Octoberish

 October 11th.

Things have moved slowly here but they are moving. Our campground closed September 30th giving us no option but to move to our property. Technically we do have our sewer, water and electric hooked up. But not the way we had planned. Our sewer is in the ground. The electricians still had to run power to the pump and the alarm so we held off as long as possible to dump our tanks into it. Finally it had to be done. We couldn't wait any longer. Those that RV know the smell and that is what greeted the electricians when they had to open the septic tank to wire it up. Sorry electricians. (He,he).

The electricians did wire a 50 amp outlet in the barn. However we were outside the barn. Luckily I had a 30 amp extension cord and ran that under the door and across the floor. Starting October 5th, the electricians were going to be here for a week to wire everything up. The first thing they did was to install our 50 amp outlet outside.

Our water is another issue. Our pump is in the ground and works. However it is 100 feet away so I just had to get a long water hose. Problem solved until it turns cold.

Our fifthwheel is parked outside of the barn. We can't move into the cabin yet because the electricians need a final inspection on their work and we need the plumbers to show up and do something, anything. The plumbers need to install the boiler for the floor heat and the electricians can't finish their work unless the boiler is in. So the electricians have completed about 90% of wiring the barn and cabin. In all it has taken 2 guys 7 days so far to wire everything. I look at that job they did and think to myself, "If I did this myself, we probably would go up in flames". Lisa would say to me. "I need an outlet on that side of the room". To which I would say, "Just run an  extension cord over there Honey". Problem solved. "Oh, and grab me another beer while you are at it. Please".

We have lights!

Tyler our tile guy came in one day and installed our hearth for our wood burning stove. We were going back and forth on what we wanted to do there. We were thinking stained concrete at one time or maybe just polished concrete. So Tyler came in and did some tile similar to what our shower looked like. It came out great.

Minnesota weather is always hard to predict. We had a late thunderstorm roll through the other day. It can never just rain nice a gentle around here. No, we have to have torrential downpours. 3/4's of an inch of rain in about 30 minutes. Too fast for the ground to soak up, so we were watching the water run from all directions straight to our storm shelter. Lisa and I were out there frantically trying to divert the water away from the shelter with our shovels, getting soaked. (Dorks on parade) A little bit of water was high enough to get into the vent and inside the shelter. It could have been worse.

I got out there with the tractor and started trenching around it so that doesn't happen again, we hope. (Fingers crossed)

October 16th.

We have been watching the temperatures for quite awhile now. They keep getting lower and lower. RV's are not made for winter camping. We have iced up several times while we were on the road. We made the decision to move the fifthwheel into the barn hoping that it will be warmer for us in there. We have never had this in there before so Lisa rode on top to make sure it was going to fit through the door.

Once the fifthwheel was going in there the barn all of a sudden it looked small. That door is 16 feet wide by 13 1/2 feet tall.

Inches to spare. If we could have used 16 foot sidewalls it would have been no problem but that would have put us over the 20 foot height restriction on our building then. So we had to use 14 foot sidewalls.

We are so glad that it fit. That would have been a giant "dorks on parade" moment if it didn't.

Snug as a bug in a rug. Good thing we decided to put it in there. The next  morning we awoke to this.

It melted when the sun came up. Mid October is way too early for snow here. It must be due to global warming. It snowed another night after that also. We are having highs now in the 30's and lows in the teens and 20's.

We can't wait for the plumbers. So I have started to put up some walls so that we can move in there soon. We have no heat in the cabin and we have our water line running in there so I hope it stays warm in there and the water line doesn't freeze.

October 21st.

As we sit inside the barn watching the weather go to hell in a handbasket, we have decided that a thin sheet of steel with a fabric layer next to it, isn't really enough insulation to keep the cold out and the warmth in. Normally this time of year, the temps are still in the 50's which would have been so much easier to deal with. Instead, the temps are in the 30/s and we have 6 inches of snow on the ground already with another 6-8 inches on the way.

On the brighter side, our plumbers showed up and started hooking things up. They said it would be a several day project.

The kitchen.

The bathroom.

The utility room.

They came in on Tuesday to work. When they left their tools at the end of the day we knew that the were coming back. Yay! But after 2 days we still don't have a boiler hooked up yet so they won't completely hook things up until then. Darn. As I was secretly sobbing to myself, I looked up and saw this little fellow walking by.

October 22. 

Today is a storm day. Our first winter storm of the season. Boy is it going to be a long season. Since it is going to be a long season I think maybe I should get one of these.

I could easily see myself getting hurt on one of these but it would be fun until then. 

