Sagebrush & Solar

Keith is going to hate the dad joke in that headline.

We were so excited about our progress and really felt like we were hitting the ground running — hahaha!

I’m going to be as transparent and honest — yet polite — as I can in this update, so bear with me. We’re currently a little fired up, frustrated and quite frankly, concerned.

We finished digging our house pit on Sunday. We remeasured our corners and right angles to figure out where exactly to place the forms; because the garage is a concrete pad, it doesn’t allow the wiggle room that the rest of the house does, so it needed to be accurate (I mean, it’s our HOUSE—so it all needs to be accurate, but the placement of the forms was dependent on that pad that cannot move). We made some adjustments, dug out a little bit in some tight spots and got it sitting just right.

We were ready to rock and roll — and we thought our ICF contractor, who excitedly told us he’d be ready to pour the first of three pours on Friday — was ready to go, too. We scheduled our inspector to check out the footings pre-pour on Thursday.

As the week progressed — and long story short — it was evident that this was not the case. We’ve rescheduled the inspector twice and will hopefully be good to go next week.

We’re hoping this is just a rocky start and things will smooth out. Everyone has bad days, and we’re trying to patient and give our subcontractor some grace.

To add a little stress to the matter, my dad (our general contractor) is going to work his “real” job out of state for the next six weeks. It will be a little nerve wracking to have his attention to detail located in another state, especially if the issues persist with our subcontractor. He’s going to take a set of building plans with him and we’ll be sending photos daily. He’s also trusting us to do measurements…

We also have neighbors who are retired engineers who will be essentially consulting and helping keep an eye on things while my dad is gone. We are very grateful for their help; they also let us borrow their backhoe a few weeks ago.

While Dad is gone, Keith is planning on working on our driveway. We need to add some smaller pit run to build a base or it won’t be drivable in wet conditions due to the mud. It’s currently covered in a layer of fine dust we refer to as ‘moon dust’.

It’s certainly not as glamorous, and I don’t have any tangible outcomes – but my job is to take care of our little guy and make sure he’s healthy and happy. He started walking about six weeks ago and all he wants to do is be outside. We love how much he enjoys running around and playing in the dirt and rocks; we’re so thankful he’ll be able to grow up out here!