADO!" and then run to the shelter. I wonder if she will find the humor in it when I yell tornado in the middle of you know what and we have to scramble outside naked to jump in the shelter. Things that make me laugh.

I started filling in the hole with sand but ran out. I will have to get another load before I can close that box.

The power company also arrived in the middle of all of this mess. They were able to get their truck to the back and trench our power line to the house and replace our transformer on the pole.

Now we have some power and it is ready for the electricians to come back and wire the rest of it.

The driveway was another big project that we needed done so that we could get our fifthwheel in there. We wanted a big looped area with a large parking area. Here are a couple of before pictures.

In the first picture there is a hill. We wanted that shaved down to make a flat parking area. They then used the dirt they took out of there and filled in the low spot that would be our first entrance. They brought in a big bulldozer to get that done.

It was fun just watching them move the earth like it was nothing. My little tractor felt left out. It wanted to get in there and help but it would have just been in the way.

They were moving the dirt from the hill, filling in the low spot. We had to have a culvert there so they installed that also. 

I have to take a moment to rant about this new blogger format. It won't let me delete pictures if I want to. That's why one picture is on here twice and it won't let me put them in the correct order. Why!?

After days of hard work it finally is finished.

That is the new first entrance.

The old entrance. You can see where the RV will get parked next to the barn. They made that wider for us. Everything looks so much better with the jungle cleared away more. On the left side is the large parking area. They also cleared out more trees under the big Oaks for us. That really opened up that area as well.

Now we have some cleanup work to take care of. We have been waiting for that to get done for 10 months and it looks great. Huge hurdles have been accomplished in just a few short days. The electricians are scheduled to come in and finish their job as well as the plumber. We may make our deadline after all.

I can hear boxes closing in Lisa's mind. Wait. What is that new sound I am hearing? OH NO! That sounds like new boxes opening!

Have pity on me!