Which brings me to a this. Those that know me, know how athletic I am. One look at me and you can tell by my physique that I have a body of a Greek God. A Greek Sumo wrestling god. I have had blown out knees from being so overactive. Here is another example of my athletic prowess. I hurt my arm a couple of weeks ago. I just outstretched my arm and it felt like the muscles were tearing away from the bone. Plus I have 2 fingers on my left hand that are completely numb. So I tell my chiropractor about it and he looks at my arm. He does some movements that send shooting pains through my arm and a tear rolling down my face. He then tells me I have tennis elbow and carpal tunnel syndrome.

Tennis elbow? I am such an athlete that I can get tennis elbow without even playing tennis. WOW! I am awesome! Carpal tunnel syndrome? Just one step closer to the grave is what I say. Another possibility is that someone has made a voodoo doll of me. So who ever has that, knock it off.

That's it for now. In my next post I will tell you how to thaw out a frozen camper. Stay warm everybody.

Moving Day

 It has been years in the making but it has finally arrived. We packed up and left the Barnesville Campground. This has been our home for 5 summers now and it was a little sad knowing that we would not be back there.

It was a convenient place for us to stay. Right between Fargo where are kids are and Fergus Falls where Lisa's mother is. It was a short drive out to our undisclosed super secret location. We moved our access road and paved it, but even doing that we thought it might be a little steep and we had never tried to get our fifthwheel up that. So today was a "make it or break it" type of day. Lisa was filming for posterity.

As you can see that it wasn't a problem. Jim and Barb thought we would scrape the rear end and I thought that maybe the nose cap would touch the truck bed. Neither happened. We went down our road and entered our new driveway, again with no problems. 

We got set up alongside our barn. We will continue to stay in the fifthwheel so that we could work on the inside of our cabin. 

On a more personal note, I think this will be my last blog for awhile. I originally started this to share with people our adventures, the places we have discovered and the funtimes we have had. I had hoped to inspire people to get out of their comfort zones and explore this great country of ours. I know we did. But since we have no travels in the works until maybe next summer, I think that this blog would get boring. I don't plan on cutting Lisa's leg with a chainsaw every month for entertainment value. Unless she lets me.

So if you really have a hankering to hear about our silliness, you can always go back and start from the beginning. There are 239 posts in all. And don't worry, I will update everyone on the house as we continue to work on it. It may just be monthly rather than weekly.

So until then, "Live long and prosper."

Learn by Our MIstakes

 In my last blog, I accidentally told someone in the comments how to get into our property. At the time I didn't think anything of it, knowing that most RV people we know will never come up to Minnesota. So knowing that, I accidentally let slip how to get in. I told that person that you have to find us first, get through security, get past the attack dogs and swim the moat. If you can do that they have the right to spend the night before I call the sheriff. So I was working on our property when I come around our building to this sight.

"Dang it Glady's! Did you leave the gate open? It looks like we have squatters! I knew I should have dug that moat sooner."

Upon closer inspection, it wasn't squatters but rather our very good friends from South Dakota. Former RV rock gods, newly Barndominium rock gods, Jim and Barb! They were on their way through and planned a quick stop as they continued on their way to Wisconsin. Usually when they travel this fast, the cops are looking for them but I did not want know. 

They wanted to check out our progress on the "Fortress". They said they have been monitoring it from Google Earth. To which I said "What?"

Breaking from RV-Dreams traditions, they traveled and they cooked us a steak dinner. I guess they don't like hot dogs.

We showed them around to many "Oohs" and "Ahhs". They were full of ideas and shared their knowledge of barndominiums with us. They especially loved our storm shelter.

They thought it would be a great place to hide when they needed to. After dinner I started a fire.

We kept them up past their 8 o'clock curfew if you can believe that.

The next morning we awoke. Lisa made them breakfast and they were off, riding into the sunrise. I didn't even need to call the sheriff.

Visits like that are too short and too infrequent but we always enjoy them. 

A few things got done this week. As you could see from the photos of our shelter, I finished filling that in after I ordered more sand. I also ordered rock so that I could work on our RV pad next to the barn. Jim and Barb were the first to try it out.

We got a message that the concrete people were going to show up and do our apron out front. They formed it one day and then came back a poured it. 

Again another shining example how blogger will not let me put the pictures in order. It looks good anyways. The plumbers came out one day and ran our sewer vent through the roof.

Also the electricians snuck us in another day and started running all of the wires in the Cabin. I am calling it a cabin now instead of a Bungalow. It just sounds more Minnesotaee.

So still moving forward. Wednesday is our moving day. The campground closes that day so we have no choice. Still lots to do and I hope the plumbers and electricians can get out there to finish it. Otherwise we may get stinky.

We are right in the peek of the fall colors here. It is going to be so nice to be out there and experience the 4 seasons here. I may not be saying that come January and February though when it is 30 degrees below the doughnut.

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